Nikon D300s Review– No Significant Changes From The Earlier D300
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Great performance, excellent photo quality, dual slots for cards, great exteriors.
Thumbs Down:
There are no significant improvements when you compare it with the earlier D300.
Inside the Trunk:
Bundled remote control. Included accessories LCD display cover, Shoulder strap, Eyepiece cover, Lens cap, Dust cap, Body cap, Eyecup. Included cables USB cord, A/V cable.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
The Nikon D300s Review tells D300s is a 12.3 mega pixels camera, light sensitivity options includes ISO 200-3200, ISO 6400 and ISO 100. Maximum shutter speed is 1/8000 second, minimum shutter speed is 30 seconds. Exposure modes include I-TTL program flash, aperture priority, shutter priority, automatic, program, manual, bulb. White balance presets include incandescent, fluorescent, shade, flash. Videos are stored in formats of AVI and MJPEG and still images are stored in JPEG, NEF (RAW) and TIFF.
Video capture resolutions are AVI – 320 x 240, AVI – 640 x 480, AVI – 1280 x 720, Flash memory cards are SD memory card, Compact flash, Microdrive. Image storage resolutions are 2144 x 1424, 3216 x 2136, 4288 x 2848. Flash modes include Red-eye reduction, Rear curtain sync, Flash OFF mode, Slow synchro, Fill-in mode and Auto mode. D300s has Zoom lens – 18 mm – 200 mm – F/3.5-5.6 G Nikon AF-S DX ED VR II, focal length is 18 mm – 200 mm, minimum focus range is 19.7 inch, maximum view angle is 76 degrees, lens aperture is F/35.-5.6, has 11x optical zoom.
Additional features include Scene Recognition System (SRS), Depth-of-field preview button, Camera orientation detection, Active D-Lighting technology, Display brightness control, Text input to Exif header, In-camera movie editing, Highlight point display, 720p HD movie recording, Digital image rotation, USB 2.0 compatibility, In-camera red-eye fix, Saturation control, PictBridge support, LCD live view mode, Brightness control, Sharpness control, Resizing an image, Histogram display, Cropping an image, Contrast control, Water resistant, Date/time stamp, Auto power save, Audio recording, Dust resistant, Direct print, DPOF support, FE lock, AF lock, AE lock.
The camera has a 3 inch TFT LCD display. Connectors include Microphone, HDMI output, Remote control, USB and Composite video/audio output. Expansion slots on the camera SD Memory Card, CompactFlash Card – Type I/II
The camera is 5.8 inch wide, 2.9 inch deep, 4.5 inch height and weighs 1.9 lbs.
Razzle Dazzle:
The D300s hasn’t changed much and looks the same as D200, a previous installment from the same manufacturer. In our Nikon D300s Review we found device is a bit heavy as compared to D300 and despite all the weight holding and shooting with this device was quite comfortable.
Inside Dope:
Very rarely do you find that the new version of a particular product has no significant improvements over the previous one. When a manufacturer brings in a new version we automatically assume that it is better than the previous one. Same thing has happened here with the Nikon D300s which is the successor to Nikon 300. We didn’t find any significant improvements in terms of quality during our Nikon D300s Review in this revamped product however we are not complaining much since the quality was pretty good. Nikon has thrown in some new features here and there and has again given us the same model in the 300s.
The camera is heavier than most dSLRs but the addition of weight seems good when shooting as you can hold the camera comfortably. The viewfinder on the camera is one of the best you will ever see in the SLR class. It has bright, big and gives 100% coverage and an optional display for grid and for traditional controls of shooting there is usable streamlined layout. Just like D300 the switch for auto focus area mode was really nice but we would have liked a similar switch for metering selector which would have let us control with our thumb.
As we went on further exploring the functions of the camera, we were annoyed by some features like the user settings menu which has custom settings and shooting settings banks and has 4 nameable slots each. It would have been better if Nikon made it easily accessible just like Canon.
The multi selector button on the camera felt a bit mushy and uncomfortable to use even though it only needs a couple of presses. Settings for movie should have been separated from this button.
The camera has dual card slot one for compact flash and one for SD. You can choose which card you want to use to store the photos and the secondary card can be used to for backup, JPEG only (while shooting raw+JPEG) and overflow. You don’t get this option for movies all you get is primary.
There are only a few changes for the camera as compared to the older D300. One of them is the speed; the D300s is a bit slower to start up than D300. Apart from that the AF system speeds are the same of the 2 cameras. This camera takes 0.3 seconds to wake up and start shooting and for focusing in bright light conditions, the time is same. In dim light environments, it takes 0.7 second. Two JPEG shots in nonburst take about 0.4 second and it goes up to 0.5 when you use RAW mode. If you put on the flash, it will take 0.9 seconds. Continuous shooting rate of this camera is 6.8 fps.
Photo quality is superb just like D300 images up to ISO 800 are great and after that they look a bit processed. There is degradation of sharpness at ISO 1600 and at ISO 3200 the inferiority becomes really prominent. Nikon seems to have improved the brightness in this model as compared to the D300. Color representation is better on this camera than its predecessor the Nikon has changed the exposure parameters here; the exposure is brighter irrespective of metering setting.
This camera has video capture capabilities which D300 didn’t have. Videos are limited to 720p resolution at 24 frames per second which doesn’t give the best video quality. You can use auto focus during movie recording but it is quite slow. The lens noise is also grabbed by the microphone which is built in.
Nitty Gritty:
The D300s has excellent photo quality, sturdy body and lots of features which makes it a good camera. But it you already own a D300 you don’t need to upgrade because it has more or less the same features and we would recommend you to still go for D300 because you save on money. There are just three things that the D300s has and D300 doesn’t – continuous shooting speed, video recording and a faster low light auto focus.
