Nikon D300 Complete Manual Download

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Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D300

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Summary of Contents for D300

Page 1: ...V1 02 Thom Hogan s Complete Guide to the Nikon D300 Page 1 Thom Hogan s Complete Guide to the Nikon D300 1st Edition By Thom Hogan byThom Press ...

Page 2: ...ks of Nikon Corporation Japan CompactFlash is a trademark of SanDisk Corporation All other products or name brands are trademarks of their respective manufacturers The author and publisher shall not be responsible for errors contained herein or any damages in connection with the furnishing performance or use of the material in this book In particular the author and publisher shall not be responsib...

Page 3: ...ion others at appropriate points in the book four need to be singled out for D300 users Phil Askey s http www dpreview com has some of the most thorough reviews of digital cameras yes even more thorough than the ones on my own site and an ongoing forum that s useful for getting answers to tough questions select Nikon D300 D200 D100 from the Discussion Forums pop up in the left navigation panel Nik...

Page 4: ...pyright for this work in order to protect my rights That said I have not enabled copy protection forced you to enter a serial number asked you to agree to a License Agreement or in any other way limited access to the information in this eBook I trust you to honor my Copyright and to follow a few simple guidelines 1 Treat the CD you received as you would a printed book 2 I grant those of you who pu...

Page 5: ...ur personal use by selecting Print from the File menu It s possible to print on both sides of the paper and get a real book like experience by using the Print Odd Pages Only and Print Even Pages Only options on the Print dialog but I don t recommend this unless you re good at keeping track of paper know how to properly re orient the paper for the second pass and are sure that your printer won t ch...

Page 6: ...ess you ve let Acrobat rescale the book to fit the full page and bind This eBook is actually in three specific sections that could be bound separately Before You Take Pictures Shooting Pictures with Your D300 and After You ve Taken Pictures with Your D300 I ve tried to keep the instructions you d want while out shooting in the middle section 2 Since I get the occasional question as to why I don t ...

Page 7: ... work or one that still refuses after being shown permission I d like to hear about it If the former and the copy shop is a chain it is probably violating direct court orders that mandate that they don t do this I ve not put Digital Rights Management on this file to block all copying and printing because it s a hassle for the user So please respect my rights and help report those that willingly vi...

Page 8: ...ave don t hesitate to drop me an email asking for an explanation Not only will I answer your question but it will give me some insight on what I might want to change in future editions to make the eBook even clearer Besides dealing with the practical side of the camera and showing you how all the basic functions work I ll also provide you with some tips on how to squeeze every last bit of image qu...

Page 9: ... the D200 eBook In particular I ve removed the introductory material on DSLRs added many more suggestions on how to use various camera controls and produced a hard copy supplement entitled Thom Hogan s D300 To Go That supplement isn t designed so much to be read as to be referred to for quick reference while out shooting At the same time there are still some of you who are coming to the D300 who w...

Page 10: ...ook Here s where I walk you through each feature of the camera as you d use it I ll explain why you might use it how to make that feature active and what your options are Yes you may find a few things repeated in this section from the first but in the interest of making for a complete how to section I ve elected to repeat some set up and other instructions The separate Thom Hogan s D300 To Go is a...

Page 11: ...s eBook I update the original file Since I generate this eBook directly from my files this means that I am usually able to keep the text nearly error free while adding or modifying sections to make a point more clearly Every now and then I make a full pass through the manuscript augmenting what I ve previously written with knowledge I ve learned from using the camera teaching workshops and from ot...

Page 12: ...NG SOME MYTHS 37 D300 BASICS 44 D300 Design 44 The D300 Sensor 48 Sensor Specifications Size 51 Sensor Specifications Pixels 52 Sensor Filtration 53 Tonal Range 63 Dynamic Range Dark v Bright 68 Spectral Characteristics 71 Noise 72 Hot and Dead Pixels 79 Sensor Longevity 80 Sensor Wrap up 81 EXPEED 82 POWER 84 Changing Batteries 88 Charging Batteries 89 Battery Storage 91 Clock Battery 91 Alternat...

Page 13: ...NEF Recommendations 168 EXIF 170 IPTC 173 DPOF and PictBridge 174 File Names and Folders 175 Folders 176 File Names 182 File Number Sequence 189 CAMERA SETUP 191 How Menus Work 191 The SETUP Menu 194 Date Time and Language 198 Setting Date and Time 199 Setting Language 204 Programming a Comment 205 Setting the LCD Brightness 208 Set Up Recommendations Summary 211 Viewfinder Adjustment 211 Focus Sc...

Page 14: ...e 257 Metering with Digital Requires Care 259 Options for Evaluating Exposure 263 How to Interpret Histograms 267 Exposure Modes 274 Flexible Program 277 Program Exposure Table at ISO 200 277 ISO Sensitivity 278 Noise Reduction Settings 286 Auto ISO 290 How ISO Values are Created 295 ISO Operating Suggestions 295 Exposure Bracketing 299 D300 Exposure Bracketing Values Table Exposures 301 Exposure ...

Page 15: ...ses 395 Chromatic Aberration Correction 405 Manual Focus 406 Depth of Field Preview 407 18mm Lens 409 20mm Lens 409 24mm Lens 409 28mm Lens 410 35mm Lens 410 50mm Lens 410 70mm Lens 411 Diffraction 411 Other DOF Theories 412 Sharpening 413 SHOOTING CONTROLS 420 Shutter Releases 420 Shutter Lag 421 Shooting Method and Frame Rate 423 Self Timer 426 Live View 428 Using Hand held Live View 432 Using T...

Page 16: ...m Setting A7 Focus Point Selection Wrap 532 Custom Setting A8 Number of AF Points 532 Custom Setting A9 Autofocus Assist Illumination 533 Custom Setting A10 MB D10 AF ON Button Options 534 Custom Setting B1 ISO Increment 536 Custom Setting B2 Exposure Control Increment 537 Custom Setting B3 Exposure Compensation Increment 538 Custom Setting B4 Exposure Compensation Control 539 Custom Setting B5 Ce...

Page 17: ...ting F4 FUNC Button Setting 576 Custom Setting F5 DOF Preview Button Setting 580 Custom Setting F6 AE Lock Button Function 583 Custom Setting F7 Command Dial Functions 587 Custom Setting F8 Pressing or Holding Buttons 590 Custom Setting F9 Lock Camera with No CompactFlash 591 Custom Setting F10 Reverse the Manual Metering Bar 592 USING FLASH 593 What Happens When Flash is Used 593 Flash Basics 594...

Page 18: ...Zoom Head 645 To Set Flash Exposure Compensation 645 To Set Red Eye Reduction 646 SB 600 Notes 646 SB 800 648 Specifications 648 To Set TTL Flash 649 SB 800 Usable Apertures and Flash Range in TTL mode Feet 651 To Set Manual Flash 651 To Set Repeating Flash 652 Maximum Number of Repeating Flashes at Each Power Setting 654 To Manually Set the Zoom Head 655 To Set the Distance Scale to Feet or Meter...

Page 19: ...perature Considerations 702 Humidity 703 White Balance Settings 703 White Balance Color Temperatures 704 AFTER YOU VE TAKEN PICTURES WITH YOUR D300 708 THINGS YOU DO AFTER THE SHOT IS TAKEN 708 THE RETOUCH MENU 709 D Lighting 710 Red eye correction 713 Trim 715 Monochrome 718 Filter Effects 720 Color Balance 723 Image Overlays 725 TRANSFERRING YOUR IMAGES TO YOUR COMPUTER 731 Connecting to a Compu...

Page 20: ...era that was less expensive The introduction of the D300 was what they were waiting for though the resulting camera is a bit different from the earlier models they learned about Finally it is just good form to know how your camera compares against other Nikon DSLRs When software products are mentioned including those that Nikon supplies with the camera I try to identify the version I used for this...

Page 21: ...b your D300 and follow along As I have with all my previous books and eBooks I use my Web site http www bythom com d300guideerrata htm to report any corrections or clarifications of information or instructions you ll also find some helpful product reviews and general articles Write me at thom_hogan msn com if you have any questions or comments Thom Hogan Emmaus PA ...

Page 22: ...igital point and shoot type of camera Those all automatic all in one cameras are small and convenient but tend to be somewhat slower to shoot and limited in control You probably decided to try a D300 to get away from one of those two traits you re hoping that the autofocus is fast and accurate that there s no delay between pressing the shutter release and the time the picture is taken and that you...

Page 23: ... probably picked the D300 because it was modest in price but big in features and quality Your film SLR worked just fine but you re looking for the advantages that digital brings instant review no wait for developing and processing no per image costs and convenience for emailing and sharing pictures You re probably a little worried about image quality is a digital SLR like the D300 as good as 35mm ...

Page 24: ...d ends If you fall into this category you can probably skim through the D300 Background section do make sure to pay attention to The D300 Sensor and Camera Setup chapters though You ll want to read the section labeled Shooting Pictures with your D300 see page 224 very carefully and depending upon your familiarity with Nikon s software and workflow with Nikon DSLR images you may want to also review...

Page 25: ...ested the D2xs which was an even bigger surprise Actual shipments of the D300 began in November 2007 The x00 models in the Nikon DSLR lineup are prosumer models These cameras appeal to serious amateurs who want a highly competent camera at a modest price and to professionals who need a smaller yet still highly competent camera Historically here s the basic lineage that lead to the D300 N8008 N90 F...

Page 26: ...After using a D300 I can say my initial opinion was correct Let s recap the digital x00 cameras for a moment which should reveal just how far Nikon has moved the bar in a very short period of time D100 D200 D300 Introduced 2 21 02 11 1 05 8 23 07 Sensor 6mp CCD 10mp CCD 12mp CMOS Best Bit Depth 12 bit RAW 8 bit ASIC rendering 12 bit RAW 12 bit ASIC rendering 14 bit RAW 16 bit ASIC rendering Write ...

Page 27: ...es into the main body Note that these changes mean that you ll need new Arca style plates5 if you re moving up to the D300 from the D200 neither the Kirk nor the Really Right Stuff D200 plates can be used on the D300 Still the overall look and feel of the D300 is essentially that of the D200 That s good as the D200 was a well proportioned camera that handled quite well I m sure the D300 will pick ...

Page 28: ...e noise properties at high ISO values The D3 is clearly better than the D300 by as much as two stops In other words if you find the D300 usable at ISO 1600 you may find the D3 usable at ISO 6400 But you pay more than twice the price for that advantage For shooting at low and modest ISO values the two cameras are very close in image quality Virtually every autofocus lens Nikon has made will work on...

Page 29: ...2 The switch to a new CMOS design has changed other things as well Noise properties of the new sensor are lower as are the power demands And while the D200 used a four channel readout to get a 5 frames per second fps frame rate the D300 design uses a 12 channel parallel readout to achieve 6 fps normally and 8 fps with the increased power from the MB D10 grip equipped with an EN EL4 battery AA batt...

Page 30: ...ged Instead of preset optimizations like the D200 has the D300 has user customizable Picture Controls see page 334 Additional options such as Active D Lighting are now available Matrix metering has been enhanced The new system now better recognizes scenes especially those with people in it and makes adjustments accordingly Other functions most notably Active D Lighting and focus can impact how the...

Page 31: ... available on state of the art cards The difference is not subtle a UDMA card can write faster than 35MB sec versus the D200 s 9MB sec maximum Finally the vertical grip attachment has changed Where the D200 s MB D200 used a connection that required the battery door to be removed and the MB D200 inserted into the camera s battery chamber the new MB D10 mounts to contacts on the bottom of the D300 u...

Page 32: ...ard slots and a variety of options for using them The D3 has the integrated vertical grip shutter release and controls D300 users need the MB D10 to get this The D300 has a built in internal flash which can be used to command external wireless flashes the D3 has no internal flash The D3 has an extra back LCD to display camera settings though the new D300 Control Panel ability really makes this moo...

Page 33: ...from 35mm film can produce far larger files they don t necessarily resolve more detail For example Nikon s own midrange desktop scanner the Coolscan 5000 generates files from 35mm film slides with a far higher pixel count and color depth than a D300 shot but if you were to look at the finest detail rendered by each you might be surprised to find that the D300 resolves that detail slightly better a...

Page 34: ...ut 4000 dpi Anything less than that say 3000 dpi leaves a small bit of detail behind anything above that e g 5000 dpi doesn t resolve any additional detail The long axis of the D300 s sensing area is just a tad shy of an inch and it resolves 4288 points in that distance In other words the D300 is working at somewhere around 4000 dpi at the sensor or about the same value you could get from film in ...

Page 35: ...ines above the 10 in the above example are resolved well but as we get to smaller and smaller versions to the left the lines start getting beat frequencies or false line reflections very obvious in the diagonals above the 5 and 6 See also the example shown in Sharpening on page 407 The anti aliasing and Bayer filters digital cameras need see The D300 Sensor on page 48 unfortunately complicate calc...

Page 36: ...nsumer Epson printers 1800 2200 2400 can produce they max out at 13 x 19 Note Those of you who own an Epson or other inkjet printer probably read that last paragraph and said but wait my inkjet says it prints at 1440 or 2880 dpi A close reading of the Epson literature however shows that their printers don t necessarily place that many dots every inch but instead use a spray adjustment technique to...

Page 37: ...price of doing so As far as 35mm film versus digital goes the race favors digital for moderate print sizes due to the lack of film processing and scanning costs And yes I ve put my pocket book where my mouth is with the introduction of the Nikon D1x in mid 2001 I stopped using most of my film based cameras and now shoot nearly all digital I normally use a D3 or D300 in my shooting Debunking Some M...

Page 38: ... which means less noise and 2 full frame means that focal lengths work as you expect I suppose you could add more resolution to the reasons but I ve already noted that the D300 easily holds up against the resolution of film and it s the same resolution as the larger sensored D3 anyway Meanwhile the D300 s noise is well controlled so the notion that the photosites have to be larger also doesn t see...

Page 39: ... data that s under the active focus sensor for determining exposure Thus with the camera pointed at the same scene just moving the autofocus sensor around produces different exposures And if the item under the autofocus sensor is a darker shade than middle gray the camera bumps up the exposure This coupled with a small change to the image gamma Nikon has brightened the mid tones slightly from prev...

Page 40: ...o the digital age the less tangible difference I see between the products of either company at least when it comes to image quality Sure there are some small differences The D300 tends to produce less chroma noise than the 40D when noise is produced the 40D tends to block up colors slightly at higher ISO values and the D300 uses a noise suppression technique that produces small artifacts in absolu...

Page 41: ...t work It wouldn t work on other cameras either if you try to do all those things to the underlying pixel values Bottom line There are limits to what any camera can do and when you push beyond them you get less than acceptable results The D300 is no different in this than other DSLRs But in this particular case the primary culprit was Automatic ISO coupled with repeated long exposures treated with...

Page 42: ... regardless of any of its minor imperfections No such thing as a perfect DSLR exists but you can perfect the way you use your DSLR The bottom line is that the D300 is a very capable camera that with the right settings produces state of the art digital images My goal in this eBook is to help you do just that D300 NEF with only white balance correction in Photoshop ACR Taken with 18 55mm VR lens ISO...

Page 43: ...ber this is with a consumer lens taken through an airplane window at a non optimal aperture shown with minimal post processing I d say the D300 is quite capable of stellar results and this example proves that even in non optimal situations the D300 can resolve plenty ...

Page 44: ...n new ways not seen before Yet the D300 body design is essentially that of the D200 The controls and menu system are the same The internal flash is the same The viewfinder is the same though it now has an accurate 100 mask the D200 had a 95 mask The power system is the same though the D300 uses less power while shooting than the D200 From the front the primary differences between the D200 left and...

Page 45: ...that was first seen on the N8008 and F 801 in 1988 The D300 uses a new version of the exposure system first found on the F5 and D1 series and refined in the D2 series This new exposure system is shared with the D3 and recognizes both scenes and subjects it is also connected to the autofocus system Speaking of the autofocus system and sharing with the D3 the D300 includes the state of the art CAM35...

