I own a Nikon D80 for 11 months and then went to a photo shoot with friends. One of them let us try his new D300. And the consequence? We said we will buy it soon and I took my D300 home 1 month ago.
Nikon D300 has such a beautiful LCD 3" monitor. I can't help staring at the bright images it displays. And to a not so young person like me, its viewfinder is a gift. I suddenly find myself seeing much more in photo composition. The buttons are all at the right place, especially the OK button where I can simply press the centre of the multi selector. True, the camera is bigger and heavier than D80. The first day I found this a bit uncomfortable. However, once I get used to it, D80 seems to be too light and too small!
As for photo quality, it is clearly more superior with noise reduction performing beautifully - especially when you shoot at ISO 1600. Its autofocusing system is much faster. I put the same old AF lens to D80 and D300 and the difference is apparent. D80 has already allowed me to take wonderful wildlife photos. And D300 excels at low light condition. Under daylight, it shoots photos bright (compared with the darker photos of D80) and the colour more natural (compared with the more vivid and deeper shades of D80). Sometimes I prefer to have darker photos so I activate the useful active D-lighting feature to adjust the contrast. As for the white balance, the available colours for adjustment is impressive. When pressing the shutter button to shoot, despite the camera's heavier weight, the handshake effect is actually reduced. Perhaps it is the mechansim or the centre of gravity that makes this happen. The continuous high speed shooting (6 fps) allows me to capture the egret take-off easily. Yes, I admit I have not used the live view extensively - the bright big viewfinder is simply alluring. Also, I haven't studied the manual word by word - I flip through a few pages only. But that's because most buttons are so user friendly, you can guess and shoot.
Not to mention the free Capture NX software accompanying the camera. I must admit I need only a handful of the many features of Capture NX eg adjusting the brightness of a tiny region of the photo, increasing the intensity and sharpness of the photo etc. It is at such a professional level that makes the picture perfect.
Some people emphasize again and again about sharpness of the image and focusing speed. However, I find the colours, contrast and exposure even more important in my consideration. Take a sunset photo and I see amazing colours of the dusk on the photo! Also, I won't need to worry whether my 20-year old Nikon lenses can be incompatibale with D300. They just fit and focus steadfastly and accurately on the object (albeit not as fast as the new Nikon AF-S lenses.) To top it all, the old manual lens can have autoexposure on D300 but not on D80. As for the flash, both D80 and D300 built in flash serves most of my purposes. D300 exposure program is so intelligent that sometimes the flash output is not as bright as I want, so I just use flash compensation.
With my D300, I can carry it everywhere and experiment with creative shots. But don't worry about my D80, I intend to keep it, especially when the trip is tough and long. After all, that is when I need to move fast and light! D300 is awarded the TIPA 2008 best expert camera - one it fully deserves. Plus, its price has gone down to an attractive level. It is a camera I don't want to go without!
Get more detail about Nikon D300 DX 12.3MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only).
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