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DPR struggling to find D300s cons? Here are a few more:

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I consider this one more 'con':

n+1. A good full-featured RAW converter (= Nikon Capture NX) is not free
Prognathous said:
5. No in-body IS
6. No articulated LCD screen
7. Proprietary RAW format
8. Virtual horizon can't actively correct tilt (since the sensor isn't tiltable)
9. Large and heavy

10. Contrast detect AF is slow and doesn't support subject tracking across the frame

11. AF assist light is of the bright white type, more annoying and less effective than the red-pattern type

12. 12MP is lower than the competition (though for most subjects the differences is minimal)
13. No 1080p video; internal microphone is mono only

14. AF microadjust doesn't support separate adjustment for the wide and tele ends of zoom lenses

15. Low value for money compared to most other cameras with similar build and image quality
16. No pixel remapping
17. No multi-shot HDR mode

18. Program shift doesn't offer direct switching to A or S modes via the front and rear dials
19. No manual shift (AEL in M mode doesn't lock resulting EV)
20. No user memory presets to quickly override all camera settings
21. No LCD color calibration
22. No white balance sensor; No full-correction incandescent preset
21. No easy way to view dust on the sensor (dust alert)
22. No live histogram in LV
23. No internal viewfinder curtain
24. The rattle of d-rings can be heard in videos

I hope it helps :-)

Prog.
Click to expand...
--
Marc Vandenhende
 
Tom Christiansen said:
Nikon doesn't have body-IS. It has lens-VR. These are quite different. Watch this:

http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/technology/vr/index.htm

Pay attention to [...] centering before final exposure.
Click to expand...
Doesn't this mean that the framing you get won't be the framing that you see?

Which kind of wipes out a main lens-stabilisation advantage not to forget the value (in this case) of having a 100% viewfinder.
Tom Christiansen said:
Tom Christiansen said:
7. Proprietary RAW format
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Proprietary is just a small con - it means delayed 3rd party support. Slightly more serious is clipping of the raw data at the black end and NR for slow shutter speeds.
 
solarider said:
For whatever reason, in the d300s review given a thumbs up for the 100% viewfinder for both the d300s and 7D, and should include the K-7's 100% viewfinder Though I'm sure it was not on purpose, it does end up looking like the K-7 is coming up short in the text and graphics.
Click to expand...
I think it was because of the eye-point. Wearing glasses, I appreciate reviews that criticise too short eye-points. The magnification was also the smallest, by a whisker, but that's less of an issue since it's a trade-off for brightness (and the 7D has less light to begin with due to its 1.62x -v- 1.53x crop) and focus snap.
 
I agree most of those points are about nit-piking; but...
Tom Christiansen said:
And how are you going to have a sensor that reasonably for even a 10-degree horizon correction?
Click to expand...
Why the 10 degrees figure? 2 degrees (as for the Pentax K-7 - with SR disabled) should be enough, if all you want is to correct a small tilt you could miss while composing.

You would also not want the camera to compensate for intentional tilt, which a 10 degree tilt would be, btw.

However... this means the sensor must move, and that's not the case with Nikon. But it's not a big deal, and you get at least the virtual horizon thingie.

Alex S.
 
One of Nikon's biggest short comings in terms of an out of the box package.
MarcV said:
n+1. A good full-featured RAW converter (= Nikon Capture NX) is not free
Prognathous said:
5. No in-body IS
6. No articulated LCD screen
7. Proprietary RAW format
8. Virtual horizon can't actively correct tilt (since the sensor isn't tiltable)
9. Large and heavy

10. Contrast detect AF is slow and doesn't support subject tracking across the frame

11. AF assist light is of the bright white type, more annoying and less effective than the red-pattern type

12. 12MP is lower than the competition (though for most subjects the differences is minimal)
13. No 1080p video; internal microphone is mono only

14. AF microadjust doesn't support separate adjustment for the wide and tele ends of zoom lenses

15. Low value for money compared to most other cameras with similar build and image quality
16. No pixel remapping
17. No multi-shot HDR mode

18. Program shift doesn't offer direct switching to A or S modes via the front and rear dials
19. No manual shift (AEL in M mode doesn't lock resulting EV)
20. No user memory presets to quickly override all camera settings
21. No LCD color calibration
22. No white balance sensor; No full-correction incandescent preset
21. No easy way to view dust on the sensor (dust alert)
22. No live histogram in LV
23. No internal viewfinder curtain
24. The rattle of d-rings can be heard in videos

I hope it helps :-)

Prog.
Click to expand...
--
Marc Vandenhende
Click to expand...
 
and has a proprietary format should be a Con and then just maybe they will adapt the DNG format like Leica. We will be passing 1000 formats and the thirded party converters will become so bloated that it will take forever to convert your files or they will drop the older cameras, and in that case you will not be able to convert your old photos. You also have to wait (sometime months) to add a new camera to say Lightroom. You would also not have to upgrade the software every year or two like Photoshop ACR that Adobe will not update the older version, they want you to buy the complete package to get the new ACR.

