Early B-Day Gift to Myself

[NostalgicDad]

After much research and stammering, I finally coughed up the dough to B&H for a shiny new D300 today. I was really happy with my D80 for a while but for the last few months, it's just been frustrating dealing with some shortcomings such as ISO quality and amp noise. Don't get me wrong, the D80 is still a very good camera in several regards but I was finding my shooting situations demanding more. And, with the rumors of a D700 coming out to fit somewhere between the D300 and the D3, I have finally grown tired of all the speculation and figured I should just end my daily research with a purchase. It's a relief to know I'll have more free time on my hands now.

Along with it, I added the MB-D10 battery grip. I decided to go with some rechargeable NiMH AA batteries rated at 2700mAh to achieve the 8fps. Along those lines, one of my CF cards is the SanDisk Extreme Ducati 8GB. From what I understand, that card is unbelievably fast at 45mb/second write speed. Since I've always had good luck with Transcend, I also picked up a 16GB 300x CF card. And for me, the camera wouldn't be complete without a wireless shutter release. I've grown accustomed to the one for my D80 but it won't work with the D300. The one I got is the Phottix Cleon N8. I've yet to find a bad review on it. It will function wired as well as wireless so I'm covered either way. The only place it can be found is on eBay but at $43 shipped, I figured what the heck and will give it a shot. Everyone that has one seems to love it. It's shipping from Hong Kong, so hopefully I will see it at some point in this lifetime.

As far as what I'll do with the D80.......Well, it looks like I might be following in GDad's footsteps since my 10 year old daughter has been eyeballing it.

The goodies should arrive by Tuesday. That's only 10 days before my birthday, so I guess I won't be asking for anything else this year and possibly into next year!

 

[Gdad]

Wohooo! Good for you! You will love it.

The upgraded features from the D80 are many but since you purchased the grip and the NiMH Batteries (and since you mentioned it) I assume the FPS is one of the issues you had with the D80. I use to *hate* the way the D80 seemed so sluggish with a few RAW files per second- especially when the buffer gave out after 4-5 shots. I would always press the shutter release harder like that would help. Click..Click...Click.......Click.......Grrrr. But the D300 is just awesome- I still get all warm & fuzzy inside when I rip off about 20 shots in a few seconds without an ounce of hesitation.

And good for you daughter as well- It is a great creative hobby. I hope she enjoys it as much as my daughter has.

 

[DVC Jen]

Your b-day is the 11th???? Mine is the 12th!

Hmmmmm - wonder if I could get away with ordering the 5D.

Prolly not! Oh well.

I hope you enjoy your new camera. I am having the same issues with my 30D that you are or were having with your Nikon.

Can't wait to see some photos with your new camera.

 

[handicap18]

Nice Danny!!! I'm jealous. I totally and completly agree with your line of thinking. I have the D50 and am currently saving up for the D300 for most of the same reasons you listed. I also would like the wired option for a shutter release. I really like having the wireless, but there are times when you just absolutly need to stand behind the camera and its a pain with a wireless. My D50 only has 2.5 fps and doing a lot more baseball game shooting that just doesn't cut it. I got a way with it last year going to only a few summer league games, but this year it started showing its ugly (slow) head with 10 little league and a bunch more summer league (college level) games.

I was at a game this past Sat and met up again with AndrewWG. He's got the Canon 30D with its 6 fps and were were both snapping away.... he was like clickclickclickclickclick and I was like click click click click and with the 4 image buffer in RAW... well, I think Jeff already touched on that.

So congradulations on the new purchase. I hope to join you guys sometime this coming winter.

 

[NostalgicDad]

Wohooo! Good for you! You will love it.

The upgraded features from the D80 are many but since you purchased the grip and the NiMH Batteries (and since you mentioned it) I assume the FPS is one of the issues you had with the D80. I use to *hate* the way the D80 seemed so sluggish with a few RAW files per second- especially when the buffer gave out after 4-5 shots. I would always press the shutter release harder like that would help. Click..Click...Click.......Click.......Grrrr. But the D300 is just awesome- I still get all warm & fuzzy inside when I rip off about 20 shots in a few seconds without an ounce of hesitation.

And good for you daughter as well- It is a great creative hobby. I hope she enjoys it as much as my daughter has.

Yes, the FPS on my D80 has been pretty aggravating to say the least. Shooting RAW at certain sporting events would drive me up a wall.

Another question comes to mind that maybe you can shed some light on. With my D80, it has been a known fact that using the Long Exposure NR feature would result in some amazingly long "job processing" times. It takes approx 50% of the time of the actual exposure. In other words, a 10 minute exposure will have you waiting 5 minutes before tripping the shutter open again. Without that feature enabled, there is no waiting period. That alone forced me to completely abandon in-camera NR altogether. Have you run into anything similar on the D300?

Your b-day is the 11th???? Mine is the 12th!

Hmmmmm - wonder if I could get away with ordering the 5D.

Prolly not! Oh well.

I hope you enjoy your new camera. I am having the same issues with my 30D that you are or were having with your Nikon.

Can't wait to see some photos with your new camera.

Yep, 7/11 is the day. No one ever forgets my birthday.

I can't wait to see some photos from me as well. Between my excitement level and the learning curve for the new body, my senses my totally lock up!

