Fuzzy Focus On D300 - Auto Focus - Noise - Image Quality

I put a D300, grip, extra battery and another CF Card into my online shopping cart but then decided to read a few more opinions on the D300 before I punch the submit button and 2 hours later, it's still waiting as I'm so confused.

I have never seen so many different and mixed opinions on a camera as I have this one! Especially puzzling to me is the mixed opinions on the Auto Focus of the camera. I read Thom Hogan's (and other professionals) review and I'm thinking this is just too good to be true that Nikon has put a focus system on a camera on a D300 that seems to rival the D2 series and exceed it in some regards. As a matter of a fact, Thom Hogan says in his online review at http://www.bythom.com/nikond300review.htm

- "Faster than a D2x - You've got to be kidding me: faster autofocus, faster frame rates, faster card writes than a body that sold for three times the price. That's progress" - *

Then, I read a lot of the comments on here and it seems that some feel that there is no or very little improvement whatsoever between it and my D100 and D200. Some claim it's slower than the D200 although in certain conditions it might be a wee bit better. Why the wildy different opinions on this?

One individual seems heckbent on proving that his D40 is the best DSLR ever put on the market and seemed willing to fight anyone who opposed that opinion. Another posted his opinion on the camera and provided some photos of a wedding he had done and was attacked in a scathing manner for doing so! I try to weed these type of comments out but..being human, they find their way in the brain as well.

Some might even attack me for starting this thread or the content of it but I have a very fuzzy opinion about this camera now. Why the wildly varying opinons?

what you are looking for.

D40 is the best camera (better than even D3) for someone who's looking
for an SLR below $500

D3 is the best camera for professionals who want high ISO, speed and full frame regardless of money

Fuji F20 point and shoot is the best for someone who wants to spend less than $150 and and get best high ISO and don't care about speed or features

Canon 5D is the best camera for someone who's looking for full frame and best IQ at 12MP (higher resolution than D3 at lower ISO and better high ISO than D300)

Canon 40D is the best for someone who's a semi pro or serious amateur and have Canon glass. D300 is not worth for them.

and finally D300 is the best semi pro camera in Nikon lineup now. Actually it's called best semi-pro camera the market by Phill and many reviewers. For a serious amateur or semi pro who's willing to spend $1800 and like the 1.5X crop and who has Nikon glass (wildlife photographers like me) D300 is THE choice.

So if you are a beginner, I won't recommend D300. I've been using Nikon semi pro and pro cameras for years. So for me it's very easy to use. If you are a beginner there are better choices...

Hope this helps

kantucky said:

I put a D300, grip, extra battery and another CF Card into my online
shopping cart but then decided to read a few more opinions on the
D300 before I punch the submit button and 2 hours later, it's still
waiting as I'm so confused.

I have never seen so many different and mixed opinions on a camera as
I have this one! Especially puzzling to me is the mixed opinions on
the Auto Focus of the camera. I read Thom Hogan's (and other
professionals) review and I'm thinking this is just too good to be
true that Nikon has put a focus system on a camera on a D300 that
seems to rival the D2 series and exceed it in some regards. As a
matter of a fact, Thom Hogan says in his online review at
http://www.bythom.com/nikond300review.htm

- "Faster than a D2x - You've got to be kidding me: faster
autofocus, faster frame rates, faster card writes than a body that
sold for three times the price. That's progress" - *

Then, I read a lot of the comments on here and it seems that some
feel that there is no or very little improvement whatsoever between
it and my D100 and D200. Some claim it's slower than the D200
although in certain conditions it might be a wee bit better. Why the
wildy different opinions on this?

One individual seems heckbent on proving that his D40 is the best
DSLR ever put on the market and seemed willing to fight anyone who
opposed that opinion. Another posted his opinion on the camera and
provided some photos of a wedding he had done and was attacked in a
scathing manner for doing so! I try to weed these type of comments
out but..being human, they find their way in the brain as well.

Some might even attack me for starting this thread or the content of
it but I have a very fuzzy opinion about this camera now. Why the
wildly varying opinons?

