Impressions from the Nikon Solutions Expo 30.11.-01.12.2007, Cologne, Germany

Nikon's most recent product announcements may have been dominated by the debut of its first full-frame DSLR, the D3, but it's fair to say the semi-pro D300 has generated a great deal of its own excitement, with discussions over the new body among enthusiasts and serious photographers reaching fever pitch.

Camera Labs forum moderator Thomas is no exception. Self-confessed Nikon ‘fanboy’ and passionate believer that anyone shopping for a new DSLR should opt for his beloved D80 and DX 18-200mm, Thomas was particularly excited about checking out the new D300 for himself.

So when the Nikon Solutions Expo came within 500km of his home town, we couldn’t hold him back. What follows is an interview between Thomas and Camera Labs Editor Gordon Laing after the show. The views expressed here are those of Thomas and do not reflect those of Camera Labs or our official D300 review – they are the personal impressions of an existing D80 owner considering an upgrade and presented here as an alternative point of view.

For the official Camera Labs report on this camera, see our Nikon D300 review and video tour.

Gordon Laing: Hello Thomas, back from Cologne? How was the driving?

Thomas: Hi Gordon! I feared that fresh snow would make it impossible to make the 430km-trip from Nuremberg to Cologne. But the weather turned out to be finer than expected.

GL: Where was the Expo held?

TR: This was at the newly built “EXPO XXI” premises in Cologne near the central station and only 30km from Nikon Germany’s headquarters in Dusseldorf. Enough space for all the visitors there on Saturday.

GL: Did they bring enough gear for everybody to try it out?

TR: No, not really! I was lucky that I was one of the first at the booth and could get my hands around a D300 pretty soon, but I had to wait until noon to get hold of the D3!

GL: Were these all final versions of the cameras or still preproduction models?

TR: The Nikon personnel told me that they had final production models on the show and that delivery of the D300 and D3 have commenced worldwide.

GL: So you first went for the D300. Isn’t the D3 the more tempting model?

TR: Yes and no! The D3 is double the size and double the weight of my current D80. And you have to ask yourself whether you would be carrying a $5,000 camera of this bulk around with you all the time as you would with the D80. And the worst photos are those missed opportunities. On the other hand the rumours about the incredible sensitivity of the FX-sensor were certainly a huge incentive for me to have a look at the D3. So the major question for me was: Is the improved IQ of the D300 a big enough temptation for me to upgrade from the D80 (plus all the nice gadgetry like anti-dust, better AF, Live-View) or is the D3 the only way to get a significant lift in IQ.

GL: Ok first impressions: how did the D300 look and feel to you, an enthusiastic D80 owner? Is it a big step-up?

TR: The first impression is one of feeling immediately at home. The layout, the size and weight, the grip, everything was quite familiar – and it’s even more familiar if you’re coming from the D200. Although the body is slightly larger (+15mm width, +11mm height) and heavier (plus 250g) than the D80-body, once you have a lens attached that’s larger than a 50mm prime, you will hardly notice the difference.

The only major difference from the D80 is choosing the exposure mode, which on the D300 (and D3) you do by holding the mode-button and turning the thumb dial. There’s also the additional buttons that allow you to change important settings more directly than on the D80. This is a clear plus, but you have to learn a little – although of course D200 owners will feel immediately at home.

GL: Nikon’s made a big noise about the 51-point AF system. Did you get a chance to try it out?

TR: Yep, focussing was one of my major interests, because poor focus is one of those things you can’t correct in post-processing. Seeing the 51 sensor-fields in action was quite impressive, especially seeing them follow a moving target. But it’s not necessary the subject of your choice that they focus on, so you have to select carefully which of the focus and AF-area modes are the best for your particular subject and conditions. Plus there are many options to choose from: the manual has ten sections in the autofocus-chapter alone! So this will certainly take some time to master. I came up with a few situations where the system did not behave like I wanted it to and sometimes I needed help from Nikon personnel.

GL: What about switching to 14-bit mode. Did it really slow the camera down?

TR: Oh yes, dramatically. Especially if you have the battery grip mounted and were shooting away happily at 8 fps in 12 bit. The 2.5 fps you get with 14 bit mode sounds pretty slow in comparison. But it’s ok for continuous low speed mode.

GL: So you also had a chance to try the battery grip. How did the 8fps feel and sound?

