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Married to Canon? How about a Nikon Mistress, the D300?

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
So, as a Canon user how do you see the Nikon D300?

All my Nikons were sold, it seems Eons ago!

I'm pretty well stocked with Canon glass!

Now we have the brand new 40D Canon and the D300 Nikon in one week!

So what's the difference beyond Nikons slightly extra 1.8 MP?

The Nikon D300 with 2 CF cards either in serial or parallel is already super-convenient and that alone is a practical advantage. Then Ev range of the D40's +/- 2EV in 0.5 stops is trounced by the =/- 5 EV of the new nikon in 0.5 or even ~ .3 increments.

both have the convenient pop-up flash, so there!

Focus and low light/noise capability we'll have to see tested in identical conditions, but on the face of it Nikon has more focus points and goes beyond ISO 3200 to 6400.

Any final points?

Yes,

Canon's 230,000 LCD is dwarfed by the D300's 922,000 pixel LCD! (Edit,. I'm corrected, it may be RGB sites so divide by 3!)

So will one of these tempt you to get spend the extra $400 to get the Nikon offering or will we all stick to the Canon brand? After we'd need just one great Nikon lens?

Asher
 
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John_Nevill

New member
Doug. DP's spec says 922,000 pixels

Asher, I'll try and wear out the 5D and wait for its replacement, no doubt Canon will rise to the occassion, they now have a serious benchmark to ponder over.
 

Elliot Silver

New member

DP's review does say pixels, but Nikon's web site says:
...while an ultra-high definition, 920,000 dot resolution VGA LCD screen on the rear of the camera displays images with vivid colour and clarity.

VGA is 640x480 which gives 307 200 pixels. One dot for each of R,G,B gives 3 x 307 200 = 921 600, which is pretty close to their 920K dot resolution claim.

Further, on a 3" diagonal screen (2.4" horizontal x 1.8" vertical), 920 K pixels is 461 pixels per linear inch (182 pixel/cm). Alternatively, 307K pixels gives is 267 pixels per inch. (For comparison, typically, laptops top out at about 133 ppi.)

Sorry, I don't buy that it's pixels.

E.
 

Eric Hiss

Member
my mistress...

my mistress shall be medium sized. I lust after a MFDB with a nice square body and big round glass. Too bad I can't afford her!
 

Steve Saunders

New member
The 40D was barely an answer to the D200, but the D300 leaps ahead again. With the D3 in particular I think this is the first time since the D1 that Nikon have a clear lead over Canon and this will generate big sales. Now that Canon have all their cards on the table (1DsIII, 1DIII, 40D) it appears that the Nikon hand (D3, D300) is a winner for the next year or so. Bjorn Rorslett's alleged quote that the D3 noise performance is "beyond belief" is a major endorsement, Bjorn says it like he sees it as we all know. High-ISO noise issues have been the battleground for a while now and all of a sudden the rug appears to be pulled from under Canon, but of course we need to see sample shots to be sure...
 

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Eliot,

VGA is 640x480 which gives 307 200 pixels. One dot for each of R,G,B gives 3 x 307 200 = 921 600, which is pretty close to their 920K dot resolution claim.

Makes sense to me.

Best regards,

Doug
 
Sorry, I don't buy that it's pixels.

Correct, they are R+G+B dots. And while the Canon dots are similarly misleading, these Nikons LCDs seem to have double the linear resolution of the Canons. I just hope it doesn't also mean 4x the power drain ... Maybe that's why the refresh rate in life view mode is said to be lower?

I like it when the standards get raised, competition has to move as well, we all benefit.

Bart
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Still guys, is there a place for this $1700 Nikon which seems to best the rather amazing D40?

I was thinking of getting the D40 as a light street/event camera if it can focus better than my 5D. The D40 might be attractive if there's a 24-105mm IS L equivalent Nikon lens to go with it!

Who is even considering crossing the line?

Asher
 

Ivan Garcia

New member
Very tempting indeed. If only I had heard this news a month ago…mmm... having just purchased a 1D III; I think I’ll wait for the 5D replacement… see what canon’s answer may be… if not up to par… then I can see a new D300 coming my way some time next year…The missus won’t be happy… new brand, new lenses…more cash slipping through my fingers.
Oh dear...Nikon what have you done!
 

Phil Marion

New member
my mistress shall be medium sized. I lust after a MFDB with a nice square body and big round glass. Too bad I can't afford her!