Click to expand...

--
Thanks
Jemini Joseph

http://www.wildbirdimages.com

I know I'm goin' sound like I'm making a smart remark back but I'm not but it seems to me that my post was pretty plain. I'm puzzled about the wild variance on people's opinion of this camera (the D300) using other Nikon DSLR's from the D200 up to compare it with. I know nothing about Sony or Canon or any other's as I couldn't afford to switch horses in the middle of the stream anymore

Remember also, I did say I owned a D100 and a D200.

I don't expect every single D300 user to be totally happy with it. Rent it for a day and decide yourself.
As for me, it does what I expect it to do.

I just posted this to another person and that is even with my D70, and on my last event, my D300, don't always hold a focus. I did take action shots, 12 bit raw (.NEF) using my SB-800 flash, at 1/320th sec, with an 18-70 lens (so the shutter speed and the quickness of flash duration should have been adequate) to produce sharpness other than the effect of focus.

In my action event, I will say that I was handholding and that at least in one of my images, there doesn't appear to be anything in focus, which could point to, well, me. But, I don't know why unless I 'snapped' my (most all of) pictures too hard*. But, I have experienced this with my D70 also, but assumed that the D300, with all those sensors (which I don't think take effect until you're on continuous focus (I shot single center area (a cross-type) only this time) and an AF-S lens, should have come put perfect.

I shot my first test shots at our local park's flower garden and even with a good 105 macro at f16 to 22 most of the time, and at least 1/300 sec and higher hitting 1/1200 (+ -), I didn't think my flowers were that sharp, before any adjustments. I had to bump up the sharpess and they are still not perfect. Those were on a tripod with my cable release in bright sunlight at ISO 200 and 400 for testing.

This other fellow did say that when he recorded his particular lens at +17 in the D300 settings, he got sharp focus. But, why should we have to do that.

I tend to think it is me, but I don't know why. I know I have to test various focal lengths, f stops, shutter speeds and even ISOs to see if I can isolate what is happening. I have a very subtle feeling that digital for some reason needs a faster shutter speed that the minimum recommended for 1/. But, I have 1/500 to 1/200 images that are not sharp either.

Has anyone gotten this problem and is there any resolution (even a Nikon problem) that anyone knows about?

• Another thing I am noticing about my D300 is that the shutter button seems to go far down (feeling wise not necessarily physically), as if I don't know when it is going to go off, than my previous models and the grip's shutter button I would describe as a hair trigger. The former is great for a rifle trigger squeeze, but not a camera that I use for quick shooting.

Another friend confirmed the grip shutter button as well.
--
MichaelM
West Hartford, CT USA

D300 is a worthy upgrade IMHO

These are features in D300 better than D200 (or even D2X which I owned)

1) 51-point AF. People complain it's slow. But I think it's still better than D200.

More importantly it's hard to miss your subject because most of the frame is covered with AF points. If you are not into sports or wildlife like flying birds this may not a worthy feature. For me this is the only reason I sold D2X and bought D300. I have no regret regarding this.

2) AF Fine tune. This feature is much useful than I thought. 3 of 4 lenses I own have back/front focus. I get sharper images now

3) Write speed to CF card. With the right CF card D300 empty the buffer in less than 10 secods. This is 3 times faster than D200/D2x. Again if you are not into fast action this is not very useful.

4) High resolution LCD. Helps to make sure you got the sharp image from the field. Older LCD's were not dependable

5) 8FPS with battery grip and AA batteries. D2X could not do 8 FPS at 12MP. Useful for fast action

6) Better High ISO compared to D200 and D2X. Around 2 stops advantage compared to D2X and one stop compared to D200.

7) 100% viewfinder.

8) My Menu - Easy to change your favorite camera settings.

9) Live View. For some people this is very useful. Not for me as Contrast detect AF is very slow and I cannot see anything on LCD in bright sun light. If you are into subjects like indoor product shots, studio or even macro this is very useful.