Page 46: ...ses the D300 is a big step up from those cameras and is essentially a pro caliber camera hiding in a consumer camera size Indeed if you re coming from any previous Nikon DSLR you ve got a lot of learning to do Let me break it down into two groups If you re coming from a D200 or D2 series camera Learn the new autofocus system The D300 has Nikon s most capable autofocus system yet But it has a great...

Page 47: ...0 or any of the D1 series bodies Be prepared to be overwhelmed The D300 is a highly complex camera and has far more options than these camera bodies the D300 even has a deeper feature set than the professional D1 series You ve got a lot of options to learn about which is probably why you purchased this eBook Learn the new autofocus system The D300 has Nikon s most capable autofocus system yet But ...

Page 48: ...e Nikon View Nikon PictureProject and Nikon Capture are all gone replaced by Nikon ViewNX and Nikon Capture NX both of which work differently than the previous versions But don t worry too much This eBook is going to step you through every aspect of the D300 and the software will be addressed in the companion eBook you received on the CD The D300 Sensor The key element of any digital camera is the...

Page 49: ... number of electrons is converted into a digital value The CMOS CCD and LBCAST11 terminology used to describe various sensors refers primarily to the transistor type in the sensor and defines the underlying electronics methodology used to perform the collection conversion and transfer of light data The actual process collect photons convert to electrons store electrons move electrons to a counting...

Page 50: ...sensors is now commonplace at sensor design shops The CMOS sensor used in the D300 appears to be a close relative of the Sony IMX021 sensor The most obvious difference appears to be the ability to get 14 bits of data off the sensor instead of 12 though there may be other differences Nikon and Sony have worked closely on sensor technology since the earliest DSLRs Since the D1 sensors have gone from...

Page 51: ...imaging area when cleaning Moreover the D300 has a self cleaning sensor which uses a shake technique to remove dust automatically See Keeping the Sensor Clean on page 692 Many newcomers to digital photography are confused by the published information about imaging sensors Here are the key specifications for the D300 and other recent Nikon DSLR models Sensor Specifications Size Camera Size mm Photo...

Page 52: ... the active imaging area may be slightly less than the number of effective pixels You ll note for example that Nikon claims the D300 has 12 3 million effective pixels but the image only ends up with about 12 2 million15 That s because some of those extra pixels at the edges are masked off and used for noise management and other purposes Obviously not all sensors are built to the same specification...

Page 53: ...e original D1 sensor design was completed in the late 1990 s17 Sensor Filtration The D300 uses a Bayer pattern filter over the photosites named for the Kodak engineer who originated the method Dr Bryce Bayer Each individual photosite has a colored filter 16 The critical measurement is area The best case in a Nikon DSLR the D2h has a bit over 88 square microns of area in a photosite while the worst...

Page 54: ...ically odd numbered pixel rows alternate filters to produce red and green values while even numbered pixel rows alternate filters to produce green and blue It s very important for D300 users to understand what this pattern does and the consequences it produces in images Many first time digital users wonder why the green filter is used for twice as many photosites as the blue and red filters One re...

Page 55: ...X or one of the many third party RAW file converters that are available is then used to interpret the photosite information to produce the actual RGB values of your visible image If you re saving images in JPEG format see JPEG on page 131 the camera must first process the photosite data into image data It does this by a process called interpolation18 Interpolation looks at a block of photosite dat...

Page 56: ...ive to the green bandwidth Moreover subtle differences in green values actually make for larger perceived differences in colors especially skin tones yes there s some green value in skin colors Red and Blue data generate the most noise Since both the red and blue photosites aren t repeated in the Bayer pattern there are fewer of those color data points from which to predict each pixel s value Wors...

Page 57: ...ng reported by the G and B photosites thus only one in four photosites is providing useful information that can be translated into image detail Red to Blue transitions can also exhibit a similar problem though usually not as visually intrusive as the Red to Black or Blue to Black ones Shooting a scene with only red and black renders three quarters of the photosites inactive as only the red photosi...

Page 58: ...d from the sensor since it can also influence the image results I ve mentioned the photodiode already the part of the photosite that is exposed to light and makes the conversion of light photons to electrons What I didn t mention is that photodiodes are sensitive to the angle at which light hits them The general rule of thumb has been that light must hit within 15 of perpendicular for it to be acc...

Page 59: ...far corners of the full 35mm frame means that light can hit the extreme corners of the frame at a very oblique angle with older lens designs Nikon has done three things to make light hit more perpendicular to the sensor s photodiodes for the D300 DX frame size The smaller frame size of the Nikon DX DSLRs mean light doesn t have to get bent as much to reach the far edges of the capture area Microle...

Page 60: ... the anti aliasing filter that sits just above it Embedded in the anti aliasing filter is another component UV and IR light blocking Photodiodes have sensitivity to light outside the human visual range This is particularly an issue in what is known as the near IR spectrum We can t see that light with our eyes but it if is allowed to be added to the red component of a pixel the resulting pixel colo...

Page 61: ...e the small static charge that builds at the front of the sensor and which can attract dust The key word in that previous sentence is reduce ITO isn t a dust removal system you can still get dust clinging to the front of an ITO anti aliasing filter it just is less likely than on an uncoated filter The downside to ITO is that this very thin layer is somewhat more fragile than the underlying filter ...

Page 62: ...a below the Nyquist frequency for the sensor pitch and reject data above that frequency thus the name low pass Note The IR cut and anti aliasing filter can be removed from some cameras with a great deal of fussy disassembly that will void your camera s warranty Why would you want to do that Two reasons 1 By removing this filter you remove all the anti aliasing This can produce higher acuity but at...

Page 63: ...isible with the extra bits i e we can hide some of our manipulation in the extra tonality and rounding errors have less visible consequences Here s a tonal ramp rendered two ways On the top it s rendered as a continuous spectrum from black to white On the bottom I ve arbitrarily separated it into 19 different tones slightly better than a 4 bit value can contain The more tones we use to go from bla...

Page 64: ...top Put another way there are 32 possible values possible in that bottom stop of exposure but 256 possible values possible in the top stop of exposure Therefore the accuracy of the highest stop of data highlights is going to be greater than the accuracy of the lowest stop of data shadows especially if we start using curves and other manipulations to move the data within the limited available space...

Page 65: ...the D300 reduce data to 8 bits Better still the D300 captures dark to bright in a somewhat more predictable fashion25 35mm film tends to have a widely varying response density of image to exposure producing a distinct S curve when you plot exposure against density Worse still most film has a property called reciprocity failure the tendency to require a different exposure at extremely short or extr...

Page 66: ...some sort in the mid range The overall impact of this is a bit more mid range contrast than previous Nikon bodies and a little less of the Nikon drab look some have complained about in out of camera JPEG images from earlier cameras 26 Imagine a chart with 64 increasingly brighter shades of gray from black to white If you were to photograph that chart a blocked up shadow area would be one that did ...

Page 67: ...take full advantage of the program and some of these charts are expensive because they re produced to exacting standards See http www imatest com for more details And don t forget to tell Norman that I sent you However the question on most D300 user s minds isn t 8 bits versus 14 bits it s 12 bits versus 14 bits If you shoot JPEG or TIFF because you need ready from the camera output you have to li...

Page 68: ...scene s dynamic range We refer to the ability of our film or digital camera to capture a range of brightness the camera s dynamic range28 We measure both ranges in terms of stops each stop represents a doubling of light So if I were to say that something I wanted to photograph had four stops of scene dynamic range that would indicate that the brightest areas are 16 times lighter than the darkest U...

Page 69: ...ings At the bright end as I ve alluded to before the bucket has a limit to what it can hold Once the bucket is full it doesn t matter how many more light photons strike it they won t be collected and thus not measured At the other extreme we also have an inability to measure small amounts of light Imagine it this way let s say you just washed your bucket and gave it a quick wipe to dry it Now one ...

Page 70: ...ise increases with ISO thus the possible capture range gets smaller As you can see this is probably trivial just over a stop at up to as high as ISO 800 but each ISO boost does rob you of more and more capture capability 14 bits is marginally better than 12 bits There are some very minor differences between 12 bit and 14 bit captures and those differences get numerically smaller but not in percent...

Page 71: ...rectly with no compensations for short or long shutter speeds So what is the usable camera dynamic range of the D300 I certainly don t have any problems extracting eight clean stops of data from my NEF images When I m working at the base ISO level and getting my exposure perfectly aligned I can generally get another half stop Spectral Characteristics The spectral characteristics of the D300 sensor...

Page 72: ...e to get to an 8 bit value for JPEG images which slightly exaggerates noise so you might have one pixel that s 128 129 128 another that s 128 128 129 and a third that s 128 128 128 As noise increases the divergence of those values would increase For example if the proper value is 128 128 128 then a value of 122 124 127 is clearly noisier and less accurate than one of 128 126 128 Here s a full size...

Page 73: ... all of the noise The D200 fared much worse than this actually Indeed most of the previous Nikon DSLR bodies couldn t approach the exposure levels I was able to achieve in my gym with the D300 on the other hand the D3 wins hands down over the D300 in this same test And finally the 400 view with the noise cleaned up using a double dose of noise reduction software I did that to clearly illustrate th...

Page 74: ... light fluctuation that can be accurately discriminated by a sensor is 8 photons That s usually okay for us as our brightest values in our shots are often collecting tens of thousands of photons but do watch out for underexposure of your shadow areas there might not be a lot of photons represented there and shot noise will rear its head when there aren t Read noise Likewise we have to store the ph...

Page 75: ...st to see in large areas of a single color like the sky or the background in the basketball image or in deep shadow areas where very few photons were collected Noise essentially shows up as false detail detail that wasn t actually in the scene Dark current is the name for a form of thermally induced current that the sensor produces even when it isn t struck by light32 thus the dark in the name Eac...

Page 76: ...al camera can produce is called amp noise not to be confused with noise due to amplification This refers to noise generated by thermal leaks from other electronics near or adjacent to the sensor Such noise is so low in value that you won t see it unless you shoot extremely long exposures For example here s a 10 minute exposure taken with my D300 and the lens cap on the entire image should therefor...

Page 77: ...rge print it had no distinct pattern to it33 With digital the photosites are most decidedly not laid out in random patterns They are on a fixed grid and in fixed positions Moreover there are additional patterns on a sensor most notably the power lines and readout connections The location of electron wells and the photodiodes they relate to have fixed relationships All this means that certain types...

Page 78: ... image is produced by the imaging ASIC34 in the camera and we have RGB pixels to look at we talk about noise differently Specifically we refer to two types of noise we can see in the final image data luminance noise and chroma noise Luminance noise is essentially brightness changes from pixel to pixel that are incorrect If you see a pebbled texture of same colored pixels in a broad single tonal ar...

Page 79: ...s a brightly colored pixel in your image usually blue red or green but sometimes white or another color Again these pixels appear in the same place from image to image Hot pixels are caused because a photosite has a charge leakage or retention unlike that of neighboring photosites Since we re talking about electrons thermal properties and time are the two largest contributors In other words you re...

Page 80: ...d thus digital camera last From the reliability and mechanical standpoint the answer is as long as a film camera But the Bayer and IR filtration may come into play here After examining a number of patents and technical materials on the filtration methods most appear to be resistant to fading with exposure to light The good news is that even if you take tens of thousands of shots the sensor is bein...

Page 81: ...tosites are all jammed up against one another and the entire sensor captures light The photosites are jammed together but the light sensing portions of most sensors including those in the D300 are significantly smaller than the overall photosite size partly in order to keep light produced electrons from migrating too easily to adjacent photosites partly to allow room for other signals on the chip ...

Page 82: ...p For a fuller discussion of how sensors work see http www bythom com ccds htm EXPEED As part of the D300 and D3 introduction Nikon finally got around to giving a name to the digital imaging system internal to their cameras On a digital camera there are a handful of digital parts that are involved in the imaging First we have the imaging sensor see The D300 Sensor on page 48 Either the sensor has ...

Page 83: ...eases on what EXPEED is or what it does Essentially EXPEED is just the name given to represent essentially all of Nikon s digital knowledge and algorithms that are applied in the camera s electronics You ll note that Nikon has already applied the EXPEED nomenclature to Coolpix models as well as DSLRs Inside the D300 sitting just behind the sensor and just in front of the color LCD there s a PC boa...

Page 84: ... EL3a that was used in the D50 D70 D70s and D100 If you ve moved from one of those cameras to the D300 you will not be able to use your extra batteries The differences between the EN EL3e and the previous EN EL3 and EN EL3a are 1 The EN EL3e stores more mAh than the EN EL3 1500mAh versus 1400mAh the EN EL3a was also 1500mAh 37 What s mAh mean That stands for milliamp hour In other words the batter...

Page 85: ...batteries work in the D80 D200 and D300 gray or black Nikon batteries work in the D50 D70 D70s D80 and D100 Note Like all EN EL3 type batteries the terminals are exposed so the risk of shorts that can cause battery damage explosion or generate heat that could start a fire are a small issue while carrying batteries without the protective cover Keep the protective cover on the battery when it is out...

Page 86: ...mpted to buy third party EN EL3e replacements make sure you do so from someplace that will accept returns if it doesn t work and be especially wary of no name unpackaged options If you end up having to pay for a second third party battery to get one that works you might as well have bought the Nikon battery in the first place Also note that some devious folk will tell you that the Fujifilm NP 150 ...

Page 87: ...point of confusion for D300 purchasers coming from older consumer Nikon DSLRs will be the MH 18 versus MH 18a charger It shouldn t be Technically the MH 18a is the charger designed to work with the 1500mAh batteries EN EL3a and EN EL3e while the MH 18 is designed to work with the older 1300mAh batteries EN EL3 But either will charge a D300 battery The only real difference between them is that the ...

Page 88: ...rage or initialization effects that need to be rectified I would suggest therefore that you fully exhaust the battery 10 charge remaining the first two or three times you use it and make those first charges thorough ones waiting until the battery cools before removing it from the charger i e don t pop it off the minute the light stops blinking let it continue to trickle charge for another few minu...

Page 89: ...the side of the battery compartment that only allows the battery to stick 3 8 1cm out of the camera 3 Firmly grasp the edges of the battery and pull it from the camera You ll feel a bit of resistance at first but the internal retainer should let go of the battery if you tug firmly Note The camera power switch should be in the OFF position before removing or inserting an EN EL3e battery pack If you...

Page 90: ... 90 or higher as doing so repeatedly can reduce the overall capacity slightly Likewise you re best off if you don t run the battery down to 5 all the time as repeated deep charges tend to reduce the life expectancy of the battery slightly Neither is of enough concern to worry about but if you re trying to fully optimize your battery life only charge it when it s between 20 and 80 percent capacity ...

Page 91: ...ttery has an expected charge life of about three months Keeping the camera powered for two days either with an EN EL3e battery in it or by connecting the camera to the AC Adapter fully recharges the internal clock battery When this battery depletes a symbol appears on the top LCD and two other symptoms appear the Interval shooting method doesn t work properly and image files no longer have a date ...

Page 92: ...out a charged battery in the camera if you accidentally pull the plug during shooting any images in the internal buffer are lost and the CompactFlash card may be corrupted due to an incomplete write cycle I generally recommend that you always have a battery in the camera when using the AC adapter Note The camera power switch should be in the OFF position before removing or inserting any connection...

Page 93: ...D10 can hold one EN EL3e battery eight AA batteries alkaline NiMH or lithium or one EN EL4 or EN EL4a battery õ To use the MB D10 1 Mount the MB D10 to the D300 body a Remove the rubber cap covering the contacts on the D300 s camera bottom and place it in the recess on the top of the MB D10 b Remove the plastic cap from the MB D10 s connectors and slide the MB D10 onto the bottom of the D300 As yo...

Page 94: ...t by lifting up the Battery Door Latch handle and then turning it counter clockwise 3 Remove the battery tray by pulling out the tray 4 If you wish to use AA batteries in the MB D10 a Place eight AA batteries into the MS D10 tray in the orientation etched at each tray position four batteries insert into one side four on the other side of the tray b Push the battery tray back into the MB D10 ...

