Nikon D300 HDR out of the camera !!

Just a regular very windy day at the beach and around Peniche, Portugal..
Amazing detail in shadows with ActiveD-lighting, without blown highlights !

Shows how well the D300's 3D tracking focus works and a picture showing
details of a seagull.... shot straight at the sun !!

The wind was so hard, people started to fly around!

http://nikon-box.com/

 

Very nice !!

 

What lens?

Don <www.donwiss.com/pictures/> (e-mail link at page bottoms).

 

Just the 18-135mm

Why?

 

Nice job! It looks like you had a great day.



Rita

 

After agonising for months (not helped by trying a Canon 5d and pixel
peeping raw files from both), I've arrived home today with a D300.
Only observation so far is that the focus system seems to handle lenses
with spherical aberration (like the 80-200 AF-D) much better than older
Nikons. On the D70/80/200, the lens visibly back-focuses @ <10m
distance f2.8, yet perfect at infinity, so not "adjustable" for typical
backfocus.
The other observation is that the Sigma 10-20 on the D300 seems just
fine. It is perhaps marginally not as pixel level sharp as the 17-40l
center frame on the 5d, as expected (partly stronger AA filter, partly
full frame advantage) - but at extreme corners set at 12mm (~= 18mm on
17-40l) is quite a bit better in the extreme corners.
They were my #1 concerns - so far so good.

 

Fantastic images!

 

I take some of that back - there's still some backfocus at close range -
better, but not perfect.

 

There's some nice shots there, Sosumi, but I have to say that with my
(nowadays typical) short attention span, I found the number of images
to be offputting - how about a 'best of' gallery?

Less is more, I reckon.

 

Do you mean zero? LOL!

I put the action pictures there to see for others that the 3D tracking
really works great and fast. I shot almost 500 pictures yesterday, so I
think I already cut it much.
Besides: that's why the thumbnails are there; you can choose what you want
to see.

 

How do you have the focus set? I thought I had back focus too, but it turned
out the focus wasn't set correctly. It's pretty advanced and will take some
time to master. I still make mistakes after owning it for several months.
Tip: check the menu A3: what does it say?

 

Thanks! Always nice to get some confirmation. Any pictures you preferred?

 

Thanks Rita. It sure was and very unexpected. Sometimes I take my GPS and
just get "lost", no real destination. Sometimes I end up at just the right
place and time, it seems.
So which are or is you favorite?

 

Your menu a3 is also set by the focus mode selector switch (just above
the CF door lever), so you don't really need to access the menu unless
toggling 3d tracking on/off. OTOH the CSM lever is a design mistake -
way too easy to bump or set wrong by accident.
You wouldn't use the in-camera AF fine tuning to correct the back focus
on the 80-200. Reason is that if the backfocus is present at 200mm
close focus distance and you correct for that, then it will probably
then rear focus at infinity, which is a worse problem IMO.
I'll try the 80-200 later with contrast detection AF in Lv tripod mode.
Focus winding speed with a non AFS lens is identical to an old D70.
Checked this by winding a 105mm macro from one end to the other on both
bodies (it's a long wind from one end to the other). I'm not surprised,
a D200 I used seemed exactly the same to me as a D80 and D70 was too,
even though common knowledge seemed to be that the D200 must have had a
much more powerful motor than lesser cameras - it ain't true! I'll bet
that they've used the same focus motor from D50 up until you get to the
D2/D3 cameras.
Quick focus review on the D300 LCD is IMO hindered by the extreme
maximum zoom. I need to zoom fully, then back it off two clicks,
otherwise it looks like about 400% view on a monitor, which is overkill.
It would be nicer if there was a way to set maximum zoom preview a bit
less than default.
The 421 page D300 manual is in front of me. It's not (IMO) well written
for quick reference. I suspect that for anyone who hasn't used a Nikon
dslr before, then navigating the menus with the help of the manual would
be a nightmare. OTOH having used a few Nikon dslrs, after a couple of
hours fiddling, I think I've found everything I need and have put the
items I'll want to access in "my menu", and will set up a couple of
custom banks later.
"My menu" settings are a blessing - "recently used" on the D200 only
works well if you shoot the same things all the time. The 51 point AF is
spooky - shooting a person (or my dog) it's freaky watching the AF
selectors appear right where you want then to be 90% of the time.

 

No it isn't. It only looks that way if you look at the LCD screen on top,
but inside something is still not quite single focus. You have to set it to
other then 51 point 3D tracking. That was my problem...

<CUT: very interesting but too much info)

It can read your mind! Page 475 of the manual, LOL

 

Okay - I get it now. Lever adjusts number of sensors used / available
in total. (wow it's nice to have AF sensors available where you need
them. Menu allows selection of (maximum) dynamic area sensors used (and
3d tracking for 51 point) when more than 9 points are selected. Tricky
stuff. I better go out and use the damn thing now to see how (well) it
all works.

 

Reds are often blown out. Typical of all DSLRs.

 

You're lucky since you have that beautiful weather where you are at.

The parasail shots are nice.




Rita

 

I think Mark is jealous of you. He should get a D300 or D3 and see what a
real camera will do for him. He's been teaching me how to be a
photographer. If you're lucky he might have some room for you too.



Rita

 

["Followup-To:" header set to rec.photo.digital.slr-systems.]

Nothing that post-processing couldn't do, given a shooter who
knows what he does.

*I* feel that the drywasher inside looks too ... flat.

DOF as percentage of the distance of the gull and had you been
tracking it before it entered the sun?
(As in: 'Sure the camera didn't track it before and then used
the last setting?'.)

-Wolfgang