40D or D300

tdp

tdp

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Tom Dauben
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Hi,

I'm looking at buying a new DSLR soon(ish) and wanted to pick your collective brains over the 40D and D300.

At the moment i have an Olympus E500 with a small selection of Olympus lenses, but would like to get a better camera that will give me a wider choice of lenses from various manufacturers. The E500 will still be used as a backup camera.

I think i've narrowed it down to either the 40D or D300 (or maybe a secondhand 1D mkii?). Just wanted to know experiences of people who have used both of these cameras and any recommendations after having lived with one for a while.

I generally shoot landscapes, animals and motorsport so the use of whatever I get will be pretty varied, however i've started to do a few weddings so whatever I get would need to be good enough for this too. Particularly things like noise and autofocus time bother me with the E500, as well as the frame rate.

I know there's quite a difference in price, but it's likely that whatever i buy would be done on monthly payments anyway.

Hopefully this isn't construed as the age old 'canon or nikon?' but a comparison of the two specific cameras, and whether the D300 is worth the extra money...
 
40d has a faster rapid fire for moto sports, go and hold both cameras you will see and feel what is better.
 
I don't think there is any contest between the 300d and the 40d. The 450d is much closer to the 40d. Live view is also a good feature on the 40d along with many other good features.

On another point, it is interesting to see the difference in IQ between RAW images and JEPG from the camera.

John
 
your talking about the Nikon D300 not the canon 300D aren't you?

What about the canon 50D, 5D or Nikon D700?

The ISO performance on the Nikon's especially the new pro bodies are very good, not sure canon are upto the mark on this apart from the 5D Mkii, but that would be down to whether you shoot alot of indoor photography.

Weddings, landscape.... Full Frame would be better?
Motorsport, Wildlife Cropped Sensor?

Decisons Decisions........

The best advice to to go down to your local camera shop, take some cards and play with as many camera bodies as possible, but this will depend on your budget, remembering to include lens(es), grips, batteries etc

and see which body you feel comfortable holding and using (camera controls)

Peter
 
harddrive said:
40d has a faster rapid fire for moto sports, go and hold both cameras you will see and feel what is better.
Click to expand...

Really? The 40D fires at 6.5fps and the D300 at 6fps (but goes up to 8fps with a grip added) I don't own a 40D myself, but my shooting buddy does and we have both played with eachothers cameras. Personally soeaking, I prefer the D300 over the 40D and that's dowwn to the ergonomics, the crystal clear LCD screen, a finger and thumb roller to controll aperture and shutter-speed, the ease of cotrolling everything on the D300 I feel is much better. As far as results go, they are not that different. Mine (I would say) are that bit sharper and a bit more colourful, but that's down to my lenses. The biggest factor is though that there's about £400 of difference in the 2. Go and try both at a local camera shop and see how you feel with them and if my mate was truthful he'd rather have my Nokon set-up over his Canon LOL I gave him the offer of taking my camera and lenses to the Tandragee road-race last weekend and he'd have jumped at it and left his Canon stuff behind but he was concerned with damaging it, the big poof LOL
 
As your starting fresh, best advice would be go into a good camera shop and try them both out, see which feels best in your hand and which is the more intuative to use.

Might also be worthwhile to take in a memory card and you could compare the identical photos you took as well.

(y)
 
Thanks for all the advice so far. I must admit that i'm tempted by the Nikon becuase of the noise levels.

I tried the 300D when i bought the E500 and found the Canon grip was too close to the lens for my liking.

My main question is do people think the D300 is worth the extra £ over the 40D? I've read comparisons that say they're not too far off each other for performance etc. noise seems to be the main area that differentiates them.

I've ruled out the 5D and D700 due to cost, and don't see the advantage of the 50D over the 40D having read reviews saying that the 50D actually performs worse at higher ISOs than the 40D.
 
What will you be shooting and will you need the higher ISO? Yes, the D300 will perform better at a higher ISO than the 40D but £400 is a lot of money when you could point it in the direction of fast glass that will see you better in the long run. Hard decision, but only you can make it. I chose a D300 as it ticked all the boxes for me and added glass as I went along.
 