Page 95: ...ttery b Push the battery tray back into the MB D10 6 If you wish to use an EN EL4 or EN EL4a battery in the MB D10 a Clip the optional BL 3 battery chamber door onto the battery b Push the battery into the camera 7 Close the battery compartment door on the MB D10 turn the Battery Door Latch handle clockwise then fold the Battery Door Latch handle back against the MB D10 8 Set Custom Setting D11 to...

Page 96: ...proximately 3000 shots using Nikon s own test the CIPA test uses the flash More rigorous testing produces some more useful data Shooting any form of NEF or TIFF reduces shots per charge significantly This is an unexpected result and unique to the D200 and D300 bodies at the moment The only explanation I can think of is that something in the write to card mechanism is drawing power unexpectedly But...

Page 97: ...oesn t significantly contribute to power drain That s because it s a short draw of power The peak power draw may be high but since it s normally such a short time during which this load occurs it isn t a big deal The difference in power consumption using AF and AF S lenses is negligible But VR vibration reduction lenses reduce battery life by another 10 or more when the vibration reduction feature...

Page 98: ...r the entire time it is connected to the printer so remove the connection when you re not using it Printing just 16 images with a Sony PictureStation printer connected dropped my battery power by almost half for example The WT 4 Wireless Transceiver draws significant power from the camera While the D300 is relatively smart about keeping the WT 4 in low power or no power modes when the camera is no...

Page 99: ...rticular the D300 uses an LCD overlay mechanism in the viewfinder which requires a small but constant power source This overlay supplies the AF sensor markings the grid lines and warnings if enabled You can verify this by looking through the viewfinder while removing the battery the display will get darker without the battery in the camera The consequence of the LCD overlay needing power is that i...

Page 100: ...pparel has inside pockets for just this purpose As performance drops on the battery in use swap it with the warm one Cold doesn t actually drain a battery it s the change in internal resistance at low temperatures that causes reduced function So once the replaced battery is again warm it functions normally You can usually juggle two EN EL3e batteries this way and get the full number of expected ex...

Page 101: ...o run your battery completely down below 5 as you risk a deep discharge cycle if you do and don t immediately get the battery onto the charger You can take batteries down until exhaustion if you have to but you shouldn t do this regularly and you should immediately put a battery discharged this way on the charger if possible Overall the D300 s battery performance is decent By minimizing use of a f...

Page 102: ...be used in your vehicle between shoots Better still this connection is what is used for the Brunton roll up solar panels I have successfully used the Brunton 14 and the MH 19 to charge EN EL3e batteries in Africa where I had no other power sources Battery Notes The D300 s battery charger can be used worldwide at any voltage from 100 to 250 volts You do need to obtain the correct cables and or adap...

Page 103: ...ery One Battery Two Batteries via MB D10 Bat Meter battery meter is a precise value for the amount of power left in the battery Pic Meter picture meter tells you how many images you ve taken so far using this battery charge If you re trying to estimate how many batteries you need for an event and you ve been paying attention to this number hint look at it just before changing batteries you ll have...

Page 104: ...rmanently store digital images When you take a picture the electrons stored in sensor are converted to digital values initially 12 bits in the case of JPEG and TIFF 12 bits or 14 bits depending upon what you choose in the case of NEF files interpreted by the EXPEED image processing system and then moved into an internal memory buffer Images stored in the internal buffer are moved as soon as possib...

Page 105: ...etely lost with images in the buffer those images not yet moved to the storage card are also lost When the camera is writing data from the internal buffer to the card a small green LED light on the back of the camera is activated it s labeled CF and is just below and to the right of the Direction pad Some controls impact buffer size Specifically both Long exp NR and High ISO NR reduce buffer size ...

Page 106: ...ally listen to you until the buffer is empty But if you take a CompactFlash card out of the camera while that indicator light is lit you ll not only lose some images but you could corrupt the formatting of the card potentially losing all the images on the card So make sure the light is off before removing cards Tip Here s one not many D300 shooters know about you can clear the buffer This is done ...

Page 107: ...ll note that especially for the JPEG sizes the buffer remaining indicator doesn t seem to count down with each image you shoot After shooting 10 images continuously for example my buffer remaining count had only dropped by 6 images Thus the camera reports the actual number of images that it can still store while the manual reports the number of images that you can shoot before the buffer hits zero...

Page 108: ...rge TIFF 16 Medium TIFF 20 Small TIFF 29 Large JPEG Fine 43 Medium JPEG Fine 89 Large JPEG Normal 90 all other JPEG settings 100 Remember camera settings can reduce those numbers and card performance can also change those numbers Moreover the camera will never report over 46 images remaining in the buffer Note If the number of images that can be stored on the card is less than the free buffer size...

Page 109: ... I write this CompactFlash cards are readily available from a wide range of vendors in sizes ranging from 8MB to 16GB in size the limit keeps getting pushed up now that cameras like the D300 support FAT32 we re a long way from the theoretical limit of 137GB The two types of CompactFlash card vary only in thickness the top card is a Type 2 card the bottom card is a Type 1 card The D300 can accommod...

Page 110: ...with older non UDMA cards Moreover the faster write speed of a UDMA capable card means that the buffer fills slightly slower in the first place as images are cleared out of the buffer faster while you re shooting bursts of images see Buffer Sizes on page 107 and note the discussion on buffer efficiency You don t have to use a UDMA card in the D300 the camera will work with any of the previous gene...

Page 111: ...pactFlash cards in their small plastic storage containers when not in the camera they should last as long as the camera does The internal mechanisms of CompactFlash cards are only produced by a handful of companies Thus both the memory and the controller chip used in many flash cards are the same Still read and write speed can vary considerably Size of the card About 1 x 1 x 1 8 43 x 38 x 3 3mm Th...

Page 112: ...hem That s normal and all manufacturers mark these sectors with a flag in the tables at the start of the drive so that the operating system doesn t use them But if the flags get erased for some reason they aren t restored with Quick Formats which is what most digital cameras do by the way they rely upon the memory controller in the card to catch any sector failure and map it out Likewise if anothe...

Page 113: ...a casual way in which you can assess performance For a rigorous analysis check http www robgalbraith com click on the CF SD link in the upper left side of the page for a detailed discussion and review of current flash cards along with write speed information when used on various Nikon DSLRs Microdrives Hitachi s Microdrive is a miniature 1 hard disk mounted inside a Type II style CompactFlash encl...

Page 114: ... the end of the serial number should work fine as that drive was modified to incorporate changes that also appeared in the MK2 drives The Microdrive s history is very confusing so here s a table that tries to make sense of it all Microdrive Compatibility Drive Size Serial D300 Compatible 170MB no D at end of SN No 340MB no D at end of SN Probably 170MB D at end of SN Probably 340MB D at end of SN ...

Page 115: ...sume about 190mA with peaks during writes of 300mA Solid state CompactFlash cards do not consume energy at rest Microdrives generate heat during constant use Informally Nikon has stated that one reason they didn t endorse Microdrives with the original D1 was that the location of the CompactFlash slot coincided with the hot spot in the camera While the D300 has shifted the positions of components h...

Page 116: ...ld or hot weather Always carry one or more spare CompactFlash cards with you in case the Microdrive fails I carry several memory based cards with me as backups Turn the power switch on the D300 to OFF when you re not using it otherwise you run a slight risk of the Microdrive overheating Note that this seems to conflict with my earlier comment about battery life the issue here isn t solely the batt...

Page 117: ...The card goes in connector edge first with the main label facing the outside of the camera toward the door You ll feel a bit of resistance when you ve pushed the card most of the way in you need to continue to push until the card is fully engaged with the connector inside the camera Using CompactFlash õ To insert a CompactFlash card in the D300 1 Turn the D300 s power switch to the OFF position 2 ...

Page 118: ...st to the left of the viewfinder and also labeled p the other is just in front of the top LCD and also labeled MODE When the top LCD begins blinking the label FOR release the buttons 3 Immediately press the two k buttons again Formatting time varies with the size of the card a fast 1GB card usually takes a few seconds The top LCD shows FOR in the Frames Remaining indicator while the camera is form...

Page 119: ...ad to navigate to the Format memory card option and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Yes and press the OK button to select it Note Formatting a CompactFlash card removes all information and images from the card Always save your images to a computer before formatting a card I use the quotes around removes because the image data isn t actually er...

Page 120: ...akes the resulting image files much smaller õ To remove a CompactFlash card from the D300 1 Turn the D300 s power switch to the OFF position Important Before moving to Step 2 confirm that the green CompactFlash Access lamp is not lit the camera does not completely shut down until buffered data is written to the card 2 Open the door by moving the CompactFlash Card Door switch towards the right of t...

Page 121: ...apable SanDisk Standard SDCFB 1GB 2GB 4GB SanDisk Ultra II SDCFH 1GB 2GB 4GB 8GB SanDisk Extreme III SDCFX3 1GB 2GB 4GB 8GB SanDisk Extreme IV SDCFX4 2GB 4GB 8GB These are UDMA capable cards I ve used a wide range of other cards in the D300 and have yet to find any that cause operational issues with the camera However note that counterfeit cards do exist and are often sold on auction and other Int...

Page 122: ...e of rolls of film and in the worst case about the same as a roll of film For uninterrupted shooting you re really going to want at least 2GB cards in your D300 and probably 4GB if you shoot uncompressed NEFs As I write this 2GB cards are the best compromise between capacity and price though you can often find good deals on slightly slower 4GB cards Personally I m using multiple solid state UDMA 4...

Page 123: ...s possible to get file fragmentation on the card When this happens data for any given file is non adjacent and the camera has to write extra information into the file directory This in turn can cause slightly longer write times due to the extra information that must be written in the directory and on Microdrives the extra head positioning that must be performed slows the process even more Likewise...

Page 124: ...ttached to a PC which should detect and mark bad sectors However if black frames appear on more than one of your cards or on a regular basis you should have your camera checked by Nikon Black frames are also a possible indication of a shutter problem on D300 bodies Problem Part of the frame typically the lower portion doesn t seem to have all the colors or has lines and streaks running through it ...

Page 125: ... how do you fix the structure and data and recover your images The best choice is to use a product such as Photo Rescue http www datarescue com photorescue This tool versions are now available for both Macintosh and Windows generally can find and recover images that are the result of most structure errors though you may have to go into the advanced mode and play with some of the settings in order ...

Page 126: ...he card Problem A 4GB or larger capacity card only shows 2GB of storage space available Solution To fully address the 4GB of space on the card it must be formatted using FAT32 formatting If the card was formatted using FAT or FAT16 as it is sometimes called the maximum capacity is limited to 2GB Note that some recent cards with large capacities also have a switch that must be flipped to enable the...

Page 127: ...pher the data see NEF Format on page 150 If you set your camera s exposure white balance and other settings knowledgeably know your way around digital image editing programs and immediately convert your JPEG files into a lossless format such as Adobe s PSD Photoshop data format any actual loss of data that occurs using JPEG or TIFF can be kept essentially invisible at least at moderate viewing siz...

Page 128: ... be done not all such mistakes can be undone NEF allows you to alter many of your camera settings after you ve taken the picture If you re getting the feeling that I m strongly in favor of the NEF format you re right For serious photographers shooting in NEF is like retaining and working with a negative while JPEG and TIFF is like accepting the print that comes out of the lab The reason most amate...

Page 129: ...lest data elements computers understand a single bit has a value of either 1 or 0 thus an example 8 bit value is 0100 1101 While the D300 is capable of producing 12 bit or 14 bit values for each color assuming you shoot NEF and use a converter that retains that data most computer imaging programs including Photoshop normally use 8 bit values for most work51 49 JPEG shooters should note that the D3...

Page 130: ...es just contain a single 12 bit or 14 bit data point for each photosite the remaining color information is deciphered later You do this in a compilation of bytes called a file On a D300 at its highest in camera resolution that amounts to a minimum of 36 636 672 bytes of data 4288 x 2848 pixels at 3 bytes per pixel which we d normally just round off and call 37MB That means that a file containing t...

Page 131: ...e imaging ASIC the following steps are performed note that the words in parentheses are gross oversimplifications to help you understand the process 1 The image is divided into 8 x 8 pixel blocks 2 The information in each block is run through a series of transforms calculations to produce a set of 64 coefficients results that are then quantized 52 Even an uncompressed NEF image can be thought of a...

Page 132: ...anent loss of information Generally it takes a JPEG compression ratio of 10 1 or more to produce annoying artifacts see JPEG Artifacts below JPEG compression ratios of 4 1 or lower produce virtually imperceptible artifacts in most common photo scenes The second compression step run length encoding is lossless meaning that the original information in this case the discrete cosine transform formula ...

Page 133: ...sting side note about JPEG the process that converts the pixel values into equations ends up putting the average pixel of each 8x8 block in the upper left corner of that block prior to compression Nikon doesn t use this average pixel directly the D300 generates the image s thumbnail using other methods some Coolpix models used this pixel to generate the thumbnail Thus if you want to create smaller...

Page 134: ...tem 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu green camera icon tab 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Image quality option and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the JPEG quality you wish to use JPEG fine JPEG normal or JPEG basic and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to th...

Page 135: ...Direction pad to navigate to the JPEG size you wish to use Large 4288x2848 12M Medium 3216x2136 6 9M or Small 2144x1424 3 1M and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 7 Use the Direction pad to navigate to JPEG compression and press the key on the Direction pad to select it ...

Page 136: ...will be noticeably larger with Optimal quality setting When you select Size priority you force the JPEG engine to use cruder compression on highly detailed images partially overriding your Image quality setting Alternatively Image quality can be set by holding down the QUAL button on the top of the camera and rotating the Rear Command dial Image size can be set by holding down the QUAL button and ...

Page 137: ...finition in the white is caused by Nikon s change in gamma Brightness setting One word of warning go by what I write not necessarily what you see First I ve evaluated a lot of different images to make my conclusions While my test setup is geared to generate some basic data for evaluation JPEG compression can and does render different scenes differently My comments are the accumulation of shooting ...

Page 138: ...ed and the detail in the 200 view at bottom is holding well Looks like there s a bit of mirror bounce in this sample by the way JPEG fine Size priority The file size dropped from 4 5MB to 4 1MB There is a slight boost in contrast but I don t see any other obvious changes JPEG normal Optimal quality File size is now 3 2MB Again contrast is building Artifacts are well controlled ...

Page 139: ...size is now 1 7MB Fine detail has eroded quite a bit and I m seeing JPEG artifacts at one full step in the resolution charts above that of JPEG normal Note that only detail has really changed as we reduced the data set colors remain basically unchanged JPEG basic Size priority Size has dropped all the way to 896KB Fine detail has eroded quite a bit and I m seeing JPEG artifacts at one full step in...

Page 140: ...ecommend sticking to JPEG fine Optimal quality if possible The reason to use the other settings would be to save space at the expense of potentially irremovable contrast buildup and some edge detail confusion at high sharpening levels Now let s look at what happens at a higher ISO value 1600 JPEG fine Optimal quality File size is 5 4MB The higher size indicates we ve got noise building false detai...

Page 141: ...duction has no other obvious impacts JPEG normal Optimal quality File size is 3 7MB Surprisingly little edge destruction is happening though it is definitely happening in the lowest levels of resolution chart JPEG normal Size priority File size is 3 5MB Detail is now visibly getting lost in the lower levels of the resolution chart that wasn t before ...

Page 142: ...en at higher levels in the resolution chart I see edge difficulties I didn t see with the other options Contrast has picked up to visibly higher levels So what are we to conclude from the above The D300 always does a pretty good job of rendering even when JPEG compression is cranked up and you bump ISO values As you move to higher compression levels you get a slight contrast build up At higher ISO...

Page 143: ...nown is that all manipulation of the image is done using 16 bit data early Nikon DSLRs used 8 bit processing later Nikon DSLRs used 12 bit processing The translation to 8 bit JPEG on a D300 is done only after all the demosaicing color manipulation sharpening and other effects are first handled In other words the D300 takes the 12 bit raw data renders that into a 16 bit data set uses that 16 bit bi...

