RANDY HARRIS PHOTOGRAPHY: First Use and Review of the Nikon D300

As a longtime user of Nikon digital cameras I just purchased and used the D300 for the first time. I was very excited about using the camera as I had read great reviews about the camera and its enhanced capabilities. I've owned and used the D100, D200 and the D2X.

I was in southern California on business and had some time to photograph surfers off Huntington Beach just before sunset. I positioned myself on the beach so I could either shoot surfers with the golden light covering them or I could shoot into the sun with the surfers and waves backlit. I was using the Nikon 200-400 f4.0 lens mounted on a tripod.

I was eager to use the new Dynamic-area focusing feature with the options of 9, 21 or 51 focusing points. I also wanted to try the Dynamic-area focusing with the 3D-tracking feature and see how it followed the surfers. And, I wanted to experiment with the much improved higher ISO settings.

Right off the bat, I was impressed how fast the camera focused and stayed on the surfers using the Dynamic-area selection with 51 points. When I tried to use the 3D-tracking, the focusing sensors were constantly changing from the surfer to the moving waves. I’m not sure if this type of subject is goof for the 3D-tracking. Looking through the 3 inch LCD screen and zooming in, I could see my photos were in focus and sharp. Equally impressive was how well the camera captured the exposure. With the water reflecting the light, sometimes camera sensors are tricked into thinking the light is brighter than it really is. I'd have to say the exposures looked good on the histogram. I started out using an ISO of 400 and kept moving it up as the sun continued to set. I was trying to keep my shutter speed over 1/1000 and I wanted to see how much noise or how little noise would be in the photos at higher ISO’s.

I was very excited with my first shoot with the Nikon D300. I felt the auto focusing system worked great, the images were properly exposed and I felt the noise was minimal up to 1600. I’ll continue to play with different settings before my next big photo shoot, the big Brown Bears of Katmai National Park in July 2008.