So my suggestion is to put a CON on every camera that shoots RAW and is not in the DNG format.
--
Tom
 
Tom:

I would agree with you, if you can explain to me, assure me that, by moving to DNG we won't be giving up any flexibility we have with the native formats. I also don't want to give up performance or shooting speed, so I would need assurances there to truly support the concept of moving to DNG. It sounds nice in theory, but as with many things I think the devil is in the details.

Steve
Tom C said:
and has a proprietary format should be a Con and then just maybe they will adapt the DNG format like Leica. We will be passing 1000 formats and the thirded party converters will become so bloated that it will take forever to convert your files or they will drop the older cameras, and in that case you will not be able to convert your old photos. You also have to wait (sometime months) to add a new camera to say Lightroom. You would also not have to upgrade the software every year or two like Photoshop ACR that Adobe will not update the older version, they want you to buy the complete package to get the new ACR.

So my suggestion is to put a CON on every camera that shoots RAW and is not in the DNG format.
--
Tom
Click to expand...
 
Prognathous said:
5. No in-body IS
Click to expand...
Prog, I'm not going to respond to most of your points. For the most part, they're "fanboy" issues, preferences to one manufacturer or another's way of doing things.
Prognathous said:
11. AF assist light is of the bright white type, more annoying and less effective than the red-pattern type
Click to expand...
White lights are more expensive than red ones, do you think they use them out of the goodness of their hearts? Red AF assist lights:
  • tend to misfocus on lenses with chromatic aberration
  • will not work at all unless the subject has a substantial red content. They will lock on human skin, but completely ignore much clothing, hair, fur
Prognathous said:
14. AF microadjust doesn't support separate adjustment for the wide and tele ends of zoom lenses
Click to expand...
Have you encountered a zoom lens that needed this? Hint: AF fine tuning compensates for spherical aberration, and zoom lenses move large groups, their SA characteristic doesn't change when zoomed.
Prognathous said:
22. No white balance sensor; No full-correction incandescent preset
Click to expand...
No camera currently uses a WB sensor. They were found to do more harm than good.
Prognathous said:
22. No live histogram in LV
Click to expand...
Actually, that's available if you hit the info button.
Prognathous said:
I hope it helps :-)
Click to expand...
Do you?

I've noticed your postings for years. This tantrum isn't really like you. What gives?

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Tom C said:
and has a proprietary format should be a Con and then just maybe they will adapt the DNG format like Leica. We will be passing 1000 formats and the thirded party converters will become so bloated that it will take forever to convert your files or they will drop the older cameras, and in that case you will not be able to convert your old photos. You also have to wait (sometime months) to add a new camera to say Lightroom.
Click to expand...
Actually, the Leica was one of those cases where you needed LightRoom and ACR updates to get correct color out of the DNG.

There have been multiple such instances.

And that was with Adobe raw converters adhering to Adobe color models (two HSV warp profile interpolation).

For raw converters with more sophisticated color (P1C1 and SilkyPix both use internal spectral models) the raw converter still needs spectral data for each new camera to come out, so DNG or no DNG, there's still a wait.
Tom C11968 said:
You would also not have to upgrade the software every year or two like Photoshop ACR that Adobe will not update the older version, they want you to buy the complete package to get the new ACR.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's exactly what happened with DNG last year. Good summary. Thank you.
Tom C11968 said:
So my suggestion is to put a CON on every camera that shoots RAW and is not in the DNG format.
Click to expand...
My suggestion is to put a con on every camera that only shoots DNG, because that encourages the acceptance of inferior color models.

--
Rahon Klavanian 1912-2008.

Armenian genocide survivor, amazing cook, scrabble master, and loving grandmother. You will be missed.

Ciao! Joseph

http://www.swissarmyfork.com
 
Off the top of my head both the Oly E-3 and E-30 are current cameras that use an external WB sensor :-) There may be others ...

Nick
 
My AWB on my Pentax K-X goes below 3k. Most of my shots indoor have been in the 2900-3000K range. So if the camera only reaches 3200K in auto it will miss it almost everytime indoors.
 
Joseph S Wisniewski said:
For raw converters with more sophisticated color (P1C1 and SilkyPix both use internal spectral models) the raw converter still needs spectral data for each new camera to come out, so DNG or no DNG, there's still a wait.
Click to expand...
Joseph S Wisniewski said:
My suggestion is to put a con on every camera that only shoots DNG, because that encourages the acceptance of inferior color models.
Click to expand...
+1 Insightful

--tom
--
colicky, havocker, picnicky, panicking, picnicking,
panicky, magicked, colicking, picnicked, bivouacking,
colicked, mimicked, frolicked, picnicker, demosaicked ,
garlicky, mimicker, havocking, bivouacked, demosaicker ,
havocked, panicked, mimicking, frolicking, demosaicking .
 