The list goes like this. These are the major features I like about D300.

kantucky said:

I know I'm goin' sound like I'm making a smart remark back but I'm
not but it seems to me that my post was pretty plain. I'm puzzled
about the wild variance on people's opinion of this camera (the D300)
using other Nikon DSLR's from the D200 up to compare it with. I know
nothing about Sony or Canon or any other's as I couldn't afford to
switch horses in the middle of the stream anymore

Remember also, I did say I owned a D100 and a D200.

Click to expand...

--
Thanks
Jemini Joseph

http://www.wildbirdimages.com

As for me, it does what I expect it to do.

Me too

tmv said:

I don't expect every single D300 user to be totally happy with it.
Rent it for a day and decide yourself.
As for me, it does what I expect it to do.

Click to expand...

--
Thanks
Jemini Joseph

http://www.wildbirdimages.com

Thanks..

A few things I'm looking at this camera for is the increased cross type senors. My 100 and my 200 I've always used just the center sensor in both as it's so much faster and more accurate.

I do a lot of shooting in lower light, 98% people, where my D200 can tend to be a little slow. It's far slower to me than the D2x to focus.

The live preview would possibly be a worthy addition to me as well as I like to shoot small children and I'm often on my belly shooting them on their level.

I find it puzzling that you're not adamant that the D300 is much faster than the D200, that is what I'm getting at with others as well, especially considering that the D300 and the D3 share the same system

May I suggest you to try this: (just a re-post of another thread of mine)
FOCUS techniques w/ AF-ON button:
· Change your menu so AF is activated ONLY with the AF-ON button.
· Change AF-C to release priority.
· Lock focus in center point w/ Multi selector switch to L position.
· Put your focus mode (SCM) switch in C and leave it there.
· Use 21 focus points.
Now, on the fly, you can:
· Manually focus: just don't touch the AF-ON button.

· Focus and recompose w/ static objects / people: put the CENTRAL focus point on subject ( an Eye Iris or the Head of Bird for example) , push AF-ON, check if focus indicator green light is ON on viewfinder, and release button (you’ll lock focus). Recompose and press shutter release.

· Continuously focus w/ moving objects: Track target with CENTRAL of the 21 focus points while holding down AF-ON. Fire at will in single or continuous shooting modes (use release mode dial to select S, C-low, C-high).

If your target/bird is moving/flying I don't think it is possible IMHO to choose among others focus points than the central, because I think the target will be moving around the viewfinder in a erratic movement!

Remember also that in continuous focus mode, the camera will target the initial area (the bird's head in our example) that you have selected the moment you press the AF-ON button, and then it will try to keep that specif area in focus using the other 20 points.

To recompose you MUST NOT hold the AF button: just press it once targeting the bird's head (our example again). Then recompose and shoot.

In this case you could have a focus problem if the bird's head moves between the moment you lift your thumb from AF-ON button and the moment you press the shutter.

If you dont deactivate the focus using the shutter release button, the camera will change the focus again as soon you press the shutter and your RECOMPOSITION will NOT work! (so please use a5-> AF-ON ONLY)


Regards

--
Ray Soares

See my pictures at http://www.pbase.com/raysoares

kantucky said:

Thanks..

A few things I'm looking at this camera for is the increased cross
type senors. My 100 and my 200 I've always used just the center
sensor in both as it's so much faster and more accurate.

I do a lot of shooting in lower light, 98% people, where my D200 can
tend to be a little slow. It's far slower to me than the D2x to focus.

The live preview would possibly be a worthy addition to me as well as
I like to shoot small children and I'm often on my belly shooting
them on their level.

I find it puzzling that you're not adamant that the D300 is much
faster than the D200, that is what I'm getting at with others as
well, especially considering that the D300 and the D3 share the same
system

Click to expand...

If you are talking about how fast the camera acquires initial focus, IMO you won't see much difference IF YOU compare them using same AF-S lens. I think even D70 will be same to D2X using same lens. AF with AF-S lens depends a lot on the lens than the camera. I remember Thom Hogan talking about this.