Page 144: ... posterization in the shadow detail would often then become visible resulting in a blotchy muddy look in the darker areas of the image By keeping the in camera manipulations in 16 bit data the D300 avoids this problem Shadow detail in JPEGs made on a D300 is much better than most previous Nikon DSLRs though it can be a bit noisy at higher ISO values if noise reduction isn t turned on JPEG Artifact...

Page 145: ...st to make the blocking more visible The only way I can get even a hint of blockiness from the D300 is to use JPEG compression set to Size priority JPEG basic as the JPEG Quality and to post process on a smooth tone ramp Here s an example of the mosquito artifact Look closely at the very edges of the letters in this example All the letter edges have obvious edge issues and the insides of the P and...

Page 146: ...here than you see elsewhere But let s make it more obvious When I apply a bit of noise reduction in post processing you should see that the edges of the letters are still suffering more from noise than the rest of the image That s because the JPEG artifacts buried at the edges of detail are interfering with the noise reduction routine Even if we get very aggressive with our noise reduction we re l...

Page 147: ...ings we fight with digital we re looking for the combination of settings that minimizes visual artifacts while preserving detail My point is that the more JPEG compression you use the more you ll fight that problem The D300 is a bit like the D100 and D200 though something in the JPEG rendering scheme used tends to make JPEG fine and JPEG normal images relatively immune to over sharpening and edge ...

Page 148: ... software Pre 2003 software programs tend to recompress rather than rotate correctly Note There used to be a persistent myth circulating that said that any time you resave a JPEG file that you ll force a full recompression of the file adding artifacts Well written software doesn t do this For example beginning with version 6 0 of Photoshop the only recompression that is done on JPEG images that ar...

Page 149: ...egrees of sharpening can further trigger excessive artifacts on edges Again avoid JPEG basic and Size priority at ISO 1600 and above and definitely consider lowering the sharpening level as you increase the ISO value In each of these cases you can create image defects that won t be easily removed after the fact Moiré can sometimes be removed or at least downplayed by moiré removal tools or a bit o...

Page 150: ... about twice as large as basic That s a good indicator of how much information you re losing with each ratchet up the compression ladder i e half Stick with fine if you can Likewise stick with Optimal quality if you can The higher you set the ISO value the more emphatic I make those statements and I start dropping the if you can at the really high ISO values TIFF Format The D300 also can store inf...

Page 151: ...12 bit raw data renders that into a 16 bit data set uses that 16 bit bit data set and camera settings to render a set of 16 bit pixels and then reduces those to 8 bits only at the point where the actual TIFF file is created Because no compression is used TIFF files tend to be quite large So why would you want to use this format Because It doesn t use data damaging compression therefore there are a...

Page 152: ...t there are JPEG artifacts at a high detail edge that now become more visible TIFF renders all those potential problems as non existent You just won t encounter them In general the more potential problems you can remove in your image the better off you are down the road Still the tradeoff is unbalanced you re increasing the file size by over 6x to get a potential small visual benefit That s a toug...

Page 153: ...mages 1 Press the MENU button to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu green camera icon 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Image quality option and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to TIFF and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Image size optio...

Page 154: ...y Image quality can be set by holding down the QUAL button on the top of the camera and rotating the Rear Command dial Image size can be set by holding down the QUAL button and rotating the Front Command dial assumes you haven t used Custom Setting F7 to change the dial functions Top LCD only one of the options is highlighted at time TIFF Recommendation If you know that you need the best possible ...

Page 155: ...rrectly NEF Format NEF format often confuses Nikon DSLR newcomers Nikon and others sometimes also refer to this format as RAW Nikon advertises it as the highest quality format one that preserves the raw image photosite data What Nikon doesn t tell you is that you usually need to purchase an additional software product to really get the most from this format55 Nikon Capture NX 1 3 is what Nikon rec...

Page 156: ... what Nikon refers to as visually lossless It does lose and modify data more on that in a bit in the section labeled Compressed NEF But I m getting ahead of the discussion here Let s back up for a moment Data coming off the ADC portion of the sensor is a set of either 12 bit or 14 bit raw information essentially the photon count for each photosite For raw files this information simply needs to be ...

Page 157: ... one reason why NEF files require special software to decode the sensor data must be converted demosaiced into RGB data and color corrected Tip If you re a programming wizard and want to know the exact format of the NEF files here s a quick explanation the file is built in standard TIFF format technically TIFF EP but given a NEF extension and starts with tags for EXIF header information and white ...

Page 158: ...format tends to perform the interpretation of the photosite data slightly differently and at different speeds If you open an NEF file with Bibble Photoshop CS3 Capture One and Nikon Capture NX side by side you will see subtle differences in rendering of color and detail If you re getting the idea that it might be worthwhile to sample all the NEF converters you re right Fortunately most have trial ...

Page 159: ...differences The numbers reported above are Nikon s In practice I find Compressed NEFs actually tend to be a bit smaller than Nikon s numbers Compressed NEFs The D300 supports two types of compressed NEF files One version is said to be lossless and labeled as such in the camera while the other is said by Nikon to be either virtually lossless or visually lossless meaning that results visually indist...

Page 160: ...pressing NEF data Compressed NEF set via the D300 SHOOTING menu which works as follows Shadow and low mid range values are passed on as is High mid range and highlights values are split into groups essentially neighboring values are rounded to a central value for example values of 1023 1024 and 1025 might all be grouped together and stored as a single value The manner in which this is done isn t l...

Page 161: ...ith a single trip through this compression decompression cycle D300 compressed NEF images are usually indistinguishable from what you d see with no compression Our eyes don t resolve the small differences that are made to the data in the brightest areas of the photo That s partly because our eyes work in a non linear fashion with brightness sensors are linear this visually lossless NEF compression...

Page 162: ... instead of 8 bits makes gradual non edge transitions look smoother and subtler You ll also get a bit more detail than with JPEG images resolution chart numbers are a few percent higher they can be considerably higher in NEF if you re using noise reduction in the camera Post processing exposure changes are also more easily made with NEF files these are not really exposure changes but changing of t...

Page 163: ...ces on page 674 With JPEG images you re working from the camera s interpolation of the color and white balance While you can often rebalance images using a program like Adobe Photoshop CS3 or Lightroom you re one step removed from the original information in digital media each interpolation of original data can result in lost data or changes to data The more changes you make the more likely that a...

Page 164: ... the preview image Software exists that let s you extract this JPEG see http drchung new21 net previewextractor so the NEF JPEG choices are a bit redundant Too bad Nikon provide an option to extract the embedded JPEG from NEF files during downloading from camera to computer 5 I always suggest checking the NEF RAW recording setting after setting any quality that includes a NEF just to make sure it ...

Page 165: ...kon D300 Page 165 select it 6 Use the Direction pad to navigate to NEF RAW bit depth and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 7 Use the Direction pad to navigate to your choice of 12 bit or 14 bit and press the OK button to select it ...

Page 166: ...d and press the OK button to select it Alternatively hold down the QUAL button on the top of the camera and rotate the Rear Command dial to select RAW or one of the RAW JPEG options the top LCD displays the Image Quality setting as you change it this assumes you haven t used Custom Setting F7 to change the dial functions Top LCD only one option will appear at any given time the LMS indicators only...

Page 167: ...d a compression indicator would have been nice it doesn t even appear on the display that appears when you press the info button Note that you don t normally set the Image size when you select NEF RAW format as the D300 always records the full 4288 x 2848 image size for NEF files However if you elect to record a JPEG image along with your NEF you can set the size of the JPEG image that s recorded ...

Page 168: ...d NEFs on almost every Nikon DSLR to date NEF Recommendations Basically you have two choices you need to make if you shoot NEF bit depth and compression The gains made from 14 bit versus 12 bit in image quality only show up in a few circumstances In general you ll clearly see the difference only if you have to bring up deep shadows by many stops A low contrast image properly exposed wouldn t show ...

Page 169: ...00 sensor the change in speed has to do with counting by four faster and what 12 bit does instead of counting by one slower and what 14 bit does But that doesn t explain one other performance loss a slight increase in shutter lag only for the first shot in bursts My recommendation with bit depth is to shoot 14 bit if continuous shooting speed and shutter response isn t a concern and you think you ...

Page 170: ...computer graphics pro you may be surprised to find that JPEG TIFF and NEF files contain more than the image data This extra information about the photo is sometimes referred to as metadata59 Nikon D300 cameras follow a standard developed by the JEITA a Japanese standards body sometimes referred to as EXIF Exchangeable Image File Format The current standard version is EXIF 2 21 and is supported by ...

Page 171: ...kon s values Some programs may not fully display all the EXIF data values though And because codes are used instead of full text to keep the data small new lenses and features sometimes mean that a program can t display information about the latest things you use with the camera at least until the software is updated Not only is looking at EXIF data fun for the merely curious but if you study the ...

Page 172: ...is lens Now that the Nikon DSLRs have firmly established themselves and because Nikon used consistent codes for many of the manufacturer functions in the various digital SLR models most software applications correctly identify most D300 EXIF data However if you find the program you re using doesn t check to make sure that you re using the latest version If you are suggest to the developers that th...

Page 173: ...are of this data and have some way of entering it as most of them require it to be in place with photo submissions it s become the primary method by which news organizations track captions and photographer credits IPTC has defined a common set of coding guidelines but you should also check with the publication you re working with as they may have their own specific standards for using the individu...

Page 174: ... the organization s Web site http www iptc org Note that the list of software supporting the standard that s available on that site is incomplete DPOF and PictBridge The D300 supports DPOF information in the image files DPOF stands for Digital Print Order Format and was developed by Canon Kodak Fuji and Matsushita to allow CompactFlash cards or other storage cards to contain information that autom...

Page 175: ... of DPOF as the print data embedded in the image file and PictBridge as a communications protocol to transmit files from camera to printer The D300 supports PictBridge so you can connect a printer directly to the D300 and print from the storage card in the camera see PictBridge Printing on page 741 If you re confused about why I just covered DPOF in the Image Formats section of the eBook remember ...

Page 176: ...racters a period and a three letter file extension This limited size for the name makes for some serious issues that we camera users now have to deal with As with current personal computers files are organized in our cameras within a hierarchy of folders so you need to understand both the folder structure and the file naming standards Folders The top level folder for a digital camera is named DCIM...

Page 177: ...eras that use CompactFlash cards D70 NCD70 100NCD70 D70s ND70S 100ND70S D2x NCD2X 100NCD2X D2xs ND2XS 100ND2XS D2h NCD2H 100NCD2H D2hs ND2HS 100ND2HS D3 NC_D3 100NC_D3 D100 ND100 100ND100 D200 ND200 100ND200 D300 ND300 100ND300 D1h NCD1H 100NCD1H D1x NCD1X 100NCD1X Coolpix NIKON 100NIKON Note Obviously there s a pattern to the folder naming the first three characters are a numeric value that start...

Page 178: ...ers created by other cameras even if that s not what you want this is one of the reasons why I m a never swap cards between cameras guy Other pitfalls occur with multiple cameras too Remember that three digit number If your D100 is set to use a folder named 145ND100 then if you take that card out of the D100 and put it into your D300 and do something that triggers a new folder creation the number ...

Page 179: ...e folders to capture images but end up downloading the images from only one folder perhaps because you used a drag and drop method from card to computer instead of using Nikon Transfer then reformat the card Goodbye images I ve learned the hard way not to get too creative with folders Okay you ve been warned Should you choose to play with fire uh I mean folders keep reading õ To create a new folde...

Page 180: ...he three digit prefix a Use the Direction pad and keys to increase or decrease the value The D300 will skip over numbers that are already in use b Press the OK button when complete To abort the new folder creation process press the MENU button at any time prior to the last step 5b Note that the mere creation of a new folder doesn t mean the camera uses it You must make it the active folder see bel...

Page 181: ...the card into a PC and edit a file on the card õ To select a different active folder 1 Press the MENU button to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu the green camera icon tab 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Active folder and press the key on the Direction pad to select this option 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Select folder and press the key...

Page 182: ...deal with Playback folders File Names Individual files are normally named DSC_ XYZ where is a sequential image number and XYZ is replaced by the appropriate three letter file format extension e g JPG TIF or NEF The DSC stands for Digital Still Camera by the way some digital cameras can create movies hence the three letter prefix Thus after you ve taken a few pictures on a CompactFlash card the str...

Page 183: ...ng conventions of the two cameras Some day you ll be glad you did The D300 allows you to rename the DSC portion of the filename with three letters of your own choosing This is useful mostly to identify multiple cameras in an organization three letters aren t enough flexibility to use filename changes to keep track of assignments õ To rename the DSC portion of the filename 1 Press the MENU button t...

Page 184: ... to select it 4 Press the key again to enter the review screen this screen shows you what the current file names look like for both Color Spaces 5 Press the key again to enter the entry screen Enter the name you wish to use a Use the keys of the Direction pad to navigate to the letter you wish to enter white letters on gray background ...

Page 185: ...duplicate file names Nikon Transfer as well a growing number of third party programs e g Adobe Lightroom Photo Mechanic and so on allow you to automatically transfer files from camera or storage card in a card reader to the computer with a renaming scheme of your own choosing e g copy DSC_0001 JPG to PhillyzooApril001 JPG DSC_0002 JPG to PhillyzooApril002 JPG etc Other programs allow you to rename...

Page 186: ...xample I d create folders named PhillyZooApril01 and MomaApril01 on my computer I add the month and year to the folder name because I often revisit the same sites also these folders live in a folder hierarchy that helps me re find them e g US PA Philadelphia PhillyZoo PhillyZooApril01 3 Put each CompactFlash card you shot into your computer s card reader and use a renaming capable program such as ...

Page 187: ... of those to the same folder 4 If any of the files you copied in Step 3 are JPEG files66 you should also consider immediately using a product that ll resave them in a form without compression you can set up a Photoshop Action for example to take all the files in a folder and save a TIF or PSD version for editing If you don t perform this step then you ll need to be attentive when you open files fo...

Page 188: ...roduction to Nikon Software eBook that accompanied this Complete Guide What I ve just described is about the minimum you should do with your image files While file names are generally created consecutively e g DSC_0001 JPG DSC_0002 JPG etc a number of things may67 cause the camera s numbering to reset Creating a new folder if File Numbering Sequence is turned OFF see Custom Setting D6 File Number ...

Page 189: ...ot of grief later Remember you can change the DSC portion of the filename on the D300 If you have multiple D300 bodies I strongly recommend doing so Using the filename change ability for keeping track of jobs might be useful for someone shooting weddings or other major event type shoots but the limited number of characters makes it less useful than it could be and you ll need to be disciplined to ...

Page 190: ...the filename each time the camera turns over from 9999 to 0001 e g AAA_9999 becomes AAB_0001 This allows them to guarantee that they don t have duplicate filenames but the problem is that you need to watch carefully for the rollover hint if you find that the card you just filled has a really high number such as AAA_9451 use Reset on the File number sequence menu and then increment the three letter...

Page 191: ...uire navigating options displayed on the color LCD see D300 Color LCD on page 231 When you press the MENU button on the back of the camera the color LCD displays a menu of selections to choose from Color LCD Autofocus Direction Pad The menu system consists of three elements Menus tabs Menu Items and the Current Selections for the Menu Items Menus which I also sometimes call tabs are grouped catego...

Page 192: ...ply indicates that if you press the button on the camera you can get help for the currently displayed Menu Menu Item or Setting The Menu Items lead to individual choices or sub options The entire system is simply a hierarchy of choices For example Tab Menu Items Sub Choices More Choices Camera NEF RAW recording Type NEF RAW bit depth 12 bit 14 bit Put another way to set 14 bit you must navigate to...

Page 193: ...b menu Some menu choices require you to press the OK button on the back of the camera to accept a choice i e the key doesn t work to make the selection Generally this is used only for destructive behaviors such as formatting your CompactFlash card or for functions that require verification by you changing names of things for instance By moving the acceptance gesture from using either option to pre...

