OK, it’s not much, but it’s one of the first images from my new Nikon D300. I missed delivery on Friday when I was out with family, so had to stop by FedEx on my way out of town for some business travel. It was too hectic to stop for some real image capture, so I grabbed this just to have something to look at and process.
My impressions so far:
I’m not bothered by the increased weight compared to the D80. It seems a bit longer and more solidly built, but not an impediment to working.
The shutter seems to be better damped so that hand holding at 1/4 sec is more like shooting with the Leica. With a wide lens, camera shake doesn’t seem to be bad at 1/4 to 1/2 second.
The layout is familiar enough that I could start shooting right away. I’ve made a few adjustments to the defaults that were easy matches to the way I have the D80 setup, but there’s more to do on this.
Exposure in matrix mode is absolutely phenomenal. Similar to the D80, it knows what you’re focusing on, so there’s weight given to the “subject”, but there’s more of a compromise in holding the rest of the image. It’s good in camera, but clearly ready for post processing. It’s what I’d expect from a less consumer oriented camera. Still, if the subject is in shadow or dark in tone, the camera will blow out the highlights. This protects the subject’s exposure. Having gotten used to working with the D80’s matrix system I forsee no issues here.
I’m thrilled to have the command wheels working to change exposure even when previewing an image on the LCD. It was my biggest ergonomic issue with the D80.
And that LCD on the back is very nice. I’m used to looking at images on the iPhone and the D300 LCD matches it.
My D300 is making better images than any of my other cameras, which is a first for me to say that since my color reference, at least up until yesterday, was Fuji Velvia 50. I think I prefer my D300.