Nikon D300 – First Impression

By now, you know that I switched from Canon to a Nikon D300 and my reasoning behind the switch.

Here is a quick rundown of my first impression of the D300.

• The camera feels very solid and well built.
• It fits nicely in my hand. A very natural feel to the grip.
• Excellent view finder, nice and bright. Even with my glasses on I can see everything in view finder.
• LCD display in fantastic. It’s actually useful to check sharpness with.
• The colors are very accurate. This could be a combination of the D300 and using Aperture 2 as my RAW converter. What ever it is the results are superb.
• 6 fps. Holy Cow! It almost scared me the first time I tried it. Afterwards I had the biggest grin on my face. I can’t wait to get the vertical grip and shoot 8 fps.
• The manual is huge! 400+ pages. Be prepared to do some readin’.
• Button and dial layout good. Except for the front sub-command dial. I keep switching the camera off by accident. Maybe I just need to get use to the dials location. I’ll keep you informed.
• The menu system and layout is definitely different than Canon’s. Not that it’s and better or worse, just takes some getting use to.

I hope to shoot something worthy of posting here in the next few weeks. In the mean time I’ll be reading the manual and playing with the settings.

Any comments or advice regarding the D300 or this post?