Page 194: ...the key on the Direction pad to get to the individual options within the SETUP menu You ll see a short list of options70 70 Nikon is up to their old tricks they ve changed the name of some items on the D300 s menus from those on previous cameras This really is silly and is very frustrating to users of multiple Nikon bodies For example on the D200 we have Mirror lockup and on the D300 we have Lock ...

Page 195: ...r up for cleaning Enables the mirror to be locked up out of the way for sensor cleaning This option is grayed out unless the camera is running off power connected to the DC In socket e g the EH 5a AC Adapter or has a full battery See Keeping the Sensor Clean on page 692 Video mode Sets the video format see Television Playback on page 749 HDMI Allows you to set the type of HD output the camera pres...

Page 196: ...point to point and grays out the option Dust off ref photo Allows you to take a dust removal reference photograph for use with Nikon Capture NX See the supplemental eBook Introduction to Nikon Software Battery info Displays additional information about the battery status and how many pictures you obtained with the battery See Battery Notes on page 102 Wireless transmitter Allows you to set up and ...

Page 197: ...es performance See Adjusting Your Lenses on page 395 Firmware version Displays the current firmware version of the camera see Firmware Version on page 218 Despite the name SETUP not all of the items grouped on this menu are things that you do when you initially set up the camera I ll tackle the items on this menu in the order and organization I think more appropriate Worse still Nikon has gotten t...

Page 198: ...NU menu In this section of the eBook however we re simply looking to get the camera set up properly for shooting Individual settings we might change in response to the scene we re photographing or the equipment we re using will be dealt with later note the see pointers after most items in the initial description of each item above Date Time and Language As noted in the section on power an internal...

Page 199: ... to the SETUP menu the yellow wrench icon 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the World time option Press the key to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Time zone Press the key to select it 5 In the screen that appears use the and keys on the Direction pad to place the highlighted area in your time zone names appear at the bottom of the screen Press the OK button to select the curr...

Page 200: ...he Direction pad to navigate to Date and time Press the key to select it 7 Use the and keys on the Direction pad to set the Y year value Press the key to move to the next field 8 Use the and keys on the Direction pad to set the M month value Press the key to move to the next ...

Page 201: ...the D day value Press the key to move to the next field 10 Use the and keys on the Direction pad to set the H hour value The clock uses the 24 hour format e g 11pm is hour 23 Press the key to move to the next field 11 Use the and keys on the Direction pad to set the M minute value Press the key to move to the next ...

Page 202: ...data you just entered Note If you pause for 20 seconds or more during Steps 6 through 13 the D300 automatically turns off and cancels any changes you ve made up to that point Alternatively you can press the shutter release halfway or more or press the MENU button during Steps 6 through 13 to cancel the operation You can also change the format in which the date appears ...

Page 203: ...he Direction pad to navigate to your choice of formats and press the key to select it Finally you can tell the camera whether daylight saving time is active 16 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Daylight saving time Press the key to select it 17 Use the Direction pad to navigate to your choice of On or Off and press the key or OK button to select ...

Page 204: ...glish Finnish French German Italian Japanese Korean Polish Portuguese Russian Spanish and Swedish If you ve purchased an official import of the D300 i e not a gray market71 model it should already be set to the appropriate language õ If you d like to change the camera s displayed language 1 Press the MENU button to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SETUP menu the wren...

Page 205: ...alian Dutch Polish Portuguese Russian and Swedish followed by the Asian languages Press the key on the Direction pad or the OK button to lock in your choice Note Changing the camera s language only applies to the menus displayed on the color LCD Information displayed in the viewfinder and on the top LCD and viewfinder remains in Anglo based icons Programming a Comment õ The D300 allows you to plac...

Page 206: ... Direction pad to navigate to Image comment before you set it the current value is shown as OFF rather than ON and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Input comment and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 On the input screen that appears a Use the Direction pad to navigate to the next letter you want to enter white letters on gray ...

Page 207: ...ly with a light gray background c If you need to move the cursor in the bottom box back to fix something hold down the Thumbnail button z and use the Direction pad keys to move it d Use the Delete button to remove the currently highlighted letter gray highlight in the bottom box e If you have more letters to enter return to Step 5a otherwise press the OK button to return to the previous menu 6 Use...

Page 208: ...ose wisely grasshopper One person has suggested that you enter IF FOUND CALL but remember this is what appears on your images it doesn t normally show on the camera itself except during setting It might make sense to put something like Copyright 2008 Thom Hogan though Setting the LCD Brightness õ The D300 allows users to set a brightness value for the color LCD screen on the back of the camera 1 P...

Page 209: ...hile if the two darkest swatches blend together the brightness is too low You re looking for the setting that allows you to distinguish the extreme dark left and extreme bright right patches at the same time This setting is possibly a bit dark for bright light it looks fine in dim light actually the screen capture is hiding the black in ways I don t see directly 5 Press the key on the Direction pa...

Page 210: ...etting of 1 to 1 on the D300 in normal and outdoor light But the bigger problem is that the color LCD is not color or brightness gamma72 profiled If something looks too bright or too red on the color LCD it may or may not be in your actual photo data It s actually worse than that the color LCD comes closer to reproducing the sRGB gamut than the AdobeRGB gamut If the camera is set to sRGB as the Co...

Page 211: ...andard usually NTSC Auto image rotation set to ON USB set to MTP PTP Note that none of these things show up on the Top LCD or while you re shooting everything we ve set so far really only impacts data recorded with the image date time comment file number image rotation active folder file naming how the menus appear language and brightness or how the camera connects to other devices video and USB E...

Page 212: ...e correction for nearsightedness In camera viewfinders the diopter value controls the apparent distance at which the viewfinder appears the default is 1 meter away the equivalent of 1 diopter If your corrected or uncorrected vision isn t sufficiently able to focus on objects at that distance you ll need to adjust the diopter value õ To adjust the diopter value 1 Defocus the lens on the camera unti...

Page 213: ... more correction than the built in adjustment allows you can purchase alternative eyepiece correction lenses You can buy 3 2 0 1 or 2 lenses to add to the viewfinder and it s easy to do they mount in place of the DK 21 rubber cup The range of adjustment remains the same In other words if you add a 3 lens your adjustment range would be from 5 to 2 Note When you use the optional correction diopters ...

Page 214: ...UAL and Exposure Compensation buttons both marked with a green for more than two seconds The following basic camera settings are returned to their defaults for the current SHOOTING menu bank see SHOOTING Menu on page 457 Settings after Reset Setting Default Image quality JPEG normal Image size Large ISO Sensitivity ISO 200 Picture Control Any modifications removed White balance Auto with 0 adjustm...

Page 215: ...er Settings The two button reset just described doesn t reset every menu option nor does it reset Custom Settings Menu Items for the current SHOOTING MENU bank see SHOOTING Menu on page 457 can be reset to the factory defaults by doing the following 1 Press the MENU button to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu camera icon tab and press the key to enter th...

Page 216: ... the key to select it 5 Navigate to the Reset shooting menu option and press the key to select it 6 Navigate to Yes and press the key to select it Settings after Reset Setting Default Shooting menu bank A Active folder 100 File naming DSC Image quality JPEG normal Image size Large JPEG compression Size priority ...

Page 217: ...t Resort Reset The D300 contains considerable electronics including a CPU and dedicated digital processors Like a computer it can sometimes get confused If the camera is locked up or displaying unusual or garbled characters you ve got one last option for attempting to reset the camera 1 Turn the camera OFF 2 If you re using battery power remove the main battery If you re using AC Power unplug the ...

Page 218: ... camera to come up in a clean state when we restore power Firmware Version The D300 shipped with firmware labeled A1 01 B1 00 and for the WT 4 L1 0 In February 2008 Nikon introduced an update to the A software version A1 02 This update fixes a problem that generates vertical lines in images shot with shutter speeds longer than eight seconds Note The three letter number combinations refer to differ...

Page 219: ...key on the Direction pad to display the firmware version To see the firmware version for the WT 4 1 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad keys to navigate to the SETUP menu wrench icon tab 3 Use the Direction pad keys to navigate to Wireless transmitter and press the key on the Direction pad to select it ...

Page 220: ...4 Use the Direction pad keys to navigate to Device info and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Use the Direction pad keys to navigate to Firmware version and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 6 The firmware version should be displayed ...

Page 221: ... 4 Put the card you created in Step 3 into the camera 5 Make sure the camera batteries are fully charged or you are using AC power via the EH 6 6 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 73 Warning It s quite possible that the update routine may change in the future so please double check the instructions on Nikon s Web sites before attempting any firmware installation Also note that sometimes...

Page 222: ...ate to the SETUP menu wrench icon tab 8 Use the Direction pad keys to navigate to Firmware version 9 Press the key on the Direction pad to display the firmware version 10 Navigate to Update and press the key on the Direction pad to get to the update dialog a Use the Direction pad to navigate to Yes ...

Page 223: ...SETUP menu press the key on the Direction pad and verify that the updated version appears in the screen that appears 11 Erase the A300 BIN file from the card technically not necessary but helps you keep track of what you re doing and then repeat Steps 3 through 10 except with the B300 BIN file 75 The exact display is a bit different but the D300 turns off the video while updating so the display ca...

Page 224: ...rst shooting with your D300 as it examines each of the camera s main controls and tells you when and how to use each Note that an abbreviated version of the summaries and step by step instructions is in the printed Thom Hogan s Nikon D300 To Go that came with this eBook We ll start off the section by identifying all the controls buttons switches and dials then study them in more detail D300 Contro...

Page 225: ... 4 PC Sync socket under rubber cap 5 Self Timer Autofocus Assist Red eye Reduction lamp 6 Depth of Field Preview button 7 Fn user assignable Function button 8 Primary Front Command dial called sub command dial in Nikon manuals 9 Shutter release 10 Vertical Shutter Release Lock lever 11 MB D10 Mounting wheel 12 Lens Alignment mark 13 Lens strap attachment points ...

Page 226: ... balance button 76 What s a focal plane It s the point at which the image is focused i e the surface plane of the sensor for a D300 or the surface plane of the film for a 35mm film camera In close up macro work it s sometimes necessary to measure distances from the focal plane thus the mark 77 Yes there s a reason why I sometimes deviate from the Nikon manuals in nomenclature In consumer cameras N...

Page 227: ...e 29 Metering Method dial 30 Diopter Adjustment knob 31 AE L AF L button 32 AF ON button repeated on MB D10 33 Rear Command dial main command dial in Nikon manuals repeated on MB D10 34 Autofocus Area Direction pad doubles as Autofocus Sensor selector and Direction pad for the menu system repeated on MB D10 35 Direction Pad Lock lever 36 Autofocus Area Mode Selector switch ...

Page 228: ...ton 42 CompactFlash Card Door Release lever 43 CompactFlash Card Access lamp Side View 44 MB D10 Battery Compartment Door latch 45 Flash Options button doubles as Flash Exposure Compensation button Flash Sync Mode in Nikon manual 46 Flash Release button 47 Video Out connector under rubber flap 48 HDMI connector under rubber flap 49 DC In connector under rubber flap 50 USB connector under rubber fl...

Page 229: ...isplays additional information not found on the film bodies This monochrome LCD is primarily used to show the camera s main shooting modes exposure settings frames shot and remaining and active primary features Most of the information on the top LCD is associated with camera controls on or near the top of the camera A few of the areas on this LCD have multiple uses so pay close attention to the in...

Page 230: ...mber of stops exposure and flash bracketing increments WB bracketing increment number of shots per interval maximum aperture and PC connection indicators when setting or using other shooting options 8 8 55 Exposure Bracketing indicator BKT 56 White Balance Bracketing indicator WB 57 Frame Count indicator Note remains displayed even when camera is turned OFF also shows buffer remaining capture mode...

Page 231: ...uality indicators RAW FINE NORM BASIC 77 Custom Settings Bank indicator CUSTOM ABCD 78 Shooting Menu Settings Bank indicator SHOOT ABCD 79 MB D10 battery indicator BP 80 Auto ISO indicator ISO AUTO D300 Color LCD On the back of the camera is a large 3 color LCD Nikon refers to this as the Monitor which can be used to review images taken with the D300 or to display shooting information The color LC...

Page 232: ... three colored dots to make up what we interpret as an RGB pixel The old delta array of the D200 and other earlier Nikon DSLRs fools us into thinking a low definition device 320x240 is really a set of pixels but the offset used in the colors and the large dot size make for a visibly crude image Go ahead take a magnifying glass to a D200 color LCD and you ll see something like this 78 In actuality ...

Page 233: ... implied pixel pitch of the D300 s color LCD is 266 dots per inch which is about as high as it gets right now on displays On the older display technology it s often difficult to see how much acuity is in the image On the D300 s newer display technology it s much easier to make that assessment The color LCD also allows you to see the image well from 170 essentially any angle that you can manage to ...

Page 234: ...th the glass Nikon is now using If you were to sustain impact damage to the color LCD enough to break the covering tempered glass will break into small cubic pieces and not long knife edge shards Indeed any impact strong enough to break the tempered glass cover will probably shatter the entire cover requiring replacement My recommendation is to keep a cover either the supplied BM 8 or a third part...

Page 235: ... display visible indicator Highlights Note that other information about the photo appears on separate information pages selected by pressing the or keys on the Autofocus Area Direction pad while viewing images See Image Review on page 484 D300 Viewfinder When you look through the viewfinder you ll see an information display below the image area This lighted display is activated when you press the ...

Page 236: ...alue 88 86 98 Aperture value 8 8 99 Aperture Stops from Maximum indicator 100 Exposure Compensation indicator 101 Flash Exposure Compensation indicator 102 Exposure Mode indicators P A S M 103 Manual Exposure display Exposure Compensation setting òóô 104 Frame Count indicator Frames Remaining indicator Exposure Compensation value PC Connection indicator 88 8 105 Over 1000 Images indicator k 106 Fl...

Page 237: ...Point on page 255 Unlike previous Nikon DSLRs the D300 doesn t really have a way to visually estimate the area comprised by the center weighted area when you set that method of metering The area used for center weighted metering can be changed using Custom Setting B5 see page 541 but you ll have to guess at how large that area is in the viewfinder The image area you see in the full viewfinder is 1...

Page 238: ...using the visually lossless scheme TIFF TIFF Images are demosaiced by the camera camera controls are applied data is reduced to 8 bits and the result is stored as a TIFF file This is the highest quality image the D300 can produce internally RAW requires you to convert the image externally fine JPEG Images are demosaiced by the camera camera controls are applied data is reduced to 8 bits and the re...

Page 239: ...g you when you make other setting mistakes which helps you learn faster What do I mean by that Well if you get the white balance setting wrong while shooting JPEG images the color in your photos will be wrong If you get white balance wrong when shooting NEF you simply change the setting in editing Approximate Images Per Card Format Size 512MB 1GB 2GB 4GB 14 bit RAW 25300 21 41 83 166 12 bit RAW 19...

Page 240: ...etail and Sharpening set to 7 on a CompactFlash card that overstates its capacity you may get far fewer images than listed in these tables especially with JPEG images sharpening adds more detail that JPEG has a hard time compressing Conversely if you shoot non detailed scenes with Sharpening set to 0 on an efficient CompactFlash card you may get slightly more images than shown Like EPA mileage lab...

Page 241: ...ion pad to set the quality If you ve set NEF Raw no JPEG file added you re done with this part of the change see next section 6 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Image size option Press the key on the Direction pad to see the sub options 7 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the size you want to use 8 Press the key on the Direction pad to select it ...

Page 242: ...gate to the SHOOTING menu camera icon tab and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the NEF RAW recording option Press the key on the Direction pad to see the sub options 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to NEF RAW bit depth Press the key on the Direction pad to see the sub options 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the option you want to use...

Page 243: ...e key on the Direction pad to see the sub options 7 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the option you want to use Press the key on the Direction pad or the OK button to complete the settings If you selected JPEG or one of the RAW JPEG formats you need to set the JPEG compression option 8 Press the MENU button to show the menu system ...

