Cameras: Nikon D300S DSLR Camera – Review – 79

The D300s is Nikon’s latest digital SLR, replacing the D300 at the top of the company’s DX format range. Packing a comprehensive feature set behind its 12.3 megapixel crop sensor, the D300s is likely to appeal to serious amateurs and upstart professionals who can’t quite afford to go full-frame.

Image Quality

The D300s produces images of near-professional quality. The level of detail captured by the sensor is excellent, but I did find slightly more image noise than I would have expected. The noise is present across the ISO range when shooting with either automatic or manual settings in a variety of lighting conditions.

Image quality is otherwise very high. Dynamic range is good, assisted by Nikon’s ‘D-Lighting’ feature. It helps even out tones in highly contrasted images and can be applied automatically as shots are taken. This does tend to amplify any noise already present in the image, relative to the level of D-Lighting applied. I had some issues with dynamic range when shooting in extremely bright sunlight, but all digital cameras on the market suffer this problem to some degree.

Low-light performance is excellent, especially with a good wide-aperture lens. The low level of noise found in daytime shots is still present, but this doesn’t appear to increase as the light level goes down. Black remains black, without a hint of visible noise in darkened skies.

Performance

Start-up time is great; there’s no discernable delay between powering on the camera and taking the first shot. Shooting speed is high at up to seven frames per second using the camera’s battery, or up to 8fps with the optional MB-D10 battery grip. The image buffer is a reasonable size, allowing sustained shooting for several seconds depending on image quality and format.
Battery life is rated at approximately 950 shots on a full charge. This is completely believable – I managed to take more than 700 images while keeping the battery just over 50 per cent full. Liberal use of the built-in flash would bring the numbers down, but battery life is definitely impressive.

Useability

The D300s provides dedicated buttons and dials to control most of the critical functions without having to dredge through the menu system. This is great when you’re rushing to set up a crucial shot and don’t want to take your eye off the viewfinder.

The menu system itself is customisable, as are many of the camera’s controls. Four sets of custom settings can be saved, letting you define the best settings for the studio, landscapes, nightscapes or whatever else you care to shoot.

Some may find minor annoyance in the camera’s grip design. The thumb space on the D300s is noticeably reduced from that of the D300: with a weighty lens attached, I found it difficult to get a comfortable grip on the camera body. With smaller and lighter lenses, this isn’t so much of an issue.

Live View

Live View is well implemented on the D300s, making use of the camera’s 920,000-dot (VGA) monitor. Two modes are provided: Handheld and Tripod.

In Handheld mode the camera’s fast phase-detect autofocus is used. The mirror comes down to allow focusing when the shutter is half depressed, temporarily interrupting Live View. While this isn’t ideal, it beats the extremely slow autofocus found in many Live View implementations.

In Tripod mode, slower contrast-detect autofocus is used. This maintains Live View during focusing but doesn’t work across such a wide range of scenes as normal phase-detect autofocus. Manual focus can be used in either mode, but in Tripod mode you can zoom in considerably tighter on-screen to check the focus before shooting.

HD Video

The D300s records high-definition video up to 720p. The results are good, in line with the video performance of other HD-capable digital still cameras.

In Tripod mode, contrast-detect autofocus can be used. However, the process is slow and the sound is clearly captured by the camera’s on-board microphone. An optional stereo microphone may be used, and capturing audio away from the camera body would help avoid the noise of autofocus, though it wouldn’t make the process appear any smoother on-screen.

You can always pull focus manually when moving around or zooming, though this does take a fair amount of practice. Really, the D300s’s video mode is best suited to fixed-focus recording from a tripod. For truly mobile recording, a dedicated video camera is going to give far better performance in terms of autofocus if nothing else.

Some basic on-camera editing of videos is supported – namely, cutting off the start or end. While it may seem trivial, this can remove those awkward “is it on yet?” moments without the need for video editing software. If you’re going to have any video editing options at all, these are certainly the most useful.

Storage

Like Nikon’s professional D3 and D3X models, the D300s features dual card slots. The primary slot accepts Compact Flash (CF) cards, while the secondary slot accepts SD and SDHC cards. When shooting with two cards, various storage options are available: all shots can be backed up across both, the secondary card can take any overflow once the first card is full, or the primary (CF) card can store RAW files while the secondary (SD) card stores JPEGs. The latter option is great if you want to combine the convenience of immediately useable JPEG images with the post-processing potential of RAW files without compromising on storage space or speed.

The camera’s top LCD shows the images remaining and the status of both card slots, even while the camera is switched off. This is great when you want to check the capacity of several cards in the field: just pop each one into the camera and see the space remaining, without even touching the power switch.

Conclusion

As Nikon’s most powerful crop-sensor digital SLR, the D300s is a fine upgrade for anyone with a stock of Nikon DX format lenses. It’s also an excellent starting point for serious amateurs entering the dSLR market and looking for high-end features but not ready to shell out for a full-frame sensor.

Nikon D300S – Specifications

Manufacturer: Nikon
Model: D300s
RRP: $3659 Inc. Lexar 4GB SD card
Effective Pixels: 12.3 million
Image Sensor: 23.6 x 15.8mm CMOS (Nikon DX format)
Viewfinder: ~100% frame coverage
LCD Monitor: 3-inch, 920,000 dot (VGA) TFT LCD, 100% frame coverage
Shutter: 1/8000 to 30 seconds, bulb ISO: 200-3200 in steps of 1/3, 1/2 or 1 EV (also supports ISO100 and  ISO6400 equivalent)
Exposure Metering: 3D Colour Matrix Metering II (type G and D lenses), Colour Matrix Metering II (other CPU lenses), centre-weighted, spot
Media: Compact Flash (Type I), SD/SDHC
File Format: NEF (RAW) 12- or 14-bit, TIFF (RGB), JPEG, AVI
Interface: USB 2.0, composite video out, HDMI video out
Batteries: Rechargeable lithium-ion, approx 950 images
Dimensions: 147 x 114 x 74mm
Weight: 840g (without battery or memory card)

Reviewed with Lenses:
Nikon AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED VR (21-36mm equivalent on the DX format D300s)
Nikon DX AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G

PROS

• Great image quality
• Powerful feature set
• HD video recording

CONS

• Not the most comfortable grip
• Slight image noise

Contact
www.nikon.co.nz