Not sure about the D300

[MagicNikon]

I got two 30d's for the price of one D300! I have been pretty happy so far too. I switched from Nikon to Canon a few weeks ago. All is not bliss however, as the Nikon CLS flash system is far better, IMO. In order to get the D300 with a grip, it'd be about $2000. Far too rich for my blood to own two of those...

Anyway, my options are still open to switching back at a later date...we'll just have to see how soon (if ever...Canon does have a 5D mkII in the pipe )

[karaya]

Guess you'll have to change your name to MagicCanon??

[MagicNikon]

Originally Posted by karaya

Guess you'll have to change your name to MagicCanon??

I'll keep MagicNikon for nostalgia's sake.

[rootrider]

I'm confused. The ISO 1000 shot on that site looks similar to maybe ISO 500 or 600 on my D70, and the ISO 6400 shot looks pretty close to what ISO 1600 can look like when underexposed on my D70.. except the noise pattern looks a lot cleaner and easier to work with. What's the issue? I'm sure the 40D is better with its high ISO noise but the OP is kind of making it sound like there's almost no improvement

[Loa]

Hello,

Tom: My final question in my original post was not about noise, but noise *is* a big concern for me. It's not *the* only concern, and that's why I posted here instead of choosing a pixel-peeper forum.

Of course you get rid of most of the noise by exposing correctly. But as I said in one of the previous posts: when you shoot at ISO 1600 (on a D70), with your lens at f/1.8, the issue isn't correct exposure; it's a compromise between shutter speed and movement blur. Going to 3200 "might" let you decide shutter speed for correct exposure. But even if I had a ISO 3200 setting on my D70, I'm not sure I'd be ready to go there for most shots. Justifying spending 2000$ for a D300, for me, requires a much better noise (or signal to noise) management.

MagicNikon: Price is a concern for me too, but I don't think I could switch, and then switch back a few months later... Don't think my fiancee would be ok with that!

Rootrider: the noise in the D300 seems better than on the D70. But that's the least they can do: the D70 is a 3.5 year old camera. And 3.5 years in the electronics world is a long time! And the D70 is not in the same "class" as the D300. So you're talking nearly 4 years of improvements and a step-up in class. Also if I was only comparing Nikons with Nikons, I would indeed buy the D300 no regrets. But that's not the case.

Loa

[rootrider]

Originally Posted by Loa

Rootrider: the noise in the D300 seems better than on the D70. But that's the least they can do: the D70 is a 3.5 year old camera. And 3.5 years in the electronics world is a long time! And the D70 is not in the same "class" as the D300. So you're talking nearly 4 years of improvements and a step-up in class. Also if I was only comparing Nikons with Nikons, I would indeed buy the D300 no regrets. But that's not the case.

I think that when you compare the D70 with the 300D, 10D, or 20D at that time, and now the D300 with the 40D, that Nikon has done a good job getting much closer to being comparable, or even better in some ways, than the competing Canon body. The Canon will likely continue to be better but the gap is so much smaller now that I really don't see it as being an issue, especially in print.

[D.Rodgers]

There sems to be some confusion on noise lately the images Ive seen supplied by nikon with the d3 at 6400iso have large amounts of noise but this normal ,what a lot have people have ignored is the exif data the shots taken are indoor with poor lighting /no flash and hand held!
The shadow detail is a vast improvment also ,this means the raw data is going to much nicer to work with and pull images out of the mud.

I cant wait to be able to use my camera without a tripod in poor light situations i get this kind of noise at night at 200 iso with long exposures on my ageing d70s.

Remember where we were 10yrs ago ,I wouldnt have bought digital if hell was freezing over and now the last film i shot was on a retro camera of mine..
Cant wait to see whats around the next corner in the digital era

[Tom Swaman]

Dave,

You are so right. Furthermore, I am taking the liberty of adding to what you said by stating that anyone who looks at one set of photo images taken under one set of conditions, deserves, IMHO, whatever they get. Frankly, not only is this, again, IMHO, stupid, but it is also a prime show of ignorance!!!!!

