Nikon D300 Choices
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underh20lady
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good choice in strobes Ikalite sucks aquatica much better housing
TheUWPhotographer.com
Guest
I too get very frustrated having to replace my gear every couple of years. I remember when I bought my first SLR in college and thought it would last me the rest of my life. Ha, was I wrong!
I'm now shooting the D200 in a S&S housing and I love it. I have two Ikelite DS125 strobes and two Inon stobes and I can't decide which ones I like better. I love them both. I do like the small size and weight of the Inon stobes compared to the Ikelites.
I also used my D300 in the D200 housing (with some jerryrigging) and the difference between them was not significant enough to buy a new housing for the D300, so I canceled my order. Just saved myself a couple grand. I did not like the live preview at all (too slow, too much delay, too hard to tell if you actually took the picture or not) and quickly went back to through the viewfinder.
Ikelite makes great photography gear. It doesn't "suck". Its a very good housing for the money.
If the price of a camera and housing continues to match the price of a small car, I may go the Ikelite housing route myself in the future.
Bonnie
I'm now shooting the D200 in a S&S housing and I love it. I have two Ikelite DS125 strobes and two Inon stobes and I can't decide which ones I like better. I love them both. I do like the small size and weight of the Inon stobes compared to the Ikelites.
I also used my D300 in the D200 housing (with some jerryrigging) and the difference between them was not significant enough to buy a new housing for the D300, so I canceled my order. Just saved myself a couple grand. I did not like the live preview at all (too slow, too much delay, too hard to tell if you actually took the picture or not) and quickly went back to through the viewfinder.
Ikelite makes great photography gear. It doesn't "suck". Its a very good housing for the money.
If the price of a camera and housing continues to match the price of a small car, I may go the Ikelite housing route myself in the future.
Bonnie
I bet you'll find live view to be a bell and whistle you won't use much, if at all. Same on my D3 - the live view feature disables the auto focus system temporarily and does create shutterlag. I posted a slightly more articulate explanation of this somewhere on the board last week or so. The short version - live view sorta blows
I actually would like to disagree regarding the liveview.
It's not a "no-shutter-lag" LiveView like Sony are talking about in the new 350 (or whatever it's called), but it can be very useful nevertheless as long as you are shooting more or less static objects (which I do very often).
The way I see it, there are two ways to use it.
- Handheld with AF.
The amazing display is a great help to show you what you are pointing at. It's bright, very little noise even in low light and the extremely good viewing angle capability makes it fantastic to shoot from almost any angle.
Hey, you can even see the set white balance!
First manually adjust focus (if you can with the port) or simply press the AF button to have the camera show you the world sharp.
Then compose your shot and press the shutter. Note that it will refocus! As there are 51 focus points, you don't have to prefocus and then move the camera. Simply choose another focus point and just press the shutter.
Yes, there will be a shutter lag, but it's not that bad.
Unless you move yourself of the camera during the lag, you will get a super sharp picture as the powerful and fast AF is being used. The lag is due to moving the mirror, not to focus. It's not at all as the compact cameras that takes ages to find focus under water (if ever!). The D300 is amazing at finding focus even in very low light.
- Tripod mode with manual focus.
I know some of you like to focus manually. I have never managed that as I have always found it so hard to see when it's perfectly sharp. Now with the D300. it is super easy. Again, it's fantastic display is the key to success. On top of that you can zoom in a lot to examine in extrem if the picture is sharp, before shooting. When it's sharp, simply press the shutter and the picture is taken. Here there is no shutter lag. I've done tests (on land), using the viewfinder (in the non liveview mode) with AF and it never beats me (on static subjects) when I'm using the liveview in tripod mode and manual focusing. Usually it's a draw. Sure, manual focus takes longer, but the result is fantastic and sometimes the environment or the subject is too tough even for the great AF in the D300, then the manual focus in tripod mode really excels.
But, AF in tripod mode is terrible, to say the least. Simply forget about it!
Yes, I would have loved a handheld mode with no shutter lag and a tripod mode with super fast AF. But, even though it is not so, the LiveView is very useful.
(PS sorry for my bad English!)
/Peter
This is a great post. I have learned alot from you guys.
I am also very frustrated with the issue of upgrades. It took me 6 months to find and get a D200; 1.5 years later they come with a D300. I wonder if the D400 will be out by Jan 2009?
I am also very frustrated with the issue of upgrades. It took me 6 months to find and get a D200; 1.5 years later they come with a D300. I wonder if the D400 will be out by Jan 2009?
DivePhotoGuide
Contributor
Ok here's a messed up story for ya...
So I bought a D3 ($5000) assuming that the housings would be available by Feb, then they got pushed back to March, and just found out that they are pushed back to April. On March 20th I am heading to Indonesia and other parts of SE Asia for almost 8 weeks. I had to buy a D300, housing and ports so I can shoot with this new generation of cameras (which really have been game changers - this latest round is an exponential leap compared to the incremental leaps of quality in the past). The D200 is my current rig, but I'm selling it. I really wanted to sell it before I was going away fro 2 months. But I also need 2 rig for redundancy purposes. So now I'm actually bringing a D100 with me, which I have not been able to sell since the D300 came out and now the used market is more focused on the D200. So it's still laying around and I'll bring it for emergency purposes. It's also still fine for macro - but for someone shooting professionally, I can't shoot wide angle with it, although I have published plenty of w/a images shot with this camera. (PS: $1000 for the camera and housing bodies if anyone's interested! Yes it's a little old, but $1000 for a DSLR and housing body is a good deal no matter how you look at it).
