not sure I like my D300

stu_the_flat

stu_the_flat

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Stuart
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I was wondering if you guys could help me. I have upgraded from a D60 to a D300, but there are a couple of features that I use on a daily basis on my D60 that I cannot find on my D300 (and I have looked in the manual)

The first is I do a lot of scientific imaging and have the camera coupled to a microscope, (one reason I wanted the D300 was so I didn't have to manually meter) but I always wrote a description of what I was photographing as the folder name. It appears that I can only number folders in the D300 which is very limiting.

The second is what was called the rangefinder on my D60, this told me by how much the frame was out of focus and in what direction, I really need this function. In the manual it simply refers to the autofocus indicator as the range finder. This is not nearly so informative.

Thirdly and I will have to test this. I don't like the colour fidelity of the D300, I feel that my D60 was much much accurate, although this may just be in my head as the seasons have just changed, I will do a side by side test at the weekend.

Any help on the two missing features would be appreciated

Cheers Stuart
 
You change the three letter part of the folder name from DSC to whatever you want, as for the rangefinder function the D300, as you've figured out, doesn't have that...
 
The D300 does have the rangefinder dot in manual focus but that only shows the focus point.
You can get a split prism focus screen for katz eyes should you wish
 
PsiFox said:
The D300 does have the rangefinder dot in manual focus but that only shows the focus point.
You can get a split prism focus screen for katz eyes should you wish
Click to expand...

What Stuart is referring to is the feature on the D60 that allows the exposure indicator in the viewfinder to be used as focus direction indicator instead.
 
Blimey now learnt 2 things today:)
 
Cheers guys, starting to like it, My D60 let me choose 5 letters! :D but I can live with three, I guess I will just have to live with this simpiler camera! :D

Still not sure about the colours its producing,

I have already installed a katzeye.

Stuart
 
stu_the_flat said:
Cheers guys, starting to like it, My D60 let me choose 5 letters! :D but I can live with three, I guess I will just have to live with this simpiler camera! :D

Still not sure about the colours its producing,

I have already installed a katzeye.

Stuart
Click to expand...

that is more then likley due to the color profile that is setup in the camera, i Just brought a D300s and i had to tune it abit before i was happy.

The Katzeye should help with MF as well :)
 
I moved to Nikon from Canon and found the colours brighter on the Nikon, i did not like it at first now i prefer it as my Wifes Canon shots always look washed out.
 
Should have bought a Pentax............
 
Just one idea for naming your images etc. How about shooting tethered to a computer. Then you can write notes right into the metadata of the image as you shoot. It would also allow you to see the image big on a screen, so you can get manual focusing spot on.
 
Sweet lord, made exactly the same upgrade and your last problem is exactly the same as mine. For me, some dark greens are coming out completely unsaturated - they just look grey. Fiddled with the white balance and it's definitely not that. Really perplexing!
 
Ok so I did a quick and drity test,

Both photos taken with tripod mounted 70-200mm at 70mm

1/3 sec
f5
ISO 400
Colour standard
White balance incandecent (Taken under energy saving light bulb)

The results are quite staggering. these are just resized to 800 pixels.

D60
D60.jpg


D300
D300.jpg


I thing there is a massive perfomance diffrence between the two. What does everybody else think?

Cheers Stuart
 
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There are quite a few people who believe that when Nikon made the D40 and D60 they actually made the camera too good. I used to hear people talk of UPGRADING from a D200or D300 to a D40/D60, sounds crazy but a lot of people had similar experiences to yourself in regard to out of the box image quality.
 
what is it about the d60 image that you find better?

I am not disagreeing with you but I dont see it. I can see more saturation in the d60 images but that can be changed quite easily in camera. I think the d300 image has reproduced the whites slightly better.
 
I know its very subjective but my desk "looks" more like the D60s image.