I had D70 and D2X before getting D300. The only speed difference I found is when you have tele converter on 300/4 AF-S lens, D300 is much faster than D2X.

The biggest difference between D200/D2X and D300 is in tracking. D300 is much better for tracking.

If you are using a screw driver lens (non AF-S) then D200 and D300 may be same speed, D70 is much slower than these and D2x/D3 is still faster. In this case Camera have the focusing motor and pro camera's have higher power.

Another point is that AF varies between lenses even if they are AF-S lenses.

18-200 focus like a snail. 300/4 AF-S is much faster. 500mm F/4 af-s is even faster. 18-70 is better than 18-200, but slower than 300mm.

Hope this helps.

--
Thanks
Jemini Joseph

http://www.wildbirdimages.com

What is it that you expect it to do?

jeminijoseph said:

If you are talking about how fast the camera acquires initial focus,
IMO you won't see much difference IF YOU compare them using same AF-S
lens. I think even D70 will be same to D2X using same lens. AF with
AF-S lens depends a lot on the lens than the camera. I remember Thom
Hogan talking about this.

Click to expand...

My D50's initial acquisition is slower than the D300...by a noticible bit (if you are shooting birds in flight). However, the D300's initial acquisition is slower than the D1H. Overall, the D300's AF module is good enough for birds in flight, but I sure wish it had an acquisition capability like the D1H. With the D1H, you can start the trigger and then have the AF lock on the target in between a succession of shutters...the D300 doesn't seem to do this well. (my opinion).

Ben Yeh said:

jeminijoseph said:

If you are talking about how fast the camera acquires initial focus,
IMO you won't see much difference IF YOU compare them using same AF-S
lens. I think even D70 will be same to D2X using same lens. AF with
AF-S lens depends a lot on the lens than the camera. I remember Thom
Hogan talking about this.

Click to expand...

My D50's initial acquisition is slower than the D300...by a noticible
bit (if you are shooting birds in flight).

Click to expand...

If D1H was faster than D2X you might be right. I never tried a D1H. But I had D2X for couple of years and D70 before that. I didn't see any AF speed difference with Sigma 500mm HSM and Nikon 300mm f/4 AF-S. Well at least any noticeable difference.

However, the D300's

Ben Yeh said:

initial acquisition is slower than the D1H. Overall, the D300's AF
module is good enough for birds in flight, but I sure wish it had an
acquisition capability like the D1H. With the D1H, you can start the
trigger and then have the AF lock on the target in between a
succession of shutters...the D300 doesn't seem to do this well. (my
opinion).

Click to expand...

I think you are wrong. If this is the case if you take a series of shots only the first one will be in focus. I've series of 8 shots in a raw all of them are in focus. The bird was coming at me. Not moving sideways.. All the camera does focus in between. Only difference is how often they do that. This means a lot for tracking.

--
Thanks
Jemini Joseph

http://www.wildbirdimages.com

D70+300mm f/4 AF-S focus from minimum distance to infinity in .7 seconds. This is faster than any flying birds. You don't need lots of speed to track of the subjects, but need a smarter tracking. D300 is far superior with SRS than D2X. Again no clue about D1H

I've seen the bird gone totally out of my frame while I had the AF-ON button pressed, but camera won't leave the focus plane. It will catch the bird again when it comes back to the frame. With D2X the moment the subject move out of focusing point camera will focus in the background. This is why I have so much trust in SRS.

jeminijoseph said:

Ben Yeh said:

jeminijoseph said:

If you are talking about how fast the camera acquires initial focus,
IMO you won't see much difference IF YOU compare them using same AF-S
lens. I think even D70 will be same to D2X using same lens. AF with
AF-S lens depends a lot on the lens than the camera. I remember Thom
Hogan talking about this.

Click to expand...

My D50's initial acquisition is slower than the D300...by a noticible
bit (if you are shooting birds in flight).

Click to expand...

If D1H was faster than D2X you might be right. I never tried a D1H.
But I had D2X for couple of years and D70 before that. I didn't see
any AF speed difference with Sigma 500mm HSM and Nikon 300mm f/4
AF-S. Well at least any noticeable difference.

