After 2 months of using the D300, and shooting some events, this is what I have discovered about it. I thought it was going to be easy to move from a D200 to D300, but realized there is a learning curve as well. I was frustrated at not being able to capture a shot like I did with the D200, but as I discovered along the way while using the D300, that it gives you more flexibility and adjustments, which means more control in your hands... but that also means that just out of the box may not get you what you used to have almost out of the box for the D200.
When shooting in a well-lit outdoor scenario, the D300 performs very well. Focusing is fast, sharp, and auto-ISO works well too. Most of my issue arise when shooting indoors with difficult lighting... and the following points have all to do with indoor shooting.
- When shooting an indoor concert with a fast lens and no flash and using auto-ISO with different metering modes, the camera tends to over expose the shots, and some were very over exposed. The overexposure come from the inability of the D300 to decide what ISO to use, and in some scenarios, it went to ISO 1600 when ISO 200 or 400 in that lighting condition would do. Advise is to forget about auto-ISO with indoor shooting.
- When shooting indoors without flash, the camera tends to overexpose the shot by 1/3 to 2/3. This is easily resolved by adjusting the exposure compensation.
- The default sharpening for the D300 is less than the D200. Hence, the pictures may look a little soft, so would need to bump up the sharpening by maybe +3 in your picture control. This is more for shooting in jpegs, but some people prefer to leave the sharpening to post processing.
- With a 12MP camera, my shooting flaws + lens sharpness is more evident. This is where breathing techniques, how to hold the camera, etc. becomes more evident with the pictures taken. Also, I have found the AF fine tuning useful to adjust the front or back focusing of the lenses... and even Nikon lenses needs some adjustments.
OK... here are just some thoughts to share after 2 months with my D300