Page 244: ...utton to complete the settings Some confusion exists about the difference between Size priority and Optimal quality Normally JPEG compression is variable in the file size it creates If you shoot something with lots of detail in it a complex landscape with lots of trees and bushes for example at JPEG fine you ll get a bigger file size than if you shoot a subject with very little detail e g a plain ...

Page 245: ...ngs this generally isn t a big issue but if you re setting JPEG basic and shooting lots of detail you want to be careful with setting Size priority as you will get a highly compressed image with potentially visible JPEG artifacts Alternatively Image quality can be set by holding down the QUAL button and rotating the Rear Command dial Image size can be set by holding down the QUAL button and rotati...

Page 246: ... and this system has a variety of settings to control how the metering is accomplished Second the D300 has multiple methods of interpreting what the meter says is the proper exposure called exposure modes see Exposure Modes on page 274 We need to examine both things as they are direct contributors to whether you get the right exposure or not Metering Methods The D300 has three metering methods ava...

Page 247: ... The 1005 cell CCD covers virtually all of the image frame The grid is 15 rows of 67 columns and consists of alternating color sensors RGB but it s not the Bayer pattern described in the section on the sensor If a D type or G type lens is used with or without flash matrix metering also takes into account the focus distance to help guess where the subject is and what kind of shot you re taking Exam...

Page 248: ...ring system is highly subject to biasing the exposure towards what s underneath the selected autofocus sensor If what s under that sensor is dark exposure is increased if what s under that sensor is bright exposure is decreased If you set Dynamic Area Autofocus the matrix metering system works more like the old D200 system as it tends to look at the pattern of sensors 9 21 or 51 points to determin...

Page 249: ...owever note that no meter can perfectly deal with any situation that has a higher contrast range large variation in brightness remember I call this exposure dynamic range than the camera s dynamic exposure which by the way describes about half of the daylight scenes you might shoot In scenes with a large exposure range either the bright portions of the scene will have to be overexposed or the dark...

Page 250: ...idn t reveal much detail useful to the casual photographer The key point that diagram revealed was that in very bright and very dim scenes the camera sets exposure differently than in normally lit scenes If I had to characterize this I d do so as follows In very dark scenes the central region e g the center weight circle is often considered the most important and exposure is sometimes biased towar...

Page 251: ...xposed right most of the time If the contrast between matrix regions is very low there s always a tendency for the matrix meter to set an exposure based upon the central area regardless of brightness Lesson watch exposure with off center subjects when contrast is low Again keep the autofocus sensors over the critical exposure area if possible Don t panic While that was a lot of detail we ll make a...

Page 252: ...hat s darker than middle gray your exposure will be brightened while if it s brighter than middle gray your exposure will be lowered Most of the inconsistent metering complaints I ve heard can all be traced back to this Snow good More so than any previous Nikon matrix system the new one in the D300 seems to capture snow and very bright scenes more like we would using traditional spot metering and ...

Page 253: ...waway note in the Nikon literature should be called out if you re using a filter that has an exposure factor of one stop or more use Center weighted metering instead of matrix metering That would for instance apply to polarizing filters The reasoning behind switching metering types with strong filters is simple the matrix patterns were created using no filtration Strong filters can greatly alter w...

Page 254: ...utofocus brackets to envision the circle of what s being metered This sometimes gets them into trouble The actual area is at least 50 larger than the brackets in size and a slightly different shape see illustration below Spot metering occurs centered on one of the autofocus sensor areas green Note the area metered is somewhat larger than the autofocus sensor brackets indicate A couple of spot mete...

Page 255: ... is selected Note also that this is the case for Manual focus as well Camera may move the spot metering point and focus from the initial autofocus sensor you select This only happens when both Dynamic Area autofocus and Continuous Servo autofocus are selected Camera picks both the autofocus and spot metering point Auto Area autofocus does all the heavy lifting for both the spot metering and autofo...

Page 256: ...ormation used 2 The PC Micro Nikkor 85mm f 2 8P only meters correctly when not shifted 3 You have to manually set the maximum aperture and focal length settings for the lens using Non CPU Lens Data Also only Aperture priority and Manual exposure mode are allowed Setting the Metering Method õ Just to the right of the viewfinder rotate the Metering Method switch around the AE L AF L button so that t...

Page 257: ...to do a better more consistent job than the matrix metering system is producing I see three instances where this is likely Very high contrast and bright scenes The matrix metering pattern sometimes has problems with very bright scenes with a great deal of contrast in them Part of this is that the matrix meter itself has a brightness limit of 17 3EV The other part is that the matrix does try to kee...

Page 258: ...ng this method correctly 2 You re coming from a film camera that sets exposure using the center weighted method and you re more comfortable keeping the same system on your new DSLR If that s the case by all means change the metering system of your D300 to Center weighted and set the system to match the circle size from your original camera some earlier Nikon SLRs used a smaller center circle some ...

Page 259: ...erexposing print film is something that professionals tend to do routinely as it has little consequence on highlight detail but increases density of shadow areas for most films Print film has a wider dynamic range Print film holds a wider range from dark to bright than does a digital camera Views differ on the exact difference but it could be as much as three stops Automated print processors fix m...

Page 260: ...g exposures even though they have better noise tendencies than their consumer cousins So by moving to a DSLR you get more control over what the camera does Heavy processing of images by the camera would prevent you from exercising that control Not to say that you can t make your D300 do a lot of image processing in the camera The new Picture Controls and tools like Active D Lighting have a wide ra...

Page 261: ... metering system in the D300 has a tendency to produce images that don t blow out highlights though this sometimes makes them look a bit dull and underexposed The simplest way to deal with such images is to change the exposure linearity using a Curve in Photoshop Another way is to alter the camera s settings in particular you can use a Custom Curve in your Picture Control see Picture Controls on p...

Page 262: ...he fact without getting what I call nuclear colors see petal of rose in shot below taken from a converter test in my newsletter In my newsletter I pointed out that digital photographers need to learn the colors that trigger channel blow out Bright red bright green and bright blue are easy to recognize but learn to recognize the colors produced by maximum Red Green Red Blue and Blue Green channels ...

Page 263: ... D300 has two useful exposure evaluation features that analyze the exposure data after you ve taken a picture RGB Histogram and Highlights These features need to be turned on 1 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the PLAYBACK menu right arrow in a box icon 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Display mode and press the key on the Direction pad to s...

Page 264: ...Direction pad to complete the selection Note the options you picked in Step 4 are not applied until you complete this last step Here s what each option does Data This option toggles the appearance of three additional information display pages for each image these pages overlay the camera setting data from the EXIF tags over the image RGB histogram Adds an information display page for each image th...

Page 265: ...u may have overexposed the image at a minimum you re likely losing highlight detail Note that some of the white areas have turned black in the right hand screen These blink to indicate that these sections of the image have exceeded the camera s preset white level and are probably blown out have no detail Note Highlights worked slightly different on the original D1 than it does on all subsequent Ni...

Page 266: ...ges for an individual image However as you re learning how your D300 works I think it s important to have all of these options active and use them to review what the camera is doing Over time you ll probably want to just select RGB histogram Remember with RGB histogram active you can still get the overall highlights display as well as ones for the individual channels by holding the Thumbnail butto...

Page 267: ... he or she is seeing A simple histogram s horizontal axis ranges from dark valued pixels 0 black at the left to bright valued pixels 255 white at the right The horizontal axis shows the luminance channel and does not tell you anything about the individual Red Blue and Green channels This part of the screen is the histogram The vertical axis is the number of pixels in the image with a particular lu...

Page 268: ... Nikons used a yellow on white style that made it easy to see luminance blowouts Curiously the old style histogram is possible on a D300 but you have to set Custom Setting F1 to use the center press of the Direction pad to pull up the histogram Then you get this It s much easier to see what s happening at the edges of the histogram with the yellow data versus the red borders So what does a well ex...

Page 269: ...n in the right side of the histogram you need to add more exposure to the shot Note that underexposed images are easier to recover detail from than overexposed images Everything skewed left and lots of unused histogram space at the right Underexposed Note the saturated colors but also the lack of detail in the dark areas Pixels are scattered over the entire width of the histogram The overall image...

Page 270: ... to the brightest area of a photo when we view it and all those pixels stacked up at the right edge of the histogram will eventually print as paper yuck Any spike at the left edge means lost shadow detail Or it could simply mean you have some totally black areas in your shot Our eyes aren t bothered as much by dark areas in a picture unless I suppose that area is your subject In general you re loo...

Page 271: ...fferently than those the camera shows One thing that confuses many NEF shooters is that Photoshop histograms only show the top 8 bits of data If you use Capture to output 16 bit images to Photoshop be aware of that The D300 like the D2 series the D200 and the D3 has the ability to show individual channel histograms So what have we been looking at up to this point in this section Something called a...

Page 272: ...placed along the right side This example shows why the channel histograms are important Look at the red histogram Note the spike up the right side That means that the red channel is fully saturated and blowing out probably that red roof Yet the luminance histogram white doesn t show any blowout Here s the same image properly exposed ...

Page 273: ...bright sun all that red in the rock has a tendency to push the red channel up often enough to blow the channel out completely This has an impact after the fact when you go to post process that picture and perhaps try to alter the white balance a bit the blown red channel will prohibit you from many manipulations you might want to do and the tonal ramp in the areas that have been blown out may be c...

Page 274: ...ol and choose the aperture setting using the Front Command dial and the D300 automatically picks the correct shutter speed to create a properly exposed image Note that the shutter speed the camera picks is incremented in 1 3 stops with the default camera settings in this mode As you get more serious about your photography you ll discover that the aperture you select has a great deal to do with wha...

Page 275: ... mode gives you the ability to set an action stopping shutter speed and let the camera do the rest Professionals who shoot sports tend to use this exposure mode M Manual exposure mode You control and choose both aperture Front Command dial and shutter speed Rear Command dial the D300 advises you on exposure by activating an analog metering bar in the viewfinder and top LCD showing what your curren...

Page 276: ...ote The references to Command dials in the previous and following descriptions can be reversed by using Custom Setting F7 see page 587 õ To select the exposure mode press the MODE button on the top of the camera behind the shutter release and use the Rear Command dial to chose the desired exposure mode displayed as P A S or M on the top LCD a indicates you re in Flexible Program exposure mode Top ...

Page 277: ...eter is active Note however that the overall exposure remains the same in other words if your override increases the shutter speed the aperture is decreased and vice versa A small asterisk appears next to the e g in the top LCD when you ve overridden the camera s program settings Note also that once you override the program it remains overridden by that same amount until you change the exposure mo...

Page 278: ...ou re serious about controlling depth of field camera shake subject motion and a host of other factors that come up while making photographs get out of Program exposure mode and take more direct control over what the camera is doing ISO Sensitivity The D300 allows user controllable ISO values from 200 to 3200 in as little as one third stop steps you can alter the settings to half or full stops usi...

Page 279: ...ed in the deep shadows In my experience LO values work okay for low contrast scenes but are dangerous for high contrast scenes due to the loss of highlight information Moreover if you look closely on long exposures you often see artifacts at LO values that you don t at ISO 200 HI values the HI ISO values compromise overall camera dynamic range As you move ISO values up the camera dynamic range dec...

Page 280: ...he ISO sensitivity settings option and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the ISO sensitivity option and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Use the Direction pad to select an ISO value and press the key on the Direction pad to select it ...

Page 281: ...00 is not truly random unlike film grain The D300 has a variety of noise reduction schemes some of which work automatically and some of which are user controlled Long exp NR on the SHOOTING menu has nothing to do with ISO it controls a type of noise that builds up when a sensor sits collecting light photons for long periods of time 8 seconds or longer on the D300 High ISO NR also on the SHOOTING m...

Page 282: ...re carefully examined to ensure that the full range of the chart fit within the boundaries All shots here are post processed JPEG images The only Photoshop processing is setting white and black points and then cropping Note that these samples are only a few of the ones I examined to make my comments Go by what I write not necessarily by what you see ISO 200 Look carefully at 1 how well the resolut...

Page 283: ... my big display I really can t distinguish between them Even the file sizes are close to the same indicating no significant noise build up ISO 1600 While you probably won t see it here at full size side by side with the ISO 800 example I can now see some noise appearing in some of the color patches It s modest but most certainly there all noise reduction is Off Remarkably the colors still have a v...

Page 284: ...ting slightly ISO 6400 H1 0 I hope you can see that things took a turn for the worse First even at the larger size you can see noise Also note the darker colors in many cases The 200 view reveals just how bad things got Note Underexposing is a bit like setting a higher ISO Some of the complaints I ve heard from D300 users about noisy unsaturated images can be attributed to this For example let s s...

Page 285: ... equivalent of a 2 bit or higher reduction in individual color values which is easily seen in images HI 1 0 shows obviously less color saturation but the effects begin as early as ISO 1600 When the D300 first was announced I was asked many times about whether it was usable for indoor sports As I did with the D2x D200 and S5 I decided to test the question During one of my weekly basketball games I ...

Page 286: ...exposure tweaking but the white balance needed a modest change No other changes were made to the default settings Once in Photoshop I applied Neat Image using the Auto Profile ability then did a very slight 30 opacity sharpening using the High Pass filter Noise Reduction Settings The D300 has two noise reduction abilities built in Long exp NR performs a dark frame subtraction on long exposures to ...

Page 287: ...o ISO HI 1 0 Off No noise reduction applied No noise reduction applied Minimal amount of noise reduction applied Low No noise reduction applied Minimal amount of noise reduction applied Moderate amount of noise reduction applied Normal No noise reduction applied Moderate amount of noise reduction applied Large amount of noise reduction applied High No noise reduction applied Large amount of noise ...

Page 288: ...e 200 detail at the bottom shows you just how bad things are lots of grain like pebbling going on in the solid blocks of colors Here s High ISO NR set to Normal at ISO HI 1 0 The noise reduction now is getting a handle on some of the pebbling in the color blocks but it s coming at the expense of detail note the edges are starting to become less distinct ...

Page 289: ... The noise reduction works but you get muddier darker colors less edge detail and a visible contrast build up Overall my assessment is that the in camera noise reduction should be a last resort use it only if you really can t afford to have the grain like noise effect in your images and can t afford to use post processing noise reduction I actually prefer the noise reduction to be Off the colors a...

Page 290: ... and aperture combination you pick won t achieve a proper exposure manual exposure bar centered at 0 ó For example if you were at ISO 200 and set f 8 at 1 125 but the meter thought the exposure should be f 5 6 at 1 125 the camera will boost the ISO one stop to 400 f 8 is one stop underexposed compared to f 5 6 in this example In Shutter priority exposure mode the ISO is changed when the camera run...

Page 291: ... Moreover the camera sets the actual ISO value it picks in sixth stop increments when this feature is active Another nice touch is that D300 shows the ISO value being used in the viewfinder and the ISO AUTO indicator blinks The Top LCD only shows the ISO AUTO indicator Top LCD Note If you use flash the automatic ISO function turns off and your previously set ISO is used The ISO AUTO in the viewfin...

Page 292: ... pad to navigate to ISO sensitivity auto control and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to On and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 6 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Maximum sensitivity and press the key on the Direction pad ...

Page 293: ...o use when automatic ISO is active and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 8 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Minimum shutter speed and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 9 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the lowest shutter speed you want the camera to use when automatic ISO is active and press the key on the Direction pad ...

Page 294: ... chance that whatever noise is produced will show up in your image You will have to apply sharpening in post processing however If you re super critical of noise follow the above guidelines but set Maximum sensitivity to 800 However I d be remiss to not point out that setting the camera in this kind of all automatic way is not something you want to do lightly It s very easy to get into a point and...

Page 295: ...fferences between photosites get magnified and may become visible Imagine a photosite that captures 150 light photons and an adjacent one that receives 155 photons This difference is insignificant when these are black values and end up getting interpolated into say a pixel value of 10 10 10 versus 10 11 10 But if these values are being amplified several times and now represent middle gray values t...

