Got it in

Been doing some test shots with my new (used) D300, amazing performance at iso 1600! Makes me pretty excited to try some indoor shoots. Looks like 385 shots raw on an 8 GB card.

Enjoy it! What are you going to shoot first?

Got a wedding next week. BTW love the D700, have used my friends couple of times, great camera. D300 didn't come in fast enough and had to use the D200 for a couple of shoots thursday. I am busy learning and I plan to use it as my primary next week. The D300 looks and feels just like the D700 as far as controls.

Yibel said:

Got a wedding next week. BTW love the D700, have used my friends couple of times, great camera. D300 didn't come in fast enough and had to use the D200 for a couple of shoots thursday. I am busy learning and I plan to use it as my primary next week. The D300 looks and feels just like the D700 as far as controls.

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I hope you enjoy it. My D700 has nothing on my D300 and D300s as far as quality images. I think it is all in the camera set up.

Zak

My D700 has nothing on my D300 and D300s as far as quality images.

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Seriously? I have not heard that before. I have never actually used a D700, but I hear a lot of people talk about how great the D700 images are.

The best set up out of the three is my D300s with my Nikon 18-200 VR. That thing is sharp!

Zak

Agree about the D300S and 18x200 VRII. Only had mine a couple of months, but really like the set up. Also recommend the new 28x300 VR. It is a great lens.

First lens I grabbed was my 70-300, worked great on the D300. I have the 18-200 on it now and will try it later, that has always been one of my most favorite lenses, I got it when I bought my D200, it has been on my camera more than any other lens.

The shutter is quietier on the D300 and when shooting continuous is seems much faster. I did break with my 4 GB tradition and try an 8 GB in this thinking I will use it a lot at the wedding. 385 raw with an 8 GB, I'll have another 235 on the D200. I doubt I'll shoot much more than that. BTW Walmart had 8 GB sandisk ultras for $39.

ZakSaenzPhotography said:

I hope you enjoy it. My D700 has nothing on my D300 and D300s as far as quality images. I think it is all in the camera set up.

Zak

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Don't be afraid to suggest some setup tips, I can use all the help I can find, not much time before I gotta use it.

I wonder about the performance of the sandisk ultra - that's not a UDMA card, and the D300 was the first DSLR to use UDMA cards.

I would like to get some smaller cards, that's a pretty dang good deal on 8 gig cards. It's $36.88 per card at the Walmart down the street from me. Not bad! They are 30 MB/second cards, where the UDMA ones are 60 MB/second. I would think for most types of photography, it wouldn't be an issue - unless you were shooting a high frame per second.

I have the grip and larger battery for my D700 that claims 8 FPS. I mainly wanted it for the 2nd shutter release, have loved that since shooting with the F4 years ago. The UDMA cards have no problem keeping up, but I don't shoot in bursts that often.

I did order a grip for mine, link delight, I also have one for the D200 from the same place. I fired off about 60 shots this afternoon and the card performed just fine. I didn't know about the udma cards. I usually use 4 GB cards and they are all ultra's. There are a lot of fraud cards on the internet so I buy them from know places. Those udma's are twice the write speed, I read somewhere that in most cases the camera is the major limiting factor, that could have been an old read.

Agree 100% on buying cards from known sources. I only buy Sandisk or Lexar CF cards, although I *did* find an old Nikon branded 8 Mb CF card in my desk drawer when I cleaned it out last week. I've been using Toshiba SDHC cards and had good luck with them.

It's taking a fair amount of self control to not drive over to Walmart right now and stock up on 8 gig cards, though

I think I read somewhere that a 14 bit, uncompressed RAW file from a D3X is around 130mb. I guess if someone needs a body that costs as much as a nice used car, their CF card budget is gonna be bigger than mine

My first really big card was for my 1 mp kodak in 1985 +/- and it was a 30 mb, cost me $270, only seemed fair, the camera was just under a grand. Gave that camera to a grandson, card still works.

I remember a 1GB hard drive that was $600 How times have changed!

johnwartjr said:

I remember a 1GB hard drive that was $600 How times have changed!

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My first hard drive was not nearly that big, it was for a ibm pc clone that had 2 5.25" floppy drives.

This was a big step up from the comodore 64 that I stated with.
Don't forget *.* Gotta love some dos commands.

Used my new (used) D300 for a wedding this past weekend. It performed flawlessly, several hundred shots down, in natural light, my 18-200 VR and didn't use my strobe. Dowloaded the card today and the shots look good, real good and the exposure looks spot on. What an amazing camera, truly enjoyed using it. I am so glad I've added it to my kit.

Fantastic! I love mine. I had some geat shots this past weekend with no flash at 2500 ISO with an 18-200 VR and they looked great.

Zak

I was blessed with good light even indoors, shot most of it at ISO 800. It is a really fast camera, seems to even focus faster. You were correct about the battery Zak, that is a real pleasent suprise, just seems to last a lot longer. My grip was waiting for me when I got back home, didn't need it at all.

Yeah, I don't use the battery grip for the extra battery, only for the feel and controls on verticle. I keep the grip on all the time and just insert one battery into the grip and none in the camera.

Zak

ZakSaenzPhotography said:

I hope you enjoy it. My D700 has nothing on my D300 and D300s as far as quality images. I think it is all in the camera set up.

Zak

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Hiya Zak...

What do you reckon the set-up will be like with the D300S and the 24-70 + 70-200 f2.8's ?? I think they are my final decission after weeks of pondering and sleepless nights! (haha)

Brian