I know the schemnes can be changed but standard should be trying to reproduce and accurate image. and some of the D300 colours schemes I could not imagine using unless I was photographing somebody I don't like!

but I will download the colour schemes that are on Nikon site. I am interested in the D2X setting as I remember joe mcnally commenting on it.

Stuart
 
Rules are 800px on the bottom edge, right? Sorry if not.

Both at..
1/3 sec
f2.8
50mm
ISO200
WB @ 3000
D300s using picture mode "neutral"..

d60 top, d300s bottom. Only editing is resize and putting them together..

5079507658_af1ea37e82_b.jpg
 
SamuelHearn said:
Rules are 800px on the bottom edge, right? Sorry if not.

Both at..
1/3 sec
f2.8
50mm
ISO200
WB @ 3000
D300s using picture mode "neutral"..

d60 top, d300s bottom. Only editing is resize and putting them together..

5079507658_af1ea37e82_b.jpg
Click to expand...


I think this is a true representation of the differing image quality between the two bodie's.
 
To me it just seems a bit over saturated in general, but anything with dark greens appears to have a bit of a hue shift. Images seem to be a bit too contrasty straight out of the camera also. I wish they never included these "picture modes" :lol:
 
Maybe I'm just living in the past, I've become far too fond of my beloved D60! Also now having to change all of the photoshop actions I made to compensate for the saturation :bang:
 
I am pretty new to photography (2yrs of taking it fairly seriously), but I would guess that camera improvements are like most things such as in golf clubs, car engines etc. Manufacturers need to keep selling new products, so any slight new improvement that makes only 1% difference in 1% of the times the camera is used is sold as a ground breaking change in technology. Im sure the d300 will be a better camera for many reasons but when taking a normal picture in a normal situation there probably wont be much, if any, difference. It might be better however when tracking birds in flight or it might stand less chance of breaking if you drop it, it might be better taking pictures of your kid in the back room that is dark and you need a higher ISO. I picked up a d7000 at a show last week and felt a ridiculous urge to trade my d90 in for it immediately, only when i got home and thought in the clear light of day about if it will improve my pictures did i come to conclusion that it wont make me any better at photography. There is definitely some irrational part of us that believes we need the new product to improve.

Just my thoughts anyway
 
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I'm always scared that the companys see one goal. They had a mega pixel race and now they are having an ISO race. I think that they may make scarfices in the image quailty that nobody talks about to get an impressive looking spec sheet.

Take the relaese of Nikons newest cameras, you could read the spec on there website but they didn't put up sample photographs, Which is the most important thing about a camera!

The D60 packs a might punch! :D

I have downloaded the new colour shemes and I have to say that they are alot nicer. exept for LAndscape. Didn't like that one!

Stuart
 
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Just tinkered with my own, I found that "Neutral" with saturation and contrast both one click down gives a "D60-esque" feel. Only had my bedroom to sample with though, so might be completely off!

Glad to hear its working for you. I might try the D2x ones tomorrow :)

Sam
 
In the images of the desk, the D60 definitely seems to have a wider dynamic range.
The image with the apple, similar DR and I prefer the sharpness of the D300s image. (But that's just a personal pref, nothing scientific)

I'm surprised to read that the D60 both allows more than 3 character file naming and has an actually indicator of how out of focus you are with the E-rangefinder, even the D3 is stuck on 3 character filenames and has the simple arrow and dot rangefinder!
 
Where is puddleduck? i know he is a fan of the D60 :suspect:
 
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stu_the_flat said:
I was wondering if you guys could help me. I have upgraded from a D60 to a D300, but there are a couple of features that I use on a daily basis on my D60 that I cannot find on my D300 (and I have looked in the manual)

The first is I do a lot of scientific imaging and have the camera coupled to a microscope, (one reason I wanted the D300 was so I didn't have to manually meter) but I always wrote a description of what I was photographing as the folder name. It appears that I can only number folders in the D300 which is very limiting.