(Oh, and since we've mentioned something about numbers here.........I finally made it to the 4 digit post count)

 

[DizzyV6P]

From my understanding, ANY on-board NR will slow things down, whether Canon or Nikon. That's the reason why most folks w/ the 40D, myself included, leave NR = OFF. From my D300 friends (all former D80 owners..lol), they leave it off as well. Most shoot in RAW and end up either using PHotoshop, Lightroom or DXO to post-process anyways, so the NR is really a useless feature for those who post-process their pictures.

Have fun enjoying your D300!

 

[Gdad]

I do not have any internal noise reduction in use on my cameras- I do not find the long exposure noise objectionable- and for high ISO I prefer Noise Ninja or the Capture NX better. Is NX still included with the D300?

One other note about the FPS rate- I find it almost impossible to take just one picture in Continuous High shooting mode. It almost always snaps at least two as quick as I can hit and release the button. What a much better thing to be annoyed by.

 

[NostalgicDad]

From my understanding, ANY on-board NR will slow things down, whether Canon or Nikon. That's the reason why most folks w/ the 40D, myself included, leave NR = OFF. From my D300 friends (all former D80 owners..lol), they leave it off as well. Most shoot in RAW and end up either using PHotoshop, Lightroom or DXO to post-process anyways, so the NR is really a useless feature for those who post-process their pictures.

Have fun enjoying your D300!

I definitely agree about using NR in PP only. It was just something that seemed so bad that I wondered if it's still a common occurence in the D300. I know that internal NR should slow things down but waiting 5 minutes before I could use the camera is just comical to me.

I do not have any internal noise reduction in use on my cameras- I do not find the long exposure noise objectionable- and for high ISO I prefer Noise Ninja or the Capture NX better. Is NX still included with the D300?

I have used Capture NX for about a year now and just started using the trial for Capture NX2. Lots of neat improvements for sure. I have heard that NX is no longer included with the D300 and I don't see any sign of it in my order. For current users of NX, the upgrade to NX2 is about $100. The full purchase price is about $175 if I recall.

 

[Suburbanmom]

Yep, 7/11 is the day. No one ever forgets my birthday.

Happy Birthday...7/11 is my anniversary! It will be 16 years. It never occurred to me to push camera equipment as a gift. Why wasn't I thinking??!!

Congratulations on the upgrade. I've been frustrated with my D50 for many of the issues you mentioned. I'm saving for a 70-200mm f/2.8. After that I'll think about upgrading the camera itself. Like everyone else, I can't wait to see the photos.

 

[NostalgicDad]

Happy Birthday...7/11 is my anniversary! It will be 16 years. It never occurred to me to push camera equipment as a gift. Why wasn't I thinking??!!

Congratulations on the upgrade. I've been frustrated with my D50 for many of the issues you mentioned. I'm saving for a 70-200mm f/2.8. After that I'll think about upgrading the camera itself. Like everyone else, I can't wait to see the photos.

Thanks! Cool that you got married on my birthday while we were engaged back in '92. We are at 15 1/2 years ourselves.

 

[Alztybrn]

And, with the rumors of a D700 coming out

And out comes the D700...

http://www.europe-nikon.com/home/en_GB/homepage/broad/site.html

 

[handicap18]

And out comes the D700...

http://www.europe-nikon.com/home/en_GB/homepage/broad/site.html

Or directly from Nikon

http://www.nikon.com/about/news/2008/0701_d700_01.htm


SRP: $2,999

 

[YesDear]

Congrats on your purchase. Funny that you said you ordered the Phottix Cleon because I got mine from China in the mail yesterday. So far it works perfectly on a D200 and D300.

I know you will love everything about your D 300.

 

[NostalgicDad]

Congrats on your purchase. Funny that you said you ordered the Phottix Cleon because I got mine from China in the mail yesterday. So far it works perfectly on a D200 and D300.

I know you will love everything about your D 300.

How long did it take for your Cleon to arrive? I just got a response today that mine will be shipping tomorrow. I would have been a little happier if it would have at least gone out in less than 3 days. I don't know, they seem to get overall good feedback so I probably shouldn't worry too much.

 

[Groucho]

Another question comes to mind that maybe you can shed some light on. With my D80, it has been a known fact that using the Long Exposure NR feature would result in some amazingly long "job processing" times. It takes approx 50% of the time of the actual exposure. In other words, a 10 minute exposure will have you waiting 5 minutes before tripping the shutter open again. Without that feature enabled, there is no waiting period. That alone forced me to completely abandon in-camera NR altogether. Have you run into anything similar on the D300?

There's two levels of NR we're talking about... I don't think the D50 allows you to change the NR done on regular high ISO photos (unlike the D300), but the pause you're seeing (assuming it's the same as in the Pentax 6mp DSLRs, which is should be since it's the same sensor), is that it takes the photo, then closes the shutter and takes another photo of exactly the same length. Ie, 10 second photo, 10 second pause. It's taking another shot with the shutter closed to try to see what kind of noise appears on an exposure that long and uses that to minimize noise in the original shot.

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Congratulations on the D300! (Where's drooling smiley when I need one?) Happy birthday to you! You have the same birthday as my son!

 

[Debbiebee68]

I bought one too- and it is not my birthday either. Maybe I could use the 4th of July as an excuse???

Congrats on the new camera. I don't know about you but I have a lot to learn.

 

[Quicklabs]

Congratulations! Hope that you travel to lots of fun places with it...We'll be looking forward to your first shots with it.