Ehrik said:
Tom Christiansen said:
Nikon doesn't have body-IS. It has lens-VR. These are quite different. Watch this:

http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/technology/vr/index.htm

Pay attention to [...] centering before final exposure.
Click to expand...
Doesn't this mean that the framing you get won't be the framing that you see?

Which kind of wipes out a main lens-stabilisation advantage not to forget the value (in this case) of having a 100% viewfinder.
Click to expand...
That's not been my experience. It's especially better than using an OVL with a sensor-shift model, since your target won't hold still for you. Using phase-detect AF split off from the mirror, this is even more important.

I can envision a possible future with an 100% EVIL camera in which those didn't factor into the problem domain so much, but we're not there yet. So far only the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 seems to have a contrast-detect AF that can even approach the performance of entry-level phase-detect AF. I also harbor doubts about latency and about viewability in all lighting conditions for 100% EVF cameras.

Have you used SS vs VR for focal lengths greater than 300mm equivalent?

Sensor-shift proponents seem to discount the large body of reports that SS cannot compare with lens VR at long telephoto ranges. But those reports seem to support Nikon's vision of customizing the VR in ways peculiar to each lens's optics.

Of course, Nikon keeps their F6 customers happy this way, too. You don't want your film jiggling around.
Ehrik said:
Ehrik said:
Ehrik said:
7. Proprietary RAW format
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Proprietary is just a small con - it means delayed 3rd party support.
Click to expand...
As Joseph has pointed out, DNG is useless without the unpublished spectral data for the sensor, and it also suffers from a potentially inferior color model.
Ehrik said:
Slightly more serious is clipping of the raw data at the black end and NR for slow shutter speeds.
Click to expand...
Aren't we talking about two separate phenomena?
  1. In 12-bit mode on the D300, the black values seem to be clipped, or perhaps shifted a bit or two up so you don't see the same noise you would expect to find in a random distribution
  2. On a D300 or D3, NR is applied to exposures ≥¼s; at exposures ≤⅕s it does not occur. The cut-off point varies between models; on a D90 or D200, the cut-off is at 1s.
--tom
--
colicky, havocker, picnicky, panicking, picnicking,
panicky, magicked, colicking, picnicked, bivouacking,
colicked, mimicked, frolicked, picnicker, demosaicked ,
garlicky, mimicker, havocking, bivouacked, demosaicker ,
havocked, panicked, mimicking, frolicking, demosaicking .
 
Tom Christiansen said:
That's not been my experience. It's especially better than using an OVL with a sensor-shift model, since your target won't hold still for you. Using phase-detect AF split off from the mirror, this is even more important.

I can envision a possible future with an 100% EVIL camera in which those didn't factor into the problem domain so much, but we're not there yet. So far only the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1 seems to have a contrast-detect AF that can even approach the performance of entry-level phase-detect AF. I also harbor doubts about latency and about viewability in all lighting conditions for 100% EVF cameras.
Click to expand...
this is not really relavent to the topic at hand but all the reviews i've seen say that all of the panny µ4/3 cameras match or beat (depending on brand) entry level dslrs in autofocus speed. and are competitive with midrange dslrs. i really can't speak from experience on this never having used a µ4/3 camera though. also it's true that evfs suffer in low light (hopefully this will improve) but so do optical view finders but for different reasons. depending on your use it's possible one could prefer either.
Tom Christiansen said:
Have you used SS vs VR for focal lengths greater than 300mm equivalent?

Sensor-shift proponents seem to discount the large body of reports that SS cannot compare with lens VR at long telephoto ranges. But those reports seem to support Nikon's vision of customizing the VR in ways peculiar to each lens's optics.

Of course, Nikon keeps their F6 customers happy this way, too. You don't want your film jiggling around.

--tom
--
colicky, havocker, picnicky, panicking, picnicking,
panicky, magicked, colicking, picnicked, bivouacking,
colicked, mimicked, frolicked, picnicker, demosaicked ,
garlicky, mimicker, havocking, bivouacked, demosaicker ,
havocked, panicked, mimicking, frolicking, demosaicking .
Click to expand...
all of what you say is true. i have seen many reports of the superiority of OIS to IBIS for longer focal lengths - except for 4/3 bodies where panasonic lenses are mounted on olympus cameras where i've heard conflicting reports. i suspect that this has more to do suboptimal communication between the 2 companies or a poor implementation of OIS on panasonics part.

the superiority of OIS on long focal lengths and with for framing does not have any impact on the awesomeness of IBIS with unstabilized lenses though. it would be wonderful to have image stabilization with the nikkor 50mm f/1.4 or the 24-70mm f/2.8. thus i view the lack of IBIS in the D300s as a valid negative (though not a surprising one). also the fact that OIS is better than IBIS on long focal lengths doesn't mean IBIS is bad at those focal lengths - i routinely shoot at 350-400mm (not accounting for crop factor) 2 stops slower than i would without IBIS with no fear of blur and get around 50% keeper rate at 3 stops slower.

