D200 & D300 high ISO examples

[Hacker]

I went to Digital depot today where they were holding Nikon open day and managed to get my grubby mitts on a D300 for a few minutes. I wanted to see if the high ISO shots were as good as people say they are so I took my D200 as a comparison. This was hardly an exhaustive test but I used the same lens and both cameras were set to aperture priority at f/2.8.

The noise handling of the D300 is very impressive and better than I thought it would be. The new AF system looks good and is much more configurable, the camera also hosts many new features which look interesting.

All of these are as shot from the camera, no PP, just resized.

I appear not to have taken a shot with D300 at ISO 2000 but here is one at 3200:

And yes, I did play with the D3 but that is for tomorrow.....

 

[Yv]

Thanks Colin. That does look like a marked improvement. Like you say, not exhaustive, but a good marker for what to expect for those lucky enough to be getting a D300 soon....whihc isn't me :shake:

 

[LeeP]

Still waiting for mine [S3]NEED D300[/S3] !

However, results are looking very promising. On my indoor equestrian events, being able to run at higher ISO will certainly help with the shutter speed ...

 

[ppp]

Damn i gotta start saving

 

[Forbiddenbiker]

Drool...

As you say not very scientific mate ... hard to make much of that test this end,.

Your hooked by the sounds of it ... you lucky so and so, whens yours arriving then.

 

[Phil T]

Thank gawd someone here knows how to do this properly! Thanks Hacker......you going for it then?

 

[Joe T]

Thanks Colin. That does look like a marked improvement. Like you say, not exhaustive, but a good marker for what to expect for those lucky enough to be getting a D300 soon....whihc isn't me :shake:

Same here

 

[TG.]

Yep went to DD too, both the D300 and the D3 look very impressive, there were some impressive shots of the model there taken at 3200 and 6400 ISO as well,so will have to start saving should take me about a year or so

 

[Wile E. coyote]

Looks darn good, wish I could afford one, ah well in the future

 

[Hacker]

Yep went to DD too, both the D300 and the D3 look very impressive, there were some impressive shots of the model there taken at 3200 and 6400 ISO as well,so will have to start saving should take me about a year or so

What time were you there Tel? I was at the 12 noon demo.

 

[awp]

On my screen I don't see that much difference - the D200 shots look pretty good too.

 

[desantnik]

My friend brought his new D300 along to the motorsport gig we did at Excel at the weekend... it is a VERY impressive camera and if I had money to burn I would probably own a Nikkon setup to compliment my Canon one by now. The high ISO performance is totally stonking and some of its low light metering capabilities are waaay better than my 30D.

Not sure how much better than the D200 it is, but if you have a D80 like my friend did, its well worth the upgrade IMHO.

 

[R8JimBob88]

Very good comparisons. I had the D200 on my next list of things to buy..... making me think again now

 

[BigBaldBob]

To be honest I cant really see much difference at 1600 (apart from the D200 shot being slightly out of focus)
The 2000 ISO and above comparisons do show an improvement.
A 100% crop would show more really.
The question I ask myself is do I shoot at 2000 ISO and above enough to warrant changing my D200?
For me there just isn't a big enough jump overall to make the change and warrant the cost.
I can live without an extra frame per second,2 mega pixels and live view.
I think Ill skip a generation this time round and spend the money on glass.
It does look like a great camera tho.
Thanks for taking the time to post these up.

 

[Shak]

Tut tut leaving the lenses open for dust!!

Thanks for sharing. The examples look very interesting.

 

[Jas]

I tried to emulate this test yesterday, but did a very dumb thing which I'll come on to later.

Having taken a few shots with the same lens and D200 vs D300, apart from the focusing, the real difference is the ISO and the review LCD at the back. The most important is the ISO and there really is a difference even beyond ISO 400, a significant difference above ISO 600.

If you regularly need to shoot images and keep reasonable quality in low light, as well as having the fast lens, the D300 really is an advantage over the D200. I can imagine indoor, especially church weddings being such an example.

Oh, by the way, why no examples from me? Having taken the shots on the D300, downloaded them and then realised I had not updated my PS software for the D300 and had the images to be deleted automatically after downloading from the card :bang: However, it was pretty obvious from the lcd at the back of the camera the D300 has a huge advantage on noise.