Sadly since I went digital I have put on a few pounds. All this RAW post processing has me spending too much time in front of the computer. I am not joking when i say that a Nikon or full sensor Canon may be my next mistress. I don't know if a human female would want me any more. Will RAW make most photo enthusiasts fat? Maybe I better think about doing more landscapes and getting more exercise - maybe I'll meet a female sasquatch, if I'm lucky.

SIGH. RAW - look what I've become since I discovered you.
 

Kathy Rappaport

pro member
Practicality

For me, it's too hard to jump between Nikon and Canon.

My investment in Canon is just too much to start with duplication of glass and accessories for Nikon. I went from Nikon to Canon in the film days and my first digital was Canon. When you become "one" with the camera it is just too difficult to switch buttons etc. - sorta like typing on a keyboard - you just get comfortable with the keystrokes!
 

Ben Rubinstein

pro member
Like all divorces, the change to the new wife costs money on the divorce and even more money on the new marrige.

Seriously though we haven't seen what the new bodies output will be other than the unremarkeable examples which show a horrible level of smoothing (i.e. we don't know what the reality - RAW is like). I have no doubt that the camera will be good with the new CMOS sensors but it's amazing how much talk of swtiching there is when we haven't seen a single properly processed file from either new camera.

There is still no FF equivelent in form size to the 5D and I have little doubt that the 5D's sucessor will bridge the D300's advantages with far less cost to upgrade than having to swop lenses too. I love the Nikon ergonomics and control philosophy, I hate the canon fixation with buttons and menus for everything important. Unfortunately there is far more to a system than the camera body. There is no equivelent for 4 of my lenses. and I'm married to FF so I would need two D3's and that would get very expensive..
 

ron_hiner

New member
Who is even considering crossing the line?
Asher

Come on in Asher... the water is fine over here.

My current setup is D2x and a D40. Love them both. But the D40 is not an adequate backup for the D2x. My challenge is to decide between the D3 and the D300. Very different indeed. I view the D300 as pretty much a D2X in a smaller and lighter package with some very nice incremental improvements. The D3 is a different animal entirely. It's a breakthrough. My mind is racing with the creative possibilities.

The decision will probably boil down to high-iso capabilities of the D300. Right now the D3 has an edge because I've actually seen high-iso shots from that camera. The ONLY shots I've see from the D300 are those blue-tone harley shots... the are beautiful shots, but they are a bit soft.

But, I could cancel my plans to buy food and clothing for my kids.... then I could buy both cameras, get a 200-400 VR lens, and with the money left over, I could still get a blue harley to ride around on!

Tough decisions ahead!

ron
 
first off, the D40 is a Nikon. the new Canon is a 40D. subtle difference, but given the confusing proliferation of D's and digits, an important one.

the features listed at the top of this thread as advantages of the D300 over the 40D may or may not matter. i for one do not care a whit about the +/-5 EV... i never need that much range anyway. the added 1.8Mp is hardly a sufficient or necessary inducement, and the extra CF card, while possibly a handy feature, is not worth paying $500 more for the camera for, much less buying all new lenses. same for ISO 6400. i have never even had to use ISO 1600, so there's no advantage to me in having a camera that will shoot at 6400. a higher resolution LCD? please... how positively UNimportant is that in the scheme of things?

both the 40D and the D300 have more than ample feature sets, including many whiz-bangs that i - and most other people as well - will probably never use. but the real question is, when all is said and done, will the D300 offer sufficiently better image quality than the 40D to induce me, or any other Canon user, to switch? will i be able to tell, looking at prints of any reasonable size (i.e. 8x10 on up to 18x24) which camera took which picture? highly unlikely. if there is by some chance some small but detectable difference, will it be worth the cost of switching? again, probably not, particularly since other factors play a much larger part in the final result than whether it was shot with a 40D or a D300. given that, the whole question is nothing more than a "Ford vs Chevy" debate. it's not whether you shoot with a Canon or a Nikon, it's whether you create a pleasing image. A cheap 3Mp pocket camera can create stunning work if properly used by a competent photographer. So let's not get so wrapped up in the technical minutiae of this brand or that that we lose sight of what we're really trying to do in the first place.
 
Asher,
most of us married guys do know what it means to be married.
I didn't choose Canon just because it had a prettier body at the time (pun intended). I married the lens line. I'm not gonna drop it all just because some pretty young face came fresh out of the college.
I know my gear, it works for me, why waste time and money on something that may or may not work?
 
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