TR: Well, 8fps versus 6fps is not much of a difference to my untrained ear. But yes it seemed faster. And the grip fits snugly to the body, quite well designed. But too bulky for me personally.

GL: The 3in VGA screen is one of the highlights of the D300. How did it look in practice for the menus, playback and Live View?

TR: The funny thing was that on the larger back of the D300 the 3in screen just didn’t seem to “stand out” as much as expected. The brightness and angle of view also seemed unchanged, so viewing still poses a bit of a challenge under very bright outdoor conditions. As for the increased resolution, it wasn’t actually obvious to my eye. Maybe that is my age. But let’s compare things to a very fine-pitched computer-monitor.

I have a 17in 1920x1200 LCD in my laptop. This is really the limit of what you can do to your eyes. Cutting a 3in part out of that monitor would yield a 340x210 piece which is equivalent to a 70,000 full-colour pixel screen – or a ‘210,000 dot’ LCD as the camera-manufacturers would describe it. The D80 with 230,000 dots on 2.5in is already beyond that and increasing this resolution four-fold is certainly only for people with very good eyes.

GL: I'm surprised to hear you weren’t impressed with the screen as I felt it (and the monitor on the Sony A700) were highlights of both bodies. Maybe the subject matter at the show, plus the lighting wasn’t showing it at its best. So what about the other major new feature on the D300: Live View. How did it feel to you as someone who’s most familiar with traditional SLR composition? What was the AF like in Live View, and as a keen macro-photographer, what did you think of the manual focusing in tripod mode?

TR: It’s very nice that you can now frame without your eye to the view finder, so overhead or ground-level shots are much, much easier now. The thing that bothers me is the sequence of steps that are needed to shoot a well-focussed shot in hand-held mode: 1. switch to Live View via the release mode dial. 2. Choose hand-held in the shooting menu 3. Fully press the shutter. Now Live View is active and you can frame the shot, but the lens is not necessarily focussed well. 4. Press the release-button half-way, the mirror comes down, the monitor temporarily goes dark and the camera focuses. If you now pull the trigger fully, the picture is taken without giving you a chance to check whether AF has latched correctly onto the right subject. 5. Lift your finger to return to LV again and view your subject with the result of the AF effort (you can zoom into the LV-picture). 6. Fully pull the trigger, which will reset exposure and AF (!) and then take the picture.

Now even if you forego controlling the focus (which I find quite a leap of faith) you have to fully press twice to get one picture. And as the mirror flaps back and forth with each pull of the trigger, it sounds like you were taking a picture with each pull. It’s easy to lose track whether you’re now on an even number of pulls or an odd number, and as images are displayed on the monitor after each pull (alternating between LV and review) you have to watch carefully in the heat of the moment what step of the sequence you’re in. Combine this with some half-pulls (which sound exactly the same) and you’re likely to become confused. Even the manual advises you to check whether the picture has been taken, because with all the mirror-snapping you cannot be too sure.

GL: Maybe a separate button to activate Live View would have been less confusing. But what about the tripod mode?

TR: Well the situation is much clearer in this case! You do steps (1) and (2) as above choosing tripod instead, then (3). You’re now in LV and stay there, because all the focussing is done in that mode without mirrors flipping around and the monitor blacking out. You have full control over focussing and can use every area on the frame for contrast-based focussing. And then just press the shutter-release a second time. Only gripe I have about that is the speed or rather, the lack of it. If you think that all point and shoot cameras do fast contrast-based focussing, it seems like the Nikon engineers stayed a little behind what’s possible today – it’s really quite slow on the D300. You have no chance to use this focussing method freehand as your shake will irritate the focussing process. So better use a tripod and frame inanimate objects. So many macro and astro-photographers will love it!

GL: Right, now down to business. Were you allowed to take photos with the D300 and if so, what settings did you use?

TR: Yes indeed! I was allowed to put my newly bought 4GB CF card into the D300-body and happily shoot away. But only after I did the two button reset (holding the “Qual” and the “+/-“ button down together for more than two seconds) plus making sure the image quality was set to “NEF (RAW) + JPEG fine”, the image size to large (4288x2848), the “JPEG Compression Menu” to “optimal quality”, the RAW recording type to “Lossless compressed”, the NEF bit-depth to 14 bit. So we could compare the quality of the in-camera jpeg-engine to the RAW-converting powers of CaptureNX (V1.3).

GL: Which picture control did you use? And what about active D-Lighting?

