D300 review corrections...

[Ray Schnoor]

Jeff,

After your 2nd ISO test, you state

"Another issue I found is that the camera seemed to overexpose by 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop fairly often, so I quickly became familiar with the D300's bracketing feature."

but in your conclusion, you state

"The other thing I noticed is that the D300 tends to underexpose photos by 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop, though that's easy to resolve with exposure compensation or bracketing."

I assume that the 1st statement is correct. Otherwise it looks like a great review. Thanks.

Ray.

[erichlund]

In the battery with charger picture, you included the wrong picture. I don't know what camera uses an EN-EL9 battery, but it's not the D300. It has enough battery types already.

Otherwise, a great review. I tend to disagree with you on a few things, but those are personal preferences. I do turn sharpening on in the camera, but I shoot raw, so I turn it off when I download the photos for post processing. A couple of things like that. Like I said, personal preferences only.

I know you didn't go into this, and it may be because you just didn't want to get into that much detail. I presume you are familiar with this. However, someone else reading this may get some benefit from it being said. If you turn all the sharpening off, process the photo, then do noise reduction, and only then turn the sharpening back on, you get better quality of noise reduction. Noise reduction has a hard time removing sharpened noise.

[Rooz]

Jeff,

After your 2nd ISO test, you state

"Another issue I found is that the camera seemed to overexpose by 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop fairly often, so I quickly became familiar with the D300's bracketing feature."

but in your conclusion, you state

"The other thing I noticed is that the D300 tends to underexpose photos by 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop, though that's easy to resolve with exposure compensation or bracketing."

I assume that the 1st statement is correct. Otherwise it looks like a great review. Thanks.

Ray.

yeah i noticed that too. btw: i found the d300 exposes to the left not the right so i think jeff's second statement is the correct one.

[erichlund]

yeah i noticed that too. btw: i found the d300 exposes to the left not the right so i think jeff's second statement is the correct one.

Actually, I'm pretty certain he meant overexposes. This has already been discussed, ad-nauseum, over at DPReview. Some are claiming overexposure, others are saying exposure is fine, operator is broken. Fists flew, noses were bloodied. Kneecaps were... well, you get the idea. A normal day on DPReview.

Also, Jeff only said underexposes once, and he said over several times. This jives with the data I'm hearing. From what I gather, it's exposing far enough to the right that a few minor highlights are getting blown out. However, they are both well within that which can be recovered in post processing and in most cases, the resulting exposure is largely very accurate. I suspect the reason Nikon is tending to expose more to the right is to limit noise. More signal for a given level of noise means more control.

[Rooz]

i haven;t had it overexpose yet, (i'm talking the whole image via histogram), in over 1500 shots. all of my shots so far have been indoors or outdoor macro and every time it's to the left. so i don;t know when and why it's overexposing for some people.

i don;t shoot in hi iso though so that could be a reason.

[peekaa]

Jeff,

I don't think that you used an UDMA card (like Lexar 300x) for you burst tests? I think (or at least in my case it is so) that the figures would have been considerably higher.

I enjoyed the test.

Regards,

Karel

[erichlund]

i haven;t had it overexpose yet, (i'm talking the whole image via histogram), in over 1500 shots. all of my shots so far have been indoors or outdoor macro and every time it's to the left. so i don;t know when and why it's overexposing for some people.

i don;t shoot in hi iso though so that could be a reason.

Are you a raw shooter or a jpg shooter (sorry, I can't keep everyone's habits in my head). Also, if you switched your picture control from standard to neutral, that would explain why your exposures are different from the people who pick up a D300 and treat it like a point and shoot and never change any settings. It would also explain why you don't have your exposures more to the right, as neutral does not show this tendency.

[Jeff Keller]

Jeff,

I don't think that you used an UDMA card (like Lexar 300x) for you burst tests? I think (or at least in my case it is so) that the figures would have been considerably higher.

I enjoyed the test.

Regards,

Karel

I almost went out and bought a UDMA card, but after looking at some other websites' tests, it looked like it might not help that much. Anyone actually tried it?

[Rooz]

Are you a raw shooter or a jpg shooter (sorry, I can't keep everyone's habits in my head). Also, if you switched your picture control from standard to neutral, that would explain why your exposures are different from the people who pick up a D300 and treat it like a point and shoot and never change any settings. It would also explain why you don't have your exposures more to the right, as neutral does not show this tendency.

good point. yeah, i only shoot raw and use neutral for macro and standard for everything else.

[Wesan]

Hi Jeff.

It seems that the link to the ISO 6400 night scene picture shows the ISO 3200 picture, when you click on it. The link also says "nightshot3200.jpg".

Otherwise, it's interesting reading. I've been waiting for tests of this camera. Even though I'm a Canon guy myself. At least I have been until now...but after the D300...I might consider converting!