Loa, my comments are not intended to be the lease bit biased or sarcastic. Yes, I did see your last question, but I did not comment because I do not know the answer. Might I suggest that you download the actual specifications and compare these side-by-side in your own chart. Then you can prioritize for yourself what you like or do not like about each camera. Second, if you are this consumed by hardware concerns, just wait until the camera is out and you can determine this for yourself as it is a highly subjective question.

Loa, my interest in the D300 lies basically in only 3 features of the camera body. These are a 100% viewfinder, a mirror lock-up and a good remote system. I shoot with a couple of D80s and a number of lenses and Niko flashes, the SB800 and the Nikon close-up flashes. I bought a Canon point-and-shoot yesterday. I have nothing against Canon Or Pentax. I do have somethings against Sony, Leica, Ricoh, Olympus and?? The point is that nothing is perfectAND DIFFERENT INDIVIDUAL CAMERA BODIES DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY. fURTHERMORE, HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT WHAT IS SPECIFIED ABOUT A CAMERA BODY IS ACCURATE WHEN THE SPECIFICATIONS DO NOT CONTAIN ANY STATEMENT ABOUT EITHER THEIR ACCURACIES OR THEIR PRECISIONS.

lOA, THE CHOICE OUGHT TO BE, SINCERELY, STRICTLY WHAT WORKS FOR YOU.

nOW THAT IS A WHOLE LOT OF NOISE,
Tom

P.S. I apologize for my unintentional crappy typing. I am uncertain as to whether Canon or Nikon hit the "caps lock" key when I wasn't looking. Ugh! sabotaged again by a camera vendor.

[Nikonfreak]

The D300 isn't yet in the hands of anyone. Let's not forget that. We simply don't know anything yet.

If the D300 gets me into ISO 1600 and perhaps 3200 land far more cleanly than the D200, I'll be extremely happy with it.

The focus system improvements will be very nice. I'm also interested in the lenses "above f/5.6" language out there and what it means to those using consumer grade lenses with variable aperatures and focus reliability. Wasn't the D200 language "above f/8"?

I wanted to intentionally avoid a Nikon / Canon debate. The ISO cleanup gap is closing and, personally, I never thought it was far enough apart to make any difference to me. There are always a ton of other factors to consider... type of photography you do, price, lens needs, lens inventory you already own, etc.

I've made poster size images from events with the D100 when it was around and at normal viewing distances they were pretty clean. I would run some images though Noise Ninja at times, depending on the image itself, but noise was a problem with that camera, flash was another, and auto WB accuracy was yet another problem though to a lesser extent.

The D70 and D50's cleaned up the act quite a bit. The D200 did as well. The D3 series (300 incl.) will probably do more as well, but I currently wonder about "Lo" ISO to get to ISO 100... wouldn't it have been nice to get ISO 50 to 6400 with clean images? Maybe I'm dreaming but I don't want to gripe before the model hits the streets so let's see what comes out and see what Nikon has done for us.

I take all of the current "informational reviews" with a grain of salt. I don't know what they did or what camera settings they used, how familiar they became with the body or it's functions before doing their tests...etc...

Time will tell and I wouldn't make purchase decisions based on advance reviews.

Julio

[Tom Swaman]

Julio,

When we next go to Mars do you think that Rebokky gloves will be warm enough or do we need to try the not yet made Nike-e X749.26s with the M. Jordon Special signatures? Oh yah, what color do we need to be fashionable and to keep Martians from talking ill of us?

Can't wait to hear from you,
Tom

[Gbee]

Well, you should care.

Fundamentally, Canon use a smearing technique to give a pasty digital look to its files from the camera. This gives soft and detail lacking files which is a subject of many discussions.

Nikon yield more gritty results with the emphasis on sharpness, tonality, colour fidelity and graduation. You can choose the program you want to use to smoothen out the noise and how much detail you are willing to lose to achieve the same look as the Canon. Canon owners don’t have the luxury of adding back the details the camera robbed them of.

This is fundamental to the design philosophies from each manufacturer. It is also the most important element in how much one values the files from the camera, P+S shooters will be drawn more to the Canon whilst the digital darkroom professional will favour the Nikon ~ it’s all about control, Nikon will give you a better file to work on, but you better know what to do with it.