TR: I switched to standard picture control and choose not to use active D-Lighting.

GL: Why was that?

TR: I was afraid that, other than the D-Lighting applied post-shot, active D-Lighting can reduce the exposure to preserve highlights as the manual reads: “… exposure is in fact reduced to prevent loss of detail in highlights…”. I felt it was not a fair comparison to my D80 to switch it on. There were also rumours on the web that lowering the exposure and then pulling up the shadows might lead to unfavourable noise.

Several Nikon representatives at the Expo assured me Active D-Lighting does not alter the RAW file but only works via in-camera processing on JPEGs. This would also mean that you can eliminate any unwanted effects via post processing in CaptureNX. So perhaps my fears are groundless. (GL: we have tested Active D-Lighting on this page in our Nikon D300 review)

GL: And what settings did you use on your D80?

TR: I had comparable settings i.e. NEF (RAW) + JPEG fine in large size. This is 12 bit only and compressed RAW (not sure about the “lossless” thing). Sharpening, noise-reduction all set to normal/standard.

GL: Now on to the long awaited shootout between the D80 and the D300. What have you found out?

TR: First of all, let me state that it was extremely hard to create comparable shots with the D80 and D300 under the conditions of a trade show! I had my VR 18-200mm on the D80 and either the new 12-24mm or the equally new 24-70mm (non-stabilized!) on the D300. Not being able to use a tripod and relying on auto-exposure the exposure of two shots was not exactly comparable. Next time I’ll use manual mode and nail the exposure.

What I tried to accomplish was a comparison of the D80 at ISO 800 and the D300 at ISO 1600, as both ISO-values seemed to be the points where grain finally becomes quite visible. There was also the assertion out in the wild that the D300 has (at least) 1 stop higher sensitivity than the D80. Looking through all the shots I’ve made I found one that was almost comparable, where the D300@ISO1600 had a little less grain than the D80@ISO800. Taking into account that the D300 shot had received a little more light, this would confirm the one stop advantage of the D300. The white-balance on the D300 shot was clearly more neutral than the D80 shot which tended to show a more red-ish hue.

Funny thing was that the D300 shot had less contrast in some parts than the D80-shot. I’m looking into this, but an indicator might be the weird smear-effect on lights from the D300 shot, which were not on the same picture from my D80: that either means that my Nikkor VR 18-200mm is a better lens than the new Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 or more likely that someone had left smear-marks on the 24-70mm lens.

GL: So how would you sum up your findings with regard to image quality?

TR: I personally think the D300 has a one stop better s/n-ratio at ISO 1600 but I cannot say whether this is bought with stronger noise reduction. And the white-balance seems to be more accurate. But this is certainly not a conclusive analysis. (GL: you can see the noise results of our tests on this page in our official Nikon D300 review)

GL: So the big question is, would you buy the D300? Is it a viable option for D80 or D200 owners looking to upgrade, or would they be better off with a new lens instead?

TR: Hehe, that depends on what you already have. If you haven’t bought the world-famous Nikon VR 18-200mm just yet…

GL (laughs): Thomas, enough advertising, back to the topic!

TR: Well, seriously: Nikon’s famous super-zoom just got better. They managed to get rid of the dreadful zoom-creep! And they promised to stop zoom-creep on my copy too, should I find the time to send it in to Nikon-service. But back to your question.

With street prices of the bodies around 700/1200/1800 EUR Nikon has a nice line-up. The additional features and the improvement in quality is certainly matching the price-differentials between the D80/200/300. But personally I’d hesitate to invest in a D200, if I already own a D80/40/x. If you want to upgrade go for the D300!

As a D80-owner I can say that the D300 is tempting, but as it costs two and a half times as much as my current camera, that is not an easy thing to decide. Almost in every aspect the D300 is better than the D80, but to my eye it’s not a revolution justifying a major investment. If you are mainly interested in the sensor and the improvements in IQ, you could wait for it to trickle down into a D80 successor. Perhaps PMA in January can shed more light on Nikon’s plans as to that. So waiting for a D80 successor can certainly save you the money to buy that Nikkor VR 18-200mm instead.

GL (sighs): Well, that’s it for this first part of reporting back from the Nikon Solutions Expo in Cologne. Thanks Thomas! In Nikon Expo Part 2, find out what Thomas thought of Nikon’s first full-frame DSLR, the D3.

For more details on the D300, see the official Camera Labs Nikon D300 review and video tour.