--
hobbes

http://xkcd.com/386/

photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28476552@N04/
 
When the 7d review came out, a post in the Oly forum added a bunch of BS cons to the DPR list. Then, a post in the Nikon forum basically did a bunch of similar BS cons to the 7d review ("the one's that DPR forgot.") Most, if not all of the cons were pure BS and flight of fancy, features that no camera has, obviously designed to make the poster feel better.

I suppose this list, which is equally fanciful if not more exaggerated, is a tongue in check exaggeration of the other two posts, which were pretty bad. As such, don't take it too seriously, I'm sure the poster doesn't.

However, I'm not sure why he choose to flame the fire here (I could see it better if he was a Canon user, doesn't appear to be.) As photographers we should stick together more, not become divided over what are trivial differences.
 
MarcV said:
chuxter said:
8. No pixel remapping (even my 2004-era CP 5700 has this!)
Click to expand...
The 5700 has this function, but not officially. You (and I) were able to use it because some clever russian guy found a way to activate it.
Click to expand...
Aw, now you told the secret! :-) Where is that clever Russian guy when I need him (I want a free program to remap the pixels on my D300...heck, I'd even pay a bit to get it.

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
'I'm from Texas. We have meat in our vegetables.'
Trenton Doyle Hancock
 
tko said:
When the 7d review came out, a post in the Oly forum added a bunch of BS cons to the DPR list. Then, a post in the Nikon forum basically did a bunch of similar BS cons to the 7d review ("the one's that DPR forgot.") Most, if not all of the cons were pure BS and flight of fancy, features that no camera has, obviously designed to make the poster feel better.

I suppose this list, which is equally fanciful if not more exaggerated, is a tongue in check exaggeration of the other two posts, which were pretty bad. As such, don't take it too seriously, I'm sure the poster doesn't.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the heads-up. I should have clued by the things that were talked about that no camera has, but it appears my blinders were set too low. 'Fraid I swallowed hook, line, and stinker. ☻
tko said:
However, I'm not sure why he choose to flame the fire here (I could see it better if he was a Canon user, doesn't appear to be.) As photographers we should stick together more, not become divided over what are trivial differences.
Click to expand...
I heartedly agree. Honest appreciation of features we like about another brand's offering, or dislike about our own, would advance everyone's technology.

I tried to start a discussion about how different cameras handle saved user settings, but it was drowned out by knee-jerky partisans.

For example, Nikon and Canon's professional lines both offer facilities to keep around sets of changes. I'm sure other bodies do too, but I'm unfamiliar with them.
  • Canon offers 3 different custom-settings user-memories on their 1Ds mark III and their 7d models
  • The 7D makes them accessible on the mode dial, which is a plus, but it means that mode is not orthogonal to sets of settings, which is a minus
  • Canon's user-memories allow local settings changes that don't propagate back to the saved version, which is a plus
  • the set of things you can put in a user-memory is somewhat more restricted than you'd like it to be
  • the 1Ds mark III lets you save and load settings to card but the 7D rather bizarrely does not; they must be trying to "protect" their market; very dumb, but Canon always dumbs down its non-topshelf line in various ways that other makers do not
On Nikon's side:
  • Nikon provides both a "My Menu" and a generally more useful, most-recently-used "Recent Settings" menu; however, you must pick one or the other
  • The easy two-button green reset takes things back to a known state, which is a plus, but you can't configure the state it takes you to, which is a minus
  • Nikon gives four settings banks and also four shootings banks, which are completely orthogonal to PASM modes, which is plus
  • You can name your banks alphanumerically, a plus, but you can't pair them up nor is there one-button + dial access to them. if you could assign a button + front-dial to shootings banks and button + rear-dial to settings banks, it would be much better.
  • Nikon allows you to save and load settings from a memory card, which is tremendously valuable; however, there's no such thing as a temporary change to a bank nor restoring from base state apart from going to card
Can anybody comment on Olympus's, Pentax's, or Sony's treatment of user settings groups?

--tom
--
colicky, havocker, picnicky, panicking, picnicking,
panicky, magicked, colicking, picnicked, bivouacking,
colicked, mimicked, frolicked, picnicker, demosaicked ,
garlicky, mimicker, havocking, bivouacked, demosaicker ,
havocked, panicked, mimicking, frolicking, demosaicking .
 
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