So when I return in late May, I will pick up a D3 housing, and have the D300 as my second rig - and did I mention that with the D3 I had to buy new lenses because DX lenses don't work on it? (well they do but crop down to a 5mp image) That's another $3k - all in, once I get the D3 housing, we're talking $20k+ for all this gear. This is ok if you're making some money from the images, but what does the non-professional do if you want this level of quality? Back in the days you can buy a new camera every 10 - 15 years and be set. I am now budgeting at least $10k every 2 years. That's ridiculous! This is getting crazy!
So I bought a D3 ($5000) assuming that the housings would be available by Feb, then they got pushed back to March, and just found out that they are pushed back to April. On March 20th I am heading to Indonesia and other parts of SE Asia for almost 8 weeks. I had to buy a D300, housing and ports so I can shoot with this new generation of cameras (which really have been game changers - this latest round is an exponential leap compared to the incremental leaps of quality in the past). The D200 is my current rig, but I'm selling it. I really wanted to sell it before I was going away fro 2 months. But I also need 2 rig for redundancy purposes. So now I'm actually bringing a D100 with me, which I have not been able to sell since the D300 came out and now the used market is more focused on the D200. So it's still laying around and I'll bring it for emergency purposes. It's also still fine for macro - but for someone shooting professionally, I can't shoot wide angle with it, although I have published plenty of w/a images shot with this camera. (PS: $1000 for the camera and housing bodies if anyone's interested! Yes it's a little old, but $1000 for a DSLR and housing body is a good deal no matter how you look at it).
So when I return in late May, I will pick up a D3 housing, and have the D300 as my second rig - and did I mention that with the D3 I had to buy new lenses because DX lenses don't work on it? (well they do but crop down to a 5mp image) That's another $3k - all in, once I get the D3 housing, we're talking $20k+ for all this gear. This is ok if you're making some money from the images, but what does the non-professional do if you want this level of quality? Back in the days you can buy a new camera every 10 - 15 years and be set. I am now budgeting at least $10k every 2 years. That's ridiculous! This is getting crazy!
spt29970
Contributor
Jason,
Here are some works of wisdom for you. Although the housing vendors mean well, they are usually wildly optimistic about when they will deliver on new products. Making plans based on their estimates about when a new housing will be ready is usually a bad idea.
Here is another thought for you. Sure the D3 is an amazing camera, but do you really think you will get better images than you will get with your D300? Do you think they will be worth the extra $10k? One way I think of the investment is terms of $$/shot. If you consider only the shots that are "frame worthy", I probably have around 50 (maybe less) that I would consider framing. Do you think it is worth spending an extra $200/shot to make them ever so slightly better, or to increase that number by 10%? It is likely that you have a lot more salable pictures than I, so that the $$/shot is lower, but it makes you think about whether or not that big investment will ever pay for itself.
I know for me, the quality of images is limited more by the skill of the photographer than technical limits of the camera. Even when they are limited by hardware, it is often the lens that it the limiting factor, not the camera.
DivePhotoGuide
Contributor
"the quality of images is limited more by the skill of the photographer than technical limits of the camera" - those are the words of wisdom - so true. I still sell images that I took with my D100, which to me are night and day - that's a grainy camera compared to the D200 and especially the D300....even the D70/D80 is a much better camera, but it's not about the camera...to a large degree (but not totally).
Everything you said is spot on. In fact the D300 is an excellent camera, and originally my plan was to buy two D300's and no D3 at all, but I always wanted the top of the line pro camera, and the D3 was a vast improvement over the market as a whole and I had to go for it. Did I need it? Totally debatable, even in my own mind
The reality is though - for the dive industry, the difference between the D300 and D3 is minimal, but for ad agencies and the most critical buyers out there, the slightest of difference can be the difference in selling an image or not, and at $1500 - $5000 per image, it does pay for itself. However, it still hurts to spend that kind of money because you still need to work it off first before you make any profit on your investment.
As for manufacturers being optimistic about delivery dates. Yeah I know - but I'm equally as over optimistic about shooting the camera underwater so I bought into my own false expectations knowingly. Such is life
Everything you said is spot on. In fact the D300 is an excellent camera, and originally my plan was to buy two D300's and no D3 at all, but I always wanted the top of the line pro camera, and the D3 was a vast improvement over the market as a whole and I had to go for it. Did I need it? Totally debatable, even in my own mind
The reality is though - for the dive industry, the difference between the D300 and D3 is minimal, but for ad agencies and the most critical buyers out there, the slightest of difference can be the difference in selling an image or not, and at $1500 - $5000 per image, it does pay for itself. However, it still hurts to spend that kind of money because you still need to work it off first before you make any profit on your investment.
As for manufacturers being optimistic about delivery dates. Yeah I know - but I'm equally as over optimistic about shooting the camera underwater so I bought into my own false expectations knowingly. Such is life
limeyx
Guest
I took the D300 out this weekend in the Sea & Sea housing with Sigma 10-20mm lens.
No strobes.
Housing performed perfectly. I was holding out for a comparison with Aquatica housing (as Aquatica is rated to 300 feet), but the ergonomics on the Sea & Sea sold me.
Now I cannot blame crappy gear for my crappy pics, I have to go and actually practice to take some good shots !
No strobes.
Housing performed perfectly. I was holding out for a comparison with Aquatica housing (as Aquatica is rated to 300 feet), but the ergonomics on the Sea & Sea sold me.
Now I cannot blame crappy gear for my crappy pics, I have to go and actually practice to take some good shots !
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