11 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
Nikon D300 DSLR Amazing Camera
Date of Review: Apr 14, 2009
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this camera to the serious amateur or semi-pro who wants pro quality photographs while staying within a realistic budget.
This is an amazing camera! This camera is best suited for a semi-pro photographer who may sell regularly on microstock sites as a hobby. I am not going to list the technical features here, that info is available from the Nikon website. What I will do is give you my honest assessment of a camera that I own and use as a semi-pro photographer.
D300 vs D700
I was leaning toward purchasing the Nikon D700, but after much research and discussion with technicians from many camera shops I chose the D300. The D300 was a full $1500 less expensive than the D700 and the only real advantage of the D700 was the full frame sensor; and even this I now consider a disadvantage since the D300 has a DX 1.5x crop sensor which boosts the telephoto capabilities of my lenses: so a 200mm lens acts like a 300mm.
The quality of the image is said to be better with the D700 but I doubt if I would ever notice the difference; so I opted for the D300.
Ease of Use
The D300 has a lot of complex features and does require a fundamental knowledge of photography to get the best results from, however, it can be used fully automatic and does have an on-board flash. That being said, two hours with the manual and the camera on my lap in a motel room while I watched a movie and I had the basics down.
Practical Use
I am essentially a sports photographer. With a shooting rate of 6 frames per second and an array of 51 point autofocus selections to choose from, its rare to miss a picture. Spray and pray and you are certain to get the money shot! This camera has exceptional performance in low and unusual lighting conditions. I quite often shoot hockey in dark arenas lit with fluorescent light: this is a challenge. All I do is set the white balance to a fluorescent light setting, boost the ISO to 800 and shoot on manual, usually at 1/500th of a second at f2.8. I get excellent sharp action captures.
I also shoot downhill skiers and snowboarders on bright sunny days which has challenges at the other end of the spectrum. I rarely get a bad shot here either.
I shoot mountain bike racers in dark green forest settings and can get sharp action pictures up to 1/8000th of a second or saturated artistic background blurs at 1/60th of a second.
There are many on-board image enhancing settings available but I choose to set everything to normal and adjust later in photoshop if required; generally I do not adjust anything! This is mainly because the sites that I sell through prefer to have images without camera enhancement. I'm sure amazing effects could be produced with these features. I have used the live view that allows you to compose your shot with the monitor but I prefer the viewfinder. I do adjust the white balance quite a bit and the adjustment capabilities are endless. Many different metering features are available and you are able to save your favorite settings, I have three: sports, landscape and portrait.
This camera does everything I want it to and more. Other cameras will have more features but I can't image ever using all the features offered on the D300. I am a happy customer!