Otherwise the D300 is a full professional camera partner and is not a comparable model to the 40D, the Nikon D80 is a better comparison in reality.

But get hold of a few raw files at high ISO from each camera and see what you can do with them. If you can’t make a better file from the Nikon, then buy the Canon.

Originally Posted by Loa

Hello, P.S. I don't care about Canon and Nikon: I just want to know if the D300 can catch up to the 40D in the high ISO department.

[Gbee]

Generally speaking, the Canon flash was ‘updated’ to the D-distance with the introduction of ETTLII, Nikon abandoned this system, which, IMO they never got right and was a prime mover in my, four years ago switch.

At that time the Canon system was really, really better. Nikon advanced their system whilst Canon has not, in fact, IMO the Canon flash control has gone backwards.

But, to get something akin to the Nikon flash one must trust the auto systems on the Canon, my prime Canon is the 1D series, here I can get good results in auto everything, unfortunately focus accuracy suffers and I am forced to use F/8 to get the dof necessary to cover the focus deficiencies.

In short range AF, typical for flash photography, the Nikon AF is also much better, and as the AF is closely linked to the flash assessment, the more accurately the camera focuses also offers the more accurate flash potential.

FEL on the Canon is neat, awkward but it works pretty well, as a disadvantage the metering point does not stay illuminated so it’s too easy to FEL incorrectly.

Originally Posted by MagicNikon

I All is not bliss however, as the Nikon CLS flash system is far better, IMO. )

[Nikonfreak]

Originally Posted by Tom Swaman

Julio,

When we next go to Mars do you think that Rebokky gloves will be warm enough or do we need to try the not yet made Nike-e X749.26s with the M. Jordon Special signatures? Oh yah, what color do we need to be fashionable and to keep Martians from talking ill of us?

Can't wait to hear from you,
Tom

I have no idea what you're trying to get at with this or what you mean.

I guess you don't agree that approaching reviews on not-yet-released camera bodies with a little caution is a good idea. Not sure.

I thought your 4PM post was pretty spot on. Compare the features and see what means the most to your particular type of shooting. I just don't think anyone should be jumping from Canon to Nikon or vice versa based on the online reviews.

Julio

[Loa]

Originally Posted by D.Rodgers

There sems to be some confusion on noise lately the images Ive seen supplied by nikon with the d3 at 6400iso have large amounts of noise but this normal, what a lot have people have ignored is the exif data the shots taken are indoor with poor lighting /no flash and hand held!

OMG! poor idiots that use high ISO in dark and difficult conditions!!!

Why *else* would you boost ISO up to 6400? If you can take a tripod, if you have good lighting, if you can use your flash... of *course* you won't need to boost ISO! The whole point of high ISO if for those situations when you *can't*.

And of *course* I compared the cameras side by side. And not being an old pro, I came here precisely because I compared them. I wanted more info than a side-by-side could offer. If the side-by-side had given me enough reasons to choose one over the other, then we wouldn't be having this wonderful discussion.

Thanks for those who added info, but for those that want to convince me that high ISO noise is a non-important factor when choosing a body, well, please try to convince someone else. As I said in the first post and in following ones, high ISO noise is important for *me*. If it's not important for you, well good for you.

Loa

[D.Rodgers]

Originally Posted by Loa

OMG! poor idiots that use high ISO in dark and difficult conditions!!!

Why *else* would you boost ISO up to 6400? If you can take a tripod, if you have good lighting, if you can use your flash... of *course* you won't need to boost ISO! The whole point of high ISO if for those situations when you *can't*.

And of *course* I compared the cameras side by side. And not being an old pro, I came here precisely because I compared them. I wanted more info than a side-by-side could offer. If the side-by-side had given me enough reasons to choose one over the other, then we wouldn't be having this wonderful discussion.

Thanks for those who added info, but for those that want to convince me that high ISO noise is a non-important factor when choosing a body, well, please try to convince someone else. As I said in the first post and in following ones, high ISO noise is important for *me*. If it's not important for you, well good for you.

