Well I’ve been a bit busy the last week and a bit, and what little “photo time” I have has been occupied with playing with my new toy the Nikon D300. It was a gift to me and I’m really appreciating it very much. It is a lot of camera when compared with my D40 and I really now understand what I read before about for people upgrading D40 -> D300. Because it is a “class well above your current camera” you will need to “step up your game photographically if you want to get the benefits of those extra pixels. And there’s an enormous amount of controls to master to do that
In a sense I am no way near there — I wasn’t even near there with my D40 though I did feel a little frustration at its limits. But as always it is the photographer, not the camera, that is the critical component and I want to spend more time on that aspect.
Still, as a geek I’ll never turn down, or fail to appreciate the fun, in a new gadget.
Pro:
- Finally auto-focus for my 50mm f1/8 lens!
- Better high ISO, it is not miraculous, but it is better
- ISO 100 — so called “Lo”
- Built in CLS commander, so I can free up my SB-800 and effectively get another off-camera flash
- It works fine with my tethered shooting script. 🙂
Con:
- It’s heavy – really, I don’t want to carry this about in my bag all the time
- RAW files are so big — oh no, do I need another hard disk already?
- It uses CF cards — when I have a big collection of SD 🙁
And the absolutely biggest issue:
- I can no longer blame my terrible photographs on having inadaquate equipment. 😉
Ok I’ll stop playing soon and get back to doing something constructive. Next up on my list “The World’s Most Expensive D300 Remote Shutter Release”. Details to follow (if it works!)
THANK YOU for the tethered shooting script! It works as advertised on a Windows Vista Ultimate PC connected to my D300. It’s simple and does the job I needed it to do, which was to provide feedback right away on an LCD monitor. I’m installing it next on my laptop to go with me on shoots. You’ve saved me $160 over Nikon’s Camera Control software, since my main use was to get the image quickly to a laptop, not to control the camera from the laptop.
– Tom
Glad to help Tom. Is RAW working for you on Vista? It doesn’t for some people but does for others.
I’ll actually be looking at introducing some “control” function, not just the downloading, but I’m not sure which ones are more useful to whom yet.
Well Raymond;
You’ve had that 300 for a while now. Are you totally emotionally dependent on it yet. I was after just handling it out of the box. It’s more camera than I deserve and I feel a little guilty even having it 🙂 naaa.. not really.
Having used nikons camera control in the past I find the f/stops, shutter speed and imediate viewing to be the necessities. After that the rest are luxuries but appreciated a bunch.
Of course the more control the more satisfaction.
gene
Well I don’t sleep with it — but I know what you mean. I’m still right that it is far “too much” camera for me, but I’ve resisted getting too involved with lots of fiddly detail.
I agree, the D300 is a heavy camera especially after adding the MBD10 external drive/grip. Now I know why the minimalist/strobist lighting approach has become so popular. Almost need a cart for the camera alone!
Thanks for the tethered download tool its just perfect. More features than I would have added had I written the code myself. Not in the way…just extra “nice-to-have”.
Are you using compressed raw? smaller files and no loss of quality.
Anybody with D-200 experience on this software?
Thanks for any input