Page 296: ...While these ISO values are as noise free as ISO 200 they differ in how highlights are handled In high contrast scenes highlights are often clipped at the LO ISO values ISO 800 and 1600 are quite usable and shouldn t be avoided Indeed the D300 set and exposed correctly generates better results at these ISO values than almost any previous Nikon DSLR Note that camera dynamic range is lowered a bit th...

Page 297: ...east Well if you can put the camera on a tripod turn on long exposure noise reduction Long exp NR is on the SHOOTING menu and use longer exposures It s no contest You can produce nearly noise free images with exposures of 10 20 or even 30 seconds on a D300 The automatic ISO option is quite useful in some situations as long as you keep its range of operation limited See my specific recommendations ...

Page 298: ...ng if possible avoid high JPEG compression HI values Use only if unavoidable very visible impairments Normal or High No sharpening avoid high JPEG compression Additional ISO related suggestions Large prints require lower ISO If you re going to use an image for printing large prints 13x19 inches or bigger use only ISO values 200 through 800 if you can Conversely small prints allow higher ISO If you...

Page 299: ...mera settings to apply a post processing noise reduction similar to what the camera does if you don t change the conversion defaults but other converters don t recognize the camera settings instead they make an attempt to reduce noise based upon ISO and sometimes proprietary profiles I don t find that to be an issue as I prefer post processing noise reduction under my control anyway Exposure Brack...

Page 300: ...xposure bracketing button that we used to have on the D200 and D2 series bodies Instead bracketing is one of the possible assignments for the Fn button on the front of the camera You must make sure that the FUNC90 Button dials setting for Custom Setting F4 is set to Auto bracketing õ To make exposure bracketing active Custom Setting F4 has to be at the default value 1 Hold down the Fn button while...

Page 301: ... 1 above but rotate the Rear Command dial until À no longer appears a value of 0F D300 Exposure Bracketing Values Table Exposures Top LCD of Shots Exposures 2F 0 3 2 0 0 3 EV 2F 0 5 2 0 0 5 EV 2F 0 7 2 0 0 7 EV 2F 1 0 2 0 1 EV 2F 0 3 2 0 0 3 EV 2F 0 5 2 0 0 5 EV 2F 0 7 2 0 0 7 EV 2F 1 0 2 0 1 EV 3F 0 3 3 0 0 3 0 7 EV 3F 0 5 3 0 0 5 1 EV 3F 0 7 3 0 0 7 1 3 EV 3F 1 0 3 0 1 2 EV 3F 0 3 3 0 0 3 0 7 EV...

Page 302: ...ed the default is that both ambient and flash exposures are varied during bracketing Custom Setting E6 see page 569 allows setting what is bracketed when the camera is in Manual exposure mode The D300 has more bracketing options than most photographers tend to use Because the D300 s meter is accurate the most commonly used bracketing value is probably 3F 0 3 or 3F 0 5 if you ve set the camera for ...

Page 303: ...ry useful potential of the bracketing system is to increase the dynamic range of your finished shots Landscape and nature photographers like me often have a difficult time balancing the exposure for distant objects and the sky against foreground objects that may be in shadow With film we used graduated neutral density filters in such situations but since we re going to be working with our D300 ima...

Page 304: ...nd lit areas of a scene or have areas with little or no interesting detail in which to hide transitions between the exposures How good your resulting image looks is in large part attributable to your Photoshop skills but I ve seen some remarkable images created this way These images would be very difficult to duplicate with film Better still use the D300 s bracketing sequence to create images for ...

Page 305: ...ic bracket with a single shutter press Simple combine it with Interval shooting just make sure the number of pictures at an interval matches your bracketing depth see Interval Shooting on page 440 When your camera is set to bracket a few details sometimes catch new D300 users by surprise In the Continuous release shooting method holding down the shutter release attempts to take only the specified ...

Page 306: ... different ambient exposure values for each shot but it varies the output of the Speedlight as well remember the default flash mode is a balanced mode where flash doesn t assume that it is providing the main exposure Normally this is what you want the camera to do You can tell the camera to use flash only or camera only bracketing by using Custom Setting E5 see Exposure Bracketing Method on page 5...

Page 307: ...cketing settings Setting Use 2F 0 7 When you re in a hurry and think you might be close to blowing out a channel 5F 1 0 or 7F 1 0 To create bracketing sets for Photoshop s Merge to HDR function 3F 0 7 or 3F 1 0 Bracketing in very bright high contrast scenes beach snow etc Exposure Compensation The D300 s exposure meter like all modern meters is set to assume that the subject it is looking at has a...

Page 308: ...mera underexposes ADD exposure exposure compensation Mid tone values such as grass or plants Same as middle gray Camera exposes correctly Very dark object such as black lava rock Darker than middle gray Camera overexposes SUBTRACT exposure exposure compensation Virtually every professional I ve met has his or her own method of deciding when to override the camera s meter but every pro I know also ...

Page 309: ...on you ll see that the manual exposure indicator moves off of 0 in direct relationship to how much compensation you dialed in The D300 supports an alternate method of setting exposure compensation via Custom Setting B4 see Exposure Compensation Control on page 539 When you set this alternate method called Easy Exposure Compensation by Nikon one of the command dials on the camera is used to adjust ...

Page 310: ...nformation Let s keep the discussion simple and hypothetical for a moment Assume that you had an 8 bit data set that had three bit values in it 1000 0000 0000 0010 and 0111 1111 those are equivalent to 1 128 and 254 or close to black middle gray and near white Now let s apply a shadow boost and highlight reduction scheme to our data We might end up with values of 0100 0000 0000 0010 and 0011 1111 ...

Page 311: ... Normal the exposure is lowered by 1 3 stop Flash if active is produced approximately 2 3 stop lower than normal High the exposure is lowered by 2 3 stop Flash if active is produced approximately 1 stop lower than normal To set Active D Lighting 1 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu green camera icon 3 Use the Direction pad to navig...

Page 312: ...exposure in Manual exposure mode Active D Lighting only changes the zero point in the metering bar in Manual exposure mode Some Picture Control settings are canceled Any Brightness or Contrast setting is overridden by Active D Lighting Automatic ISO and exposure compensation settings still apply if set You can get really confused if you start setting multiple things that influence exposure simulta...

Page 313: ...ersonally I d say you re better off even Capture NX users to simply make sure that your exposure doesn t have channel blowout rather than using Active D Lighting My advice is to use the Active D Lighting function sparingly if at all While it can produce out of camera usable pictures in high contrast scenes that are better than with it turned off it is not a leave it on all the time type of feature...

Page 314: ...ers indicate a redder light to our eyes higher numbers indicate bluer light The light itself isn t red it just has more red wavelength components than say a bluer light which would have more blue wavelength components On digital cameras you set a white balance to adjust the sensor to the wavelengths of light being captured D300 s have nine basic white balance settings â or A Automatic white balanc...

Page 315: ...oping with the problem of getting good automatic white balance with indoor light is to simply do what we used to do with film use an 80B filter The 80B shifts the 2900K color temperature of a 100 watt bulb up to about 4300 4400K an 80A would push it above 5000K putting it within the range the camera handles well Tip Nikon s choice for normal outdoor lighting 5200K should raise eyebrows though I ha...

Page 316: ...t properly The EXPEED system almost certainly handles automatic white balance from image data Let s look at color temperature in action Since color temperature for daylight was originally determined on the Washington Mall let s go there for our test Below you ll find a photo taken late in the day in late April of the Lincoln Memorial I ve tweaked this photo a bit to saturate the colors and tone do...

Page 317: ... Daylight most of the time you ll find that it generates results that are slightly on the blue side The further we get from the actual color temperature the more distinct that cast is Note too that the cast applies to everything sky building and bushes It isn t until you get 5200K that we begin to see some of the warmth that is in the limestone and sky and it isn t until we get over 5500K that the...

Page 318: ...ut the incandescent pretty much overwhelms it where Lincoln sits From left to right 3000K 3200K 3400K 5000K 6000K All camera settings and Nikon Capture settings otherwise the same You should notice in the above examples that as the color temperature on the camera is set higher than the actual value of the lighting a red orange cast appears in the photo The further we get from the actual color temp...

Page 319: ... you can use the Preset method of setting white balance and measure the value off a gray card see below Better still use the Live View capabilities of the camera to adjust white balance see below But if the areas of different lighting are separate incandescent lighting a foreground subject and fluorescent lighting a background for example you have to pick a color temperature and live with the resu...

Page 320: ...ont dial Alternatively you can use the menu system 1 Press the MENU button to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu green camera icon 3 Use the Direction pad to select the White balance option and press the key on the Direction pad to see the submenu ...

Page 321: ...ion pad to highlight the type of bulb that dominates the lighting and press the key to select it 6 A new wrinkle with the D3 and D300 is that you are next given the chance to fine tune the white balance using a two dimensional plot The B blue and A amber axis is essentially equivalent to color temperature By moving the position of the black dot along this axis you can cool towards B or warm toward...

Page 322: ...ine tuning is applied to all colors As long as you stick to the horizontal axis you re making color temperature like adjustments If you push the tuning up or down or towards a corner that means that you re adding a filtration type effect to your colors akin to the old color compensating filters such as a 30M96 CC filter Tip Use Live View to evaluate white balance settings in real time That s right...

Page 323: ...color Well I d use the fine tuning attribute to move the black dot away from that color in the fine tuning grid Why Because the walls will add a yellow reinforcement to the colors and I need to add in color to balance that out If you use the camera s WB button with the Front Command dial to fine tune the white balance you use only the color temperature adjustment from the white balance fine tuning...

Page 324: ...Shade 10526 9524 8696 8000 7407 6897 6452 If you compare this to the tables Nikon supplied with older cameras you ll note that either those old tables were wrong Nikon s 5 MIRED per increment on the new camera is wrong or the new camera s fine tuning option pushes color temperatures differently than do the older cameras Easy enough to test D200 at 0 3 D300 at 0 A6 Conclusion the new cameras fine t...

Page 325: ... balance settings on light that was produced by a continuous spectrum light source most other lighting you re likely to see a cyan and or green shift Let s put the D300 preset and settable Kelvin values in context of actual lighting sources all values except the first can be set on the D300 in some way 1930K Candlelight value can t be set on D300 2500K lowest value that can be set on D300 2550K 26...

Page 326: ...SHADE a2 9500K SHADE a4 10500K SHADE a6 Shaded area in hazy sun Note Nikon now has three different white balance fine tuning sets the D1 D1H and D1X form one group which differs from the following cameras in the Incandescent values The D2 series D40 D40x D50 D70 D70s D80 D100 and D200 share the same Kelvin values and form the second group The D300 and D3 share the same Kelvin values and form the t...

Page 327: ...he WB button on the camera until PRE begins flashing on the top LCD and in the viewfinder 4 If you wish to measure off a neutral gray or white card frame it fully in the viewfinder and press the shutter release 5 If an acceptable white balance value was measured you ll see GOOD on the top LCD GD in the viewfinder If the camera couldn t get a usable reading you ll see NO GD in both the top LCD and ...

Page 328: ... to the White balance option and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 9 Navigate to Preset manual and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 10 Navigate to the preset setting d 1 to d 4 you want to copy the white balance to and press the center of the Direction pad to select it ...

Page 329: ...the center of the Direction pad and selecting Edit comment or you can just press the OK button to complete the setting If you want to use the white balance from an image already on the camera 1 Press the MENU button to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu green camera icon 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the White balance option and press the key on ...

Page 330: ...the Nikon D300 Page 330 pad to select it 4 Navigate to Preset manual and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Navigate to the preset setting d 1 to d 4 you want to assign and press the center of the Direction pad to select it ...

Page 331: ...e from an image taken with a D300 Curiously the D300 will sometimes show you images from other cameras but you ll get an error message Can only use photo taken with D300 if you select one You may wonder why you d want to copy white balance from an existing picture on the card Let me give you an example of when this is handy Let s say you were assigned to shoot a wedding During a relatively short p...

Page 332: ...ut Remember once you ve assigned preset values into d 0 to d 4 either via measurement or reference image you can quickly recall any of these by simply choosing a white balance of PRE holding down the WB button and using the Front Command dial to navigate to the preset number Note Practical field tests show that PRE works more consistently using a neutral gray card than it does with a white card th...

Page 333: ...ating the Rear Command dial until À appears in the top LCD When this icon is displayed white balance bracketing is active 4 Tell the camera how many pictures by holding down the Fn button and rotating the Rear Command dial and at what white balance intervals by holding down the Fn button and rotating the Front Command dial until the top LCD displays your selection see D300 White Balance Bracketing...

Page 334: ...t Nikon uses this instead of Kelvin because a doubling of Kelvin doesn t have a constant visual change At low Kelvin values doubling the value makes for a larger change than at higher values One final word about white balance if you shoot NEF files you can select your white balance after the fact and try out different white balances to see which you like Nikon Capture NX and other raw converters a...

Page 335: ...e D300 comes with four predefined Picture Controls Standard Neutral Vivid and Monochrome The differences among these are in the five parameters that can be controlled within each Picture Control Sharpening Contrast Brightness Saturation and Hue Monochrome substitutes Filter effects and Toning for Saturation and Hue Here s how the predefined controls are set Sharpening Contrast Brightness Saturatio...

Page 336: ...ross all of its digital products I m surprised they didn t call it EXPEED Picture Controls Obviously we ve got a lot to deal with Let s start with some definitions Sharpening Sharpening refers to edge contrast techniques that are used to remove the visual impact of the anti aliasing implicit in digital images see Sharpening on page 413 We use the Sharpening tool to add visual definition to edges i...

Page 337: ... from 1 lower gamma to 1 higher gamma Saturation Saturation refers to what the camera does with individual colors boosting or reducing the apparent color We use the Saturation control to try to provide visually appealing colors For instance for a low contrast low color scene you might boost Saturation to provide more visual interest Picture Controls allow you to set this to A automatic and levels ...

Page 338: ...Controls You can define up to nine additional Picture Controls in addition to the four predefined and four optionally loaded ones so managing is an important function Managing your Picture Controls allows you to use more than 17 Picture Controls by loading new ones from your card it allows you to share Picture Controls between your D300 cameras by saving on one and loading on another and allows yo...

Page 339: ...and press the key on the Direction pad or the OK button to select it You re now given the opportunity to adjust modify the Picture Control To modify a Picture Control 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate or change an individual control a Quick Adjust modifies the Sharpening Contrast and Saturation controls simultaneously If you leave the selection ...

Page 340: ...ment for that parameter c If you want to start over on a modification press the Delete p button to reset all settings for individual parameters to their 0 or default values d When you ve completed your modifications press the OK button to complete your modification To name a Picture Control 1 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu gree...

Page 341: ...Use the Direction pad to navigate to Save edit and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Picture Control you wish to use as the base for your newly named Picture Control and press the key on the Direction pad to select it ...

Page 342: ...tment for that parameter f If you want to start over on a modification press the Delete p button to reset all settings for individual parameters to their 0 or default values g When you ve completed your modifications press the OK button to complete your modification 7 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the slot you wish to use for your new Picture Control The camera allows up to nine user define...

Page 343: ...ected letter highlighted in yellow into the current position in the bottom box highlighted slightly with a light gray background c If you need to move the cursor in the bottom box back to fix something hold down the Thumbnail button z and use the Direction pad keys to move it d Use the Delete button to remove the currently highlighted letter gray highlight in the bottom box e If you have more lett...

Page 344: ...e the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu green camera icon 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Manage Picture Control and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Delete and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Picture Control you wish to delete and press the key...

Page 345: ...r the OK button to select it To load a Picture Control I ll use one of the D2X Picture Controls that Nikon provides on their Web site in my example 1 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu green camera icon 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Manage Picture Control and press the key on the Direction pad to ...

Page 346: ...ve and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Copy to camera and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 6 The camera looks in a folder named NIKON on the card and displays any NOP files it finds there Use the Direction pad to navigate to the one you wish to use ...

