Saturday, August 23, 2008

Nikon D200 vs Nikon D300. This is just a quick comparison between these two cameras. Yeah, kinda lame that I don't post anything lately and the only thing I do post is camera related information. I think you can deal with it.

Body-Design:

Very similar, however, it feels like the D300 AE-L button is easier to hold down to lock exposure. Maybe a few millimeter displacement made it that much better for my Southeast Asian hands. On a side note, I wish they implemented a AE-L system that Canon does, where it holds it for x number of seconds, rather than having to depress the AE-L button and shutter button at the same time. Maybe there is a way, I just haven't read the f--- manual.

The rubber grip is the same soft-rubber used on the D200, however since the MB-D10 differs from the MD-D200 and is based on a Magnesium-Alloy frame, it's coated with the same rubber as the D200/D300 body. The MD-D200 has a harder, almost plastic like coating for the grip sections.

The AF type (C/S/M) selector switch is still on the bottom of the lens mount. I would have just taken the AF-Selection type switch on the rear of the camera and moved that to a modal dial type and made that the AF-Type selection. It's much quicker in non-landscape type photography (in my experience) to simply focus/recompose than to mess with AF-Patterns. All my cameras have had the same AF-Pattern type (that is dynamic, or all AF points) on about 99% of the time.

Otherwise, the body feels almost identical between the two cameras. However, zoom/playback functionality has changed from the older Nikon Style of playback. It's more Canon style.

Auto-Focus:

Finally, Nikon get's it right. I've used the AF modules from all kinds of Nikon's, including the Multi-Cam 900 (D100, D1X, D50, D70 etc), Multi-Cam 1000 (D200) and it finally took Nikon to get it right on the Multi-Cam 3500DX. This differs apparently to the Multi-Cam system used in the D3. In the D3 the AF points are much smaller, like the 45-Point Canon 1-Series cameras. I suspect the AF-C algorithm differs slightly, as the D700 uses the D300 Multi-Cam 3500DX (for FX) vs the D3 Multi-Cam 3500FX Module.

Compared to the D200, it's a miles ahead, although the D200 was no slouch. The D300 AF with it's 51 Points, reaches Canon territory, although the cluster shares approximately the same viewfinder coverage. Initial focus aquisition is comparable between the two cameras with both AF-S and AF-D type lenses. One complaint is how the AF Targets on the D300 light up in clusters on the same focal plane. Kind of annoying when you're trying to figure out your focus target.

Features/Performance:

The 3" VGA screen on the back of the D300 is beautiful--I wish I had that on all my other cameras. Active D-Lighting is a feature I'm familiar with on the Sony Alpha series, which differs slightly from simply using the fill light slider in Lightroom or Shadow/Highlight feature in Photoshop, although all three achieve the same results. I'm a purist (or a sadist) and prefer to do all that jazz in post-production, but to be fair, it performs relatively fast on the D300.

Auto-ISO. Great feature, but I think i'm over it. The problem with Auto-ISO (as with the D200 and the Sony Alpha A100) was that it would consistently pick the highest ISO threshhold, which was, in simple terms, fucking annoying. As much as high-ISO noise has been reduced greatly in the latest generation of cameras, you will start to understand the noise characteristics of each camera you use and become more familiar with when to choose the right setting. I've never balked about having no ISO in the viewfinder because I'm constantly thinking about what ISO i'm shooting at. Something all budding photographers should be thinking about. However, as a feature set, it's nice to have. Your mileage may vary.

The D300 also has a retouch option to change color balance, the mentioned D-Lighting and filters. While I wouldn't use many of these features, it's good to know that there's enough processing power in a current generation DSLR to do so. Imagine in the future where you can auto-stitch images in camera (on another note, my old PowerShot S50 had a nifty stitching panoramic mode that progressively showed images across the frame to help compose with the stitching later).

File write times with both cameras, for all practical consideration, the same. One thing that was disappointing was the mirror blackout time hasn't been changed that much (approximately 100-105ms). While this may seem trivial, when shooting at multiple FPS, it makes a difference.

Live-View. I still like optical viewfinders, but run with it if it's your thing.

Image Quality:

Between ISO 200-800, not much difference if you have properly exposed your shot. Over 800-1600, there is about 1/3-1/2 stop difference you can coax out of your shot, but for the most part, about the same. The D200 exhibited more shadow noise in those higher-ISO ranges, but you would need to print fairly large (A3+) to notice a difference. If you are already forced to shoot at 1600+ ISO, then your light is probably not that great, so shadow noise will be apparent.

The D200 and D300 interpret green/red slightly differently. The D300 appears (to me anyways) to have a slight boost in green luminance vs the D200. This may have something to do with the move to CMOS sensors. The D200 red luminance was reduced slightly as well, compared to the D300 (both in Standard color settings).

Both cameras have a base ISO of 200 vs the Base 100 on Canon's, which means in Low-0.3 or Low-1 modes (ISO 125, 100) dynamic range is reduced and highlights can be clipped, so be careful.

Conclusion:

Should you buy a D300 over a D200? There's no doubt about it: the additional 1-2 years of development that the D300 had over the D200 in terms of feature-set makes it a better camera. However, from an image quality standpoint, if you know what you're doing, there's not much difference.

For the Candid Photographer: Yes, the Multi-CAM 3500DX is way ahead of the 1000 used in the D200. Image quality is slightly better, especially slightly better dynamic range, but if you're a sloppy photographer, then it doesn't matter what's in your hand.

For the Landscape Photographer: Maybe. A 2MP difference doesn't give you that much cropping slop and if you're a landscape photographer, then you've already maximized your image real-estate. AF is usually a non-issue, as most landscapers are glued to their infinity focus anyways.

For the Portrait Photographer: Maybe, but the difference in price will net you a nice portrait lens that could possibly make up for any of your own perceived deficiencies.

For the News/Sports/Action Photographer: You're already using a Canon 1D Series camera or a D3. Buy either to use on your vacation.
posted by HZA | 9:28 AM | email | archive