The second is what was called the rangefinder on my D60, this told me by how much the frame was out of focus and in what direction, I really need this function. In the manual it simply refers to the autofocus indicator as the range finder. This is not nearly so informative.

Thirdly and I will have to test this. I don't like the colour fidelity of the D300, I feel that my D60 was much much accurate, although this may just be in my head as the seasons have just changed, I will do a side by side test at the weekend.

Any help on the two missing features would be appreciated

Cheers Stuart
Click to expand...

Sorry to go completely OT from the theme of the thread, but I'm interested in coupling my D200 to a 'scope (I bought a D200 for the same reason - it's ability to meter manual lenses). What did you use to couple it with?
 
there are a number of ways of doing it. Most of our scopes already have an F-mount to its just a matter of bolting it on! then to adjust the ISO and shutter speed and illumination power until to get an exposure your happy with.

I also use an F to C mount for almost every other microscope, and in the rare instance I want to photograph down a simple Dissecting microscope I have a cheap adaptor that will clamp onto the eyepiece however the image quality is poor.

Hope that helps

Stuart
 
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stu_the_flat said:
there are a number of ways of doing it. Most of our scopes already have an F-mount to its just a matter of bolting it on! then to adjust the ISO and shutter speed and illumination power until to get an exposure your happy with.

I also use an F to C mount for almost every other microscope, and in the rare instance I want to photograph down a simple Dissecting microscope I have a cheap adaptor that will clamp onto the eyepiece however the image quality is poor.

Hope that helps

Stuart
Click to expand...
And there I was thinking your PhD was in computer science...

Anyways. Surely, all these colour profile settings don't apply to Raw files? I know Graham asked earlier in the discussion. Raw/Jpeg?

I advice that every time you get sad about losing your D60, you start playing with the D300's buttons. Helps.
 
Cistron said:
And there I was thinking your PhD was in computer science...

Anyways. Surely, all these colour profile settings don't apply to Raw files? I know Graham asked earlier in the discussion. Raw/Jpeg?

I advice that every time you get sad about losing your D60, you start playing with the D300's buttons. Helps.
Click to expand...

No I'm not a computer scientist but I do a bit of programming, I did notice your post on using a laminar flow hood for installing the katzeye and I thought I could play a droky top trumps and say I woulod install it in the class 10,000 clean room, but I couldn't be bothered! :D

They where shot as jpg, I supose they could be pay less attention to the colour representation as they exspect D300 users to shoot raw, Sigh, I'm very resistant to shooting raw I spent enough time sat infront to the computer as it is!

Stuart
 
stu_the_flat said:
No I'm not a computer scientist but I do a bit of programming, I did notice your post on using a laminar flow hood for installing the katzeye and I thought I could play a droky top trumps and say I woulod install it in the class 10,000 clean room, but I couldn't be bothered! :D
Click to expand...
Sweet, but overkill alert. Haha.

They where shot as jpg, I supose they could be pay less attention to the colour representation as they exspect D300 users to shoot raw, Sigh, I'm very resistant to shooting raw I spent enough time sat infront to the computer as it is!
Click to expand...
Just shoot combined Raw+Fine Jpeg. That gives you the freedom of being lazy. I suspect you'd still be able to squeeze ~500 images onto a 8GB card.
 
Cistron said:
Sweet, but overkill alert. Haha.

Just shoot combined Raw+Fine Jpeg. That gives you the freedom of being lazy. I suspect you'd still be able to squeeze ~500 images onto a 8GB card.
Click to expand...

Yes thats why I didn't say it! Couldn't quite imagine getting siuted up just to remove my camera lens!

I used to Shoot JPG +RAW if people where expecting images from me. but I soon relised that if I was working on the raw I was infact turd polishing so I just got used to shooting Jpg, the D60 loaned itself to that quite well and it would need to rest of the day off inorder to write jpg and raw to the card! But I supose I could get back into the habit.

Stuart
 
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