5 Comments for Nikon D300s 12MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera

• 1. Mike Johnson  |  November 15th, 2009 at 6:30 am

  As a serious semi professional photographer taking pictures for over 47 years, Nikon has always been a NAME to own in my mind – up to now.

  Not a D300S in my opinion. I am very sorry I purchased mine at the end of September 2009. Bought from Amazon.com.

  As a Nikon CoolPix 8700 user, I thought that the D300S would be a good step up to improve picture quality and use of a wider range of lighting options.

  I have two SB 800 and one SB 900 SpeedLights and looked forward to using the D300S for basically portrait type work shooting Linen clothing items on dummy stands.

  Was I wrong. The focus capability on the D300S is simply awful. Maybe my camera is defective but so very difficult to tell with so many options to adjust.

  Even my Cannon PowerShoot S2 takes a clearer picture than the D300S

  I am now one month and over 50 to 60 hours of working with the D300S with almost no improvement.

  Every once and a while I will get a decent shot but almost impossible to repeat it or get three in a row of the same quality.

  I am now using the Camera Control PRO software with some success but still not good enough.

  By the way, It took 6 hours to figure out thet the version of the Camera Control pro software that you download does not work with the D300S. You have to download and install version 2.60 before the software will recognize the camera.

  I have tried the video a couple of times and it worked reasonably OK – no jitter as others have mentioned on normal pan speeds. But the quality is no better and maybe not as good as my Canon PowerShot S2.

  So bottom line… Think twice before you purchase a Nikon D300S

  There is NO VALUE here.

  Is a Canon any better? Not sure, but I have several friends who quickly tell me that their Canon’s work out of the bag without all the adjustment hassle.

  .
  Rating: 2 / 5

• 2. IA  |  November 15th, 2009 at 7:07 am

  I bought this to upgrade my D90 which I use to create professional fine-art HDR images, see http://iahdr.com

  Sadly this is a terrible camera for the serious HDR photographer. On the D90 we can take only 3 auto-bracketed shots in a row, and at 4.5 fps, it’s pretty good. I shoot these images -2EV, 0, +2EV. Still, I got the D300S because it has a much faster frame rate of 7 fps, and it can shoot up to 9 auto-bracketed shots in a row. I was fully expecting, as you would having used their lower-end camera the D90, to shoot 5 frames in a row, -4EV, -2EV, 0, +2EV, +4EV. That’s a pretty basic assumption, right. WRONG. On the D300S, and all the cameras “above” the D90, Nikon has lowered the EV steps in auto-bracketing mode to just one step at a time. So, in order to shoot the same range I am now on my D90 in 3 shots, I would have to shoot 5 shots on the D300S. If I want to shoot my preferred shooting of -4,-2,0,+2,+4, which is 5 shots, I would actually need to shoot -4,-3,-2,-1,0,+1,+2,+3,+4 or NINE shots… The extra frame rate does not compensate, and if you’re doing any kind of nature photography, which is the bulk of my work, you’ll end up with a longer than 1 second total exposure time, introducing so much movement into your shots, that you can just forget about even trying to shoot them to begin with.

  Why Nikon has lowered the AB mode from 2 to 1 step increments, only the Divine knows. And why they don’t keep the mirror locked up to shoot much faster, only the Divine knows, but it sure as heck made me return this camera.

  If you do a bit of googling, you’ll see that many other HDR photographers have this complaint, and there’s even a petition going back 2 YEARS. This is a simple adjustment to one character in one line of software code, changing a 1 to a 2. So sorry Nikon, but as much as I really want to move up to your pro cameras, I simply can’t unless you start listening to your customers.
  Rating: 1 / 5

• 3. Sachin D. Bansal  |  November 15th, 2009 at 9:00 am

  This is a excellent camera and better than D300 interms of ISO. All reviews apply on D300 apply here with extra tweak in performance. Video feature has some work pending, however over a course of time it should get corrected. I have nothing but 5 star for this hardware. However i have some problems with software this camera comes with.

  - No camera control software to connect with PC (optional), Canon has it free.
  
  - It comes with ViewNX but that can’t crop the pictures. hence you will have to convert RAW (NEF) pictures to JPEG to crop in third party software. This is pity feature which must have been in the software.
  
  - In camera video editing is basic (poor than Canon).
  
  - Nikon should have a Video for every new camera as option to read its thick manual.
  
  - No cheap remote for this camera from Nikon.
  
  - No auto rotate in live view mode.
  
  - No way to take picture while video is ON.
  
  - No way to pause the video in recording mode.
  
  - Charger still has an extra cable.

  Rating: 4 / 5

• 4. Michele McNickle  |  November 15th, 2009 at 10:23 am

  Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1HDMY916N2MCU I just received the Nikon D300s two weeks ago and I have noticed blue lights in many pictures that I have taken on several different occasions. I would like to think that I have the setting wrong, but I am beginning to feel like it is a defect in the camera. Since I live abroad for most of the year, this is a hassle that I would like to fix without having to send it to Nikon to be repaired.
  Rating: 3 / 5

• 5. misanthrope  |  November 15th, 2009 at 10:52 am

  I bought a D90 and got one with the electrical glitch – it kept hanging/freezing up. In the week I had it I had to constantly pop the battery out to ‘reset’ it to make it work. Very annoying. I returned it. However the pictures, when it worked, were amazing and definately an upgrade from my Canon Rebel.

  So – I’m thinking maybe of getting the 300 instead but wonder if it potentially has the same problem. A lot of people on the D90 review page mention the freeze-up problem on their D90 so it seems fairly common. If anyone is aware of this problem being in the D300s too I’d be glad to hear from you. Thanks
  Rating: 5 / 5

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