Loa

I was trying to explain the reasoning behind the testing and how it read ;the data .
The diffrence in iso is not the reason to buy buy; the data thats still in the image ,shadows etc is though.
However with you recent post you dont seem open to learning so i will stop here,sorry to have spent my time trying to educate and asist.

[Tom Swaman]

Julio,

I apologize for my sick humor. So you know, I was trying to tell you that i agree completely with what yyou posted. I thought that going to Mars with fictional gloves is just about as real as reviewing "not yet out there" cameras.

How right you are,
Tom

[Nikonfreak]

Originally Posted by Loa

-snip-

Thanks for those who added info, but for those that want to convince me that high ISO noise is a non-important factor when choosing a body, well, please try to convince someone else. As I said in the first post and in following ones, high ISO noise is important for *me*. If it's not important for you, well good for you.

Loa

I'm not going to say it's not important, but what I'm saying is that you're probably splitting hairs as to differences between the newer Canon and Nikon.

As I said, I shoot quite a few concerts and it's all about high ISO, low light shooting. I've not needed to run images through noise reduction programs since having moved to the D200 body. I've never had an image rejected due to noise by a client and I've never been let down by the amount of noise in an image.

Want to get cleaner...fantastic... I'm all for it. As I said...give me a working 1600 and 3200 ISO and I'm a very very happy camper. Give me the 15 cross type AF sensors that work effectively both individually and in group focus modes with respect to focus lock and tracking and I'm going to be singing the Halelujia chorus with the new body.

I'm expecting the 3's to be cleaner than the 2's and if so, I would expect that most would be pleased with the results. The question becomes how strong the filtering is in that how much detail is lost to noise reduction algorithms in the camera software.

Julio

Home

[Loa]

Originally Posted by Nikonfreak

I'm not going to say it's not important, but what I'm saying is that you're probably splitting hairs as to differences between the newer Canon and Nikon.

Maybe I am. But to my eyes, and judging from pre-prod bodies, the difference is noticeable.

Originally Posted by Nikonfreak

As I said, I shoot quite a few concerts and it's all about high ISO, low light shooting. I've not needed to run images through noise reduction programs since having moved to the D200 body. I've never had an image rejected due to noise by a client and I've never been let down by the amount of noise in an image.

Thanks for that info. Helps me figure out how things play out on a D200. On the other hand, I "output" mainly for web and on-screen displays. Are you usually printing?

Loa

[cyclohexane]

But to my eyes, and judging from pre-prod bodies, the difference is noticeable.

Just a suggestion... check to see if the difference is apparent to your viewers' eyes. As photographers we tend to notice noise, film grain, and other imperfections to a greater degree than others.

On the other hand, I "output" mainly for web and on-screen displays. Are you usually printing?

How large are the images you display on the web? When you downsize for web the noise usually disappears to the point where you see very little of it, though if you're putting 1280x1024 images on the web you'll still see some noise. On-screen display is a different beast though, as the resolution and image sizes are usually well within the realm that allows noise to be apparent.

[KABeach]

Let me add a couple of things...

First, I know a photographer that had a chance to pretest the D3 and D300. According to him these cameras are "the real deal". He had enough time with them to see they are a real improvement over what is currently out there, but not enough to really push them and find out how good they could really get or where they fail.

Second, the reason I won't judge a unit until it is released and in the hands of professionals is a camera I own - the D2h... when Nikon first released it, it was claimed to have the best noise handling in the industry - once people started using it, they started ridiculing it. To this day, it still has the reputation of a very noisy camera... however, for someone that really knows how to use it, how to its weakness and play to its strengths, I can turn out photos up to 1600 that are almost indistinguishable from its Canon counterparts (at 3200 it falls apart pretty fast)...

So, does that mean the D2h is a terrible camera, because it requires skill to use it, or just a camera that demands a bit more from the photographer?

As I said above, I would wait to see what the images look like after the release date when people can start to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the new camera - On the other hand, if you've already decided to move, then just move - no need to dig up justification...

Cheers,
Ken