Well, i'm getting into wildlife and motorsport photography more, but will still be doing landscapes too. So a bit of everything really.

I have to admit that i'd considered using the 40D as a good grouding in the canon range and then upgrading to something full frame at a later date. I guess it would save me money to begin with too...
 
have you looked at the 50D, much nicer screen, a jump in megapixels and still 200-300 cheaper than a D300
 
i read that they had been successful in keeping noise equal to the 40D.

To be honest i donk think there is alot in it.

One thing i will say is i had a D300 and recently changed to canon and have the 40D, and although the Nikon was better at the high ISO, the canon has less noise at the lower ISO's
 
tdp said:
Yeah, just read reviews saying that the amount of pixels they've crammed into it has actually made the noise levels at higher ISOs worse than that of the 40D...
Click to expand...

Nah - there's a thread on here about the settings you have to change - CT?. Canon changed the default to on, from off on the 40D, which affects the noise. Once you change them the noise levels are much better
 
Thanks, that's exactly the reason i posted the question on here in the first place... that's really useful to know. I just thought it was because of the increase of pixels, but if the camera settings can get rid of that problem it'll probably be a 50D or 300D....:thinking:
 
Wow, 40d or a 300d? Bit of a no brainer if you can afford a 40d, get that. 40d is a lot better than the 300d. ISO performance, and IQ.
 
Oops, my bad..

Both have their pros and cons.

The nikon sensor is bigger, and better at high ISO, but then the canon has live view, and a few other features which the nikon doesn't have.

It's a case of going to a shop and trying them out for yourself..
 
Ant said:
The nikon sensor is bigger, and better at high ISO, but then the canon has live view, and a few other features which the nikon doesn't have.
Click to expand...

The Nikon D300 has live view as well and I don't think there are any features in the Canon40D that the Nikon D300 doesn't have, personally I think the Nikon is a much better body.
The noise level on the 50D is slightly higher than the 40D so if you decide to go for a Canon save yourself some money and go for the 40D.

Good luck
 
tdp said:
I tried the 300D when i bought the E500 and found the Canon grip was too close to the lens for my liking.
Click to expand...

The 40D is a different camera to the original Canon 300D you tried - would be worth getting hold of one now and having a look at it (y)
 
for motorsport, i would have thought the 1d mk11 would the pick of the bunch, full weatherproofing and the 1d focus system will outperform both of the others. only prob is what budget you have for decent glass on the chosen cam?
 
I was hoping to get a deal with a lens included to begin with until i could save some more to get a few more to add to it. Either that or get one lens to begin with that would cover most things (28-300 ish) then expand from there.

As i said this will be an addition to the E500 which i have a few different lenses for, so I could live with limited lenses on the new body for a while to get me started with the new system.
 
Tom, Buy the canon, you know it makes sense ;)
Matt!
p.s. the offer about coming round to look at LR2 is still open if you want to!
 
Iv been having the exact same debate with myself. 50D or D300. My tipping point is that I already have a couple of decent Canon mount lenses so the full switch is too expensive. But if your starting fresh I actually prefer the ergonomics of the Nikon.
As everyone says have a hold and play with both and see what fits you the best. I don't really think one is significantly better than the other. So maybe the 50D and use the extra on some good glass.
 
Yeah, i realised i'd put a typo in the title... i'm talking about the Nikon D300, NOT the Canon 300D.....

I'll be off to the camera shop to have a play with my own memory card and then look at the results as well as see how they both feel.

Just worked out how to change the title of my post, hopefully less confusion from now on...Sorry :bonk:
 
I've had a D300 for 6 months and i love it, IQ is fantastic and it's really well built and nice and chunky which i like spesh with the grip, really good at higher ISO's too spesh if you stick it through noise ninja etc.

As the others have said though it's all down to personal choice and i think you'd be hard pushed to get a poor quality image out of most modern DSLR's these days, and the big 2 both have a good range of lenses to keep you happy so go to the shop and go play. (y)

Chris.
 
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