However, the D300's

jeminijoseph said:

initial acquisition is slower than the D1H. Overall, the D300's AF
module is good enough for birds in flight, but I sure wish it had an
acquisition capability like the D1H. With the D1H, you can start the
trigger and then have the AF lock on the target in between a
succession of shutters...the D300 doesn't seem to do this well. (my
opinion).

Click to expand...

I think you are wrong. If this is the case if you take a series of
shots only the first one will be in focus. I've series of 8 shots in
a raw all of them are in focus. The bird was coming at me. Not moving
sideways.. All the camera does focus in between. Only difference is
how often they do that. This means a lot for tracking.

--
Thanks
Jemini Joseph

http://www.wildbirdimages.com

Click to expand...

--
Thanks
Jemini Joseph

http://www.wildbirdimages.com

I finally got my hands on a D300 (someone suggested renting one..that's not possible anywhere near local to me) at Circuit City. It had a 18 - 200 lens on it and I have to say, I was not impressed with the AF speed inside that store this evening as saying it was that much better than a D200.

How much of it was that lens though? I really don't know anything about the lens. Was a lot of the searching and slow speed due to this lens, is it fairly slow to compare with say the 80-200?

kantucky said:

I finally got my hands on a D300 (someone suggested renting
one..that's not possible anywhere near local to me) at Circuit City.
It had a 18 - 200 lens on it and I have to say, I was not impressed
with the AF speed inside that store this evening as saying it was
that much better than a D200.

How much of it was that lens though?

Click to expand...

100%. If you have a 70-200 or 300mm f/4 AF-S or one of those big lenses why don't you go and try again? Even 18-70 is much faster than 18-200. This was the slowest lens I've ever tried. Like I mentioned earlier AF speed is fully depend on the lens with AF-S lenses.

I really don't know anything

kantucky said:

about the lens. Was a lot of the searching and slow speed due to this
lens, is it fairly slow to compare with say the 80-200?

Click to expand...

If you are talking about 80-200/2.8 AF-S, YES. That lens will be super fast compared to 18-200. It's due to it's 11X zoom and slow aperture (5.6).

--
Thanks
Jemini Joseph

http://www.wildbirdimages.com

Oh my! Get the D300, its a fine camera and im VERY fussy! D40, is a good camera but you can't compare the two really, its more like a blown up compact in certain ways. Stop worrying, take the plunge and have fun. I faffed around like this for ages and all that happened was the price went up and I still got it. I went from a 30D and 500mm f/4 and got the d300 with a slightly different lens 105mm Macro and I find it beats the 30D hands down! IQ is great, focus is fast but as with any camera it can be slow at times but nothing that would put me off, its better than the D200 IMO and better than just about any other camera currently on the market at that price range!

Go for it.

Michael, Do you have VR on that 105? If you do, did you remember to turn it off while shooting on a Tripod? Very important or fuzzy images will be the result! The lens thinks it has to compensate when none is needed. I had to learn that the hard way.

Hope this is the answer to your problems.
--
Barb
thru the lens and into the world~~

http://www.allenpix.smugmug.com

Thanks for the heads up on the 18-200 lens jeminijoseph and the others too. I know that there's been a lot written about the 18 - 200 in the past but I've not paid any attention to it as it's never been something that personally interested me. I also really never paid much attention to the release of the D300 until a couple weeks ago when a photographer friend of mine mentioned how people were liking the improved ISO performance.

I was afraid I'd get totally flamed for starting this thread to begin with but...I'm still so mystified about the mixed comments on the camera. I see Phil's review here..he seems gloss right over any increased AF on the camera in his review. Thom Hogan really zeroes in on it. Then...owners who are posting on different threads makes one wonder whether some copies are so much better than other ones even they're so different. Some say it might be slower than their D200 and then others say they're leaving their D2x at home in favor of the D300 now. Strange stuff...very mixed opinions

saving...good info