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Customers most agreed on the following attributes:
from New York, NY on 8/12/2008
Amazing features. Easily accessible controls at your finger tips. Big, bright viewfinder -- makes the viewfinder on my D70 seems like a pinhole. Beautiful color rendition and amazing shadow detail. Good low light performance. This is a sturdy and HEAVY camera. I would say price and weight keep this from being the perfect camera. But really amazing, still.
from dayton, oh on 5/22/2008
As some reviews state, this is the "baby" D3. It'sa great and versatile camera that consistently performs well. I have two of these bodies and it's definitely a joy to take pictures and see the results. This is a great alternative if you don't have th $$$ to buy the D3. I am amazed at ho well this camera preserves battery life. I have shot well over 1500 pictures on a single ENEL3e battery so there really i no need for the battery grip unless you want the look and feel of the D3.
[1 of 1 customers found this review helpful]
from Louisiana on 5/3/2008
As a photojournalist, I absolutely love this camera. Great speed, super improvement with noise levels at high ISOs and infinite improvement on battery life over D200. Nikon has done an oustanding job topping the D200 from the PC terminal cap that you cant lose to the larger LCD display and everything in between. Doubt the live view will get much use, but I can see times when it might be of some use...maybe.
For those of you who just aren't sure whether to spend the extra money without going to the full frame D3, this is worth it.
[5 of 5 customers found this review helpful]
I have owned and used the Nikon D200, Canon XT, Canon 40D and Canon 5D and now the Nikon D300.
The operation of the D300 is almost identical to the D200. They took away the very useful "Most recently changed settings" and replaced it with a user configurable menu. Nice, but I actually think the recently used menu was better.
The image quality of the D300 far exceeds that of the D200 at higher ISO's with good pictures possible over ISO 800, while, for me, ISO 800 on the D200 went into the byte bucket.
Compared to Canon products, the D300 now matches image quality of similar size sensors but the ergnomics are far more useful for street photography and other photography with widely changing conditions. This is accomplished through the very useful Auto ISO feature which is fantastic on the Nikon and worse than useless on the Canon 40D. While I found the D200 less than ideal for streat photography because of the poor high ISO, the D300 surpasses the quality of the Canon 40D and so I am carrying the Nikon more often.
What I really want is a camera with the ergonomics of the Nikon D300, but the image quality of the Canon 5D without being as large or expensive as the D3!
Great camera and great upgrade for Nikon users.
Canon owners - if you have the money to try the darkside this is a good one to buy, but the Canon 40D will give a pictures with about 1/3 stop more noise, which is almost not noticable. The Canon 5D has almost no peers on image quality and is always the camera I take when I know it matters but the camera is getting a little stale and while high ISO noise is reasonable low, it has a distict digital appearence to it.
New to digital - investigate lens line-ups. It is more important to get good quality lenses for the type of photography you want to do. Even more true now that sensor technology is getting equal between companies.
[5 of 5 customers found this review helpful]
from seattle on 1/24/2008
As far as digital goes, I've own a Fuji S2, then a D70s, D200, and it just got much better with the D300. Same great quality as the D200 but even better. Is it worth the switch from a D200? For me it was. I love the larger, more detailed screen, adjustable color temperature is a big improvement, the saturated colors are like I see, the focus is even better, controls a bit easier to use. I love it all.
[7 of 7 customers found this review helpful]
from New Jersey on 1/3/2008
I have been a Nikon user for about 25 years but this is my first jump into digital. All I can say is what a camera! After shooting with an F5, F100 and several other bodies, I have to say this is the best handling one yet. Just the right size/weight ratio (especially with the MB-D10). Purchased mine at Adorama the friday before Christmas. A bit of a learning curve, but after a while it starts coming to you. So many great features: 51-point AF, Active-D lighting, metal body, high ISO ability, the list goes on and on. With AFS lenses, the AF is amazingly fast. However, I noticed that the 80 to 400 VR is slower to AF than with the F5. The great thing is that with the D300 it becomes a 120mm to 600mm, which already has proved to outweigh the AF performane. In short, this camera has gotten me excited about photography all over again. You can't go wrong with it.
[6 of 7 customers found this review helpful]
The D300 is even better than the D2X with the new focusing system, LIVE VIEW for framing group shots, and the very intuitive Menu. The manual is the clearest and easiest manual ever written for a camera. Outstanding pictures with the Nikon 18-200 VR DX lens.
Just the right weight and hand fit for all occasions. Thanks, Nikon.
[10 of 10 customers found this review helpful]
from Boston, MA on 12/7/2007
This camera is amazing. First off it's built like a tank. You pick this camera up and it feels great.
Personally I mainly use the camera for sports with a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens. The combination is unbeatable. I was recently at an in door hockey game and got awesome shots I couldn't get with my D80. Here's why.
The new autofocus system. The autofocus system has 51 points and 15 cross sensitive points. In 3d tracking mode I was able to track hockey players flying behind one another, the af system even picked them up when they reappeared from behind each other.
The noise is fine, even at 6400 I think the pictures are pretty useable.
Make sure youre card is fast if want to use continuous shooting at 6 fps. I can only do 18 frame bursts with an extreme 3 series card.
Want to try out battery holder for 8 fps, unfortunately like most accessories for this camera, it's rediculously expensive.