Nikon D300 Camera Interactive Review (New Autofocus King for those on a budget?)

Nikon D300 Camera Interactive Review


Before we get started with the review here is a...

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Image Quality entries added.

I find it interesting that you decided to use the respective manufacturers' image processing software, but just baffling that you would explain this as "standardization". In my mind, your approach clearly introduces more variables, whereas if you had processed all the images in Lightroom (using identical settings), changes made to the original images by the image processing software could not be questioned.

That said, I'm more interested in seeing the best possible versions of the test images - what you'd want to show to a client. (Obviously you would not show them an unprocessed, unedited RAW file.) As you know, providing the RAW files for people to do their own evaluations was a good move...and thanks! While I'm not interested in a D300, I AM interested in a D3. If you get to test one of those, I'll be paying close attention!

The high ISO results from the D300 are definitely impressive. Nikon was well behind the curve on this front until now...

Hi Terry,

The Nikon D3 and Canon 1DS MKIII HI ISO images are already in the can. I will be working on getting out a HI ISO comparison of all of these cameras as soon as possible.

I hear what you're saying regarding raw processor comaprisons. However, Lightroom, while better overall at default settings introduces all sorts of adjustments to the image which are difficult to totally disable. Thus my decision to use the manufacturer included software.

Nice work Drew. The one thing I'd ask is that you take some high ISO comparison images of something with a fair bit of color detail in it - as opposed to your dog's eye. I'm interested in how sophisticated Nikon's color noise reduction is. If the image looks signficantly less noisy but color is blurred, that could be a real downside for some kinds of shooting. Keep in mind sports uniforms and field scenes are usually brightly colored.

-Noel