Page 347: ...to adjust for the Picture Control you just loaded and press the OK button to continue 8 Use the Direction pad to navigate to one of the four loaded Picture Control slots and press the OK button to select it To save the Picture Controls you ve modified 1 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu green camera icon ...

Page 348: ...y on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Load save and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Copy to card and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 6 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Picture Control you ve defined that you wish to save and ...

Page 349: ... you ll find a file named PICCON0 NCP in the CUSTOMPC folder within the NIKON folder on your card where is the slot you choose in Step 7 To load saved Picture Controls you use the same technique described above for the Nikon supplied Picture Controls One thing to note about the Sharpening Contrast and Saturation parameters within a Picture Control A automatic has different personalities that the c...

Page 350: ... in its previous incarnations on earlier Nikon DSLRs A automatic settings in Picture Controls have a tendency to produce images without much punch Before we get to the individual controls let s take a look at how the predefined settings look Standard Reds are a little orange greens are a little yellow Some colors are pushing out of gamut ...

Page 351: ...ttle better greens much better Colors are not quite out of gamut Vivid Way too much color push Note that we ve lost detail in the red roofs And look at the green red yellow magenta and cyan patches in the third row of the ColorChecker wrong wrong wrong a bit exaggerated and really ...

Page 352: ...is very difficult It is much easier to add saturation and vibrancy than it is to remove it from an image Monochrome Note how the blues are all going to black Nikon s choices seem a bit on the contrasty side for me and favor skin tones You can generally do a better job using Channel Mixing in Photoshop And here s one of the optional settings Nikon provided shortly after the D300 s release ...

Page 353: ...al For people use D2XMODE1 for landscapes use D2XMODE3 and for neutral color use D2XMODE2 as your starting point For a totally novice D300 user it s probably okay to select from the Nikon defined settings though you ll want to make a few minor changes I think Sharpening Contrast Brightness Saturation Hue Standard 5 or 6 Set with scene 0 0 0 Neutral 5 or 6 Set with scene 1 or 0 0 0 Vivid 4 Set with...

Page 354: ... which may be blown out with less subtle gradation in between 0 is obviously between these two extremes The A automatic setting uses the camera s matrix meter to take a guess at how to set contrast If it sees large differences in brightness values the camera may think it s dealing with a high contrast scene and lower the contrast think about that statement it s correct Likewise it might do the opp...

Page 355: ...ost processing On the other hand the low contrast choices provide plenty of room to move contrast around in post processing My advice error on the low contrast side Hue Parameter This control adjusts the relative intensity of the red green and blue values recorded for pixels You can use this control to select increments of 3 in color change up to a total of 9 Nikon has now gotten away from using d...

Page 356: ...ut I m showing it this way for a reason I ll get to in a minute Grand total we can move the hue about 18º around the circle using the controls on the D300 that s about one third of the way between any of the two colors I show in the wheel above Hue 3 9 Look closely at the reds They re redder Also note the yellows have a bit of green to them Hue 3 9 Now the reds are headed magenta while the yellows...

Page 357: ...ight take the skin yellower and greener Which is the better choice Well it depends upon whether reds plus or yellows minus dominate the skin tone And of course all the other colors are shifting as well In short be very careful with hue adjustments Saturation Parameter The Picture Controls allow you to control the saturation parameter from 3 remove saturation to 3 add saturation Saturation is easy ...

Page 358: ...hem Brightness Parameter The Picture Controls allow you to control the brightness parameter from 1 darker to 1 brighter Brightness is another term for gamma or mid tone value generation A brighter image doesn t mean that the pixel values are all shifted to the right Instead it means that the linearity curve is boosted which has an impact on us perceiving the midtones as brighter Think of it like a...

Page 359: ...amma tends to bring mid tone values down Look closely at the gray scale patches on the bottom of the ColorChecker chart 1 Brightness Raising the gamma brings those same values up Now that gray scale ramp is so low in value that the first two values look similar though black still is black ...

Page 360: ...he mounting mark on the D300 see figure above and then twist the lens counter clockwise when facing the front of the body until it locks in place 4 If you re using an autofocus lens set the aperture ring on the lens to the smallest aperture usually f 22 but sometimes f 16 or f 32 or even f 45 on Nikkor lenses and lock it at that aperture Failure to set the aperture ring to the smallest aperture wi...

Page 361: ... icon d Navigate to Non CPU lens data and press the key on the Direction pad to select it e Navigate to Lens number and press the and key on the Direction pad until you ve selected the lens number you wish to set you can set the information for nine manual focus lenses If you ve previously entered the information for the lens you can skip to Step 4h f Navigate to Focal length mm and press the and ...

Page 362: ...one and press the key on the Direction pad or the OK button to indicate that you re done Note that you can enter data for up to nine manual focus lenses steps 4a through 4h Rather than randomly doing this as you put manual focus lenses on your camera you should probably think about the order in which you enter the data That s so that you can make it quicker to scroll through and find the exact len...

Page 363: ...u re removing the mounted lens in Step 2 instead of a body cap and you have to hold down the lens release button during that step Note When no lens is mounted you should always protect the sensor from dust by using the BF 1A body cap see Keeping the Sensor Clean on page 692 Note The body cap for the D300 BF 1A is different from the one for earlier manual focus 35mm film cameras BF 1 and much diffe...

Page 364: ... like Nikkor 18 200mm f 3 5 5 6G AF S VR ED DX First up we have the focal length designation e g 18 200mm This tells us a bit about how wide an area the camera can frame see Lens Angle of View on page 375 Roughly speaking anything less than 24mm is considered a wide angle lens on the D300 anything over 55mm would be considered telephoto Wide angle lenses are used to frame a large area all at once ...

Page 365: ...cus lenses are always viewed at their maximum aperture and f 2 8 would also allow more light to get to the autofocus sensors than f 3 5 or f 5 6 the range of the maximum aperture of the 18 200mm Which brings us to those abbreviations G The letter following the maximum aperture value tells us that this is a lens that provides distance information to the camera but has no aperture ring a lens with a...

Page 366: ...other than the D3 It has an imaging circle that s only big enough for the smaller digital sensors 35mm film cameras require lenses with larger imaging circles see Lens Differences When Used for 35mm and D300 on page 374 for more VR This type of lens compensates for vibration and motion allowing you to handhold the camera and get good images at slower shutter speeds than you otherwise would A 200mm...

Page 367: ...s features Most third party lenses currently being made also tend to fall into this category104 Other Nikon lens types and a few specific lenses either limit the features that can be used on the camera or should not be used at all Non D and Non G type Nikkor autofocus lenses 3D matrix metering is not performed i e distance information isn t used in the meter s decision Dust reference photos can t ...

Page 368: ...apertures must be set on the lens Auto focus Unavailable Exposure Modes Metering Limitations Other Limitations D type Yes None None None G type Yes None None Apertures can t be set on lens Autofocus Non D Non G Yes None Matrix metering isn t 3D No 51 pt 3D autofocus AI P No None Matrix metering isn t 3D None AI and AI S older lens converted to AI No Shutter priority and Program Matrix metering isn...

Page 369: ...compatibility as AF I type lenses i e full while older AI type converters have the same compatibility as AI type lenses i e limited TC xxE converters have the same compatibility as AF S lenses Bellows and extension tubes have the same compatibility as AI type lenses and the effective aperture must be f 5 6 or faster for viewfinder focus confirmation to work Finally some individual lenses have addi...

Page 370: ...3AF e g the Nikkor 80mm f 2 8 Nikkor 200mm f 3 5 and TC 16 Teleconverter are incompatible and shouldn t be used PC Nikkor 28mm f 4 with serial numbers of 180900 or earlier are incompatible and shouldn t be used PC Nikkor 35mm f 2 8 with serial numbers 851001 to 906200 are incompatible and shouldn t be used PC Nikkor 35mm f 3 5 is incompatible and shouldn t be used Note Nikon s manual implies that ...

Page 371: ... Note that I keep using the term field of view The focal length of a lens is absolutely unchanged when you mount a lens on a D300 Indeed the resulting image on a D300 is no different than if you took a picture with a 35mm body and then cropped it down to the smaller sensor area of the D300105 Note I ve read reports from professionals and editors who should know better that go something like this T...

Page 372: ... D300 s sensor The D300 is therefore seeing only a portion of the area a regular lens covers With DX lenses the image circle is smaller note the DX image circle shown here in dark gray no longer covers the 35mm frame but does cover the D300 frame It is important to understand that because of the sensor size the D300 only uses the innermost portion of the image resolved by most Nikkor lenses When y...

Page 373: ... kit uses a smaller image circle than earlier 35mm lenses it barely covers the smaller digital sensor size used by the D300 so at 18mm and the aperture set to f 3 5 it does show visible falloff when you use it on the D300 The 12 24mm f 4G DX and 17 55mm f 2 8G DX are somewhere between a 35mm lens and the 18 70mm DX lens just mentioned they have an image circle that covers the 35mm frame at some bu...

Page 374: ...e lens Overall here are the key differences between using a lens on a 35mm film or FX digital body and the D300 Lens Differences When Used for 35mm film or FX body vs D300 Item 35mm film or FX D300 DX Light Falloff Significant in corners Generally insignificant Sharpness in corners Often slightly soft Sharp as central area Colors in corners Often slightly muted chromatic aberration Edge matches ce...

Page 375: ...80 59 91 21mm 15mm 100 77 110 76 56 87 23mm 17mm 93 70 103 70 50 80 26mm 18mm 90 67 100 66 47 77 27mm 20mm 84 62 94 61 43 71 30mm 24mm 74 53 84 52 36 61 36mm 28mm 65 46 75 46 31 54 43mm 35mm 54 38 63 37 25 44 53mm 50mm 40 27 47 27 18 32 76mm 60mm 33 23 40 22 15 27 91mm 70mm 29 19 34 19 13 23 106mm 85mm 24 16 29 16 11 19 129mm 105mm 19 13 23 13 9 15 160mm 135mm 15 10 18 10 7 12 205mm 180mm 11 8 14 ...

Page 376: ...y about 91 diagonally while 35mm film users can easily obtain lenses that go as wide as 114 Fortunately Nikon started building DX lenses restoring our wide angle abilities at the cost of buying new lenses Longer reach Wildlife photographers in particular are well known for sticking one or more teleconverters on already long lenses to pull in the animal I ve watched several mount both a 1 4x and 2 ...

Page 377: ...mm film camera for the D300 we need only go to about 12 or 13 on the horizontal axis as the smaller sensor means we don t get as far from the center Note that the lens being tested holds 30 lpm MTF values to about 0 5 up through 10mm from center A value of 0 5 would be considered acceptable But look what happens on the full 35mm frame at 20mm from the center the 35mm frame edge we re at 0 2 which ...

Page 378: ... one small contrast sensors The approximate positions of these sensors appear in the viewfinder in some situations normally the viewfinder only shows the area in which the autofocus sensors live With autofocus active one or more sensors may light up indicating the sensor s that will be used for focus The actual part that contains the autofocus sensors called the CAM3500DX looks like this ...

Page 379: ...to the autofocus sensors via yet another mirror light is green arrows in cutaway view of camera below How the autofocus sensors work is a bit difficult to describe as both the physical implementation and the theoretical methodology used get quite intricate and complex The simple explanation is that the light coming off the secondary mirror goes through what is known as a separator lens just above ...

Page 380: ... detection autofocus system has the benefit of being fast and direct Once a calculation of how much off the two split images is made the camera has precise knowledge of how far to instruct the lens to move and in which direction That s why when there s enough underlying contrast in the subject to produce data that can be interpreted the Nikon autofocus system almost never hunts for the actual focu...

Page 381: ...on this We re still not quite done with the technical bits One long standing issue that many Nikon users don t understand or fully appreciate has to do with the size shape and detection axes of autofocus sensors First despite the markings in the viewfinder the actual position and shape of the autofocus sensors is different Matching the positions on a viewing screen with the positions of the autofo...

Page 382: ...r sensors are lines while the inner group are crosses One thing that intersects with sensor shape and size is subject size One of the classic issues with wide angle lenses and autofocus systems is that very small objects you re trying to focus on they re small because the wide angle lens has such a wide area of view sometimes don t occupy enough of an individual autofocus sensor for the camera to ...

Page 383: ...w to make sure that it isn t in the L lock position In the illustration it s in the unlocked position dot and moving the lever in the direction of the arrow would lock the pad The autofocus sensor used in the D300 is called the CAM3500DX by Nikon In the D3 the same part is called the CAM3500FX though I believe that physically they are the same the difference comes in how the software algorithms ar...

Page 384: ...n the viewfinder with the shutter release held partway down focus follows the subject until you fully press or let go of the shutter release S Single Servo autofocus when you press or partially press the shutter release the camera focuses the lens On a full shutter release press the shutter normally does not operate until focus has been achieved M Manual Focus the D300 does not attempt to focus th...

Page 385: ...o very little contrast in the subject Continuous Servo AF the camera looks for focus the moment the shutter release reaches the halfway point and continues to monitor focus as long as the shutter release is held partway If a subject starts to move after focus was established focus still follows the subject However a picture is normally taken immediately when the shutter release is fully pressed ev...

Page 386: ... ll get an in focus image if you didn t first press the shutter release partway and hold it there long enough for the camera to establish a focus point Note Now that you ve learned all that know that you can reverse the release priority and focus priority capabilities using Custom Settings A1 and A2 My suggestion is to avoid making those changes until you ve mastered other aspects of the autofocus...

Page 387: ...way when the race begins and the runner starts coming towards you focus will be tracked as long as you hold the shutter release partway down In Single Servo AF focus would stay at the starting line Autofocus Area Modes The D300 also has three Autofocus Area modes which determine how the fifty one individual autofocus sensors are used The Autofocus Area mode is set by the switch on the back of the ...

Page 388: ... all fifty one sensors õ The autofocus area that is used as the initial focus point or the points that form the group is set by 1 Moving the Focus Area Selector Lock lever to the unlocked position lever down to the dot position 2 Making sure the camera is active press the shutter release partway and release it if the camera isn t active 3 Pressing the keys on the Autofocus Direction pad to change ...

Page 389: ...Unfortunately this combination does not show you which autofocus sensor s ultimately gets used but that s why I had you start in Single Servo to get confidence in what the camera is picking Finally choose Continuous Servo Dynamic Area Now you re telling the camera where to start focusing you pick the initial sensor and the camera follows moving subjects using its predictive methods You still have ...

Page 390: ... with this setting Group AF is gone None of the variants of Group autofocus appear on the D300 as they did on the D200 and D2 series There is also no Wide Narrow choice nor any patterned groups If you were using one of these options you ll have to convert to a new technique Closest Subject Priority CSP is gone As much as I ve harped on negative aspects of CSP there certainly were times when it was...

Page 391: ...ite cover as much contiguous area for low light performance as the D300 Focusing is integrated with metering The reason why Auto Area is so good at recognizing people in a frame has to do with the integration with the metering sensor which provides the color information that tells the autofocus system where skin tones occur in the frame Likewise if you select 51point 3D tracking the meter provides...

Page 392: ...the Focus mode to Single Servo 3 Set the Autofocus Area mode to Single Point 4 If the lens has a focus switch on it set it to A Autofocus on some lenses this is labeled M A 5 Pre focus the lens to a particular distance 6 Press and hold the shutter release The camera shoots when the selected focus bracket is in focus remember you can also use the AF ON button to focus Autofocus Assist The D300 has ...

Page 393: ...until it cools I can usually get that to happen within five or six shutter release presses It uses more power When the lamp is lit the camera is using a minimum of another 20mA in power While that figure is relatively low multiple activations will certainly drain the battery faster and in low light you may be activating the light repeatedly If you re getting the idea that I don t like the Autofocu...

Page 394: ...If you re getting poor follow focus results on moving subjects this is the first control to change The Pro Approach to Autofocus Many professionals gravitate to the same approach to autofocus which I ll describe in a moment The reason is that changing autofocus settings all the time can be a tedious process as the autofocus controls are split between a switch on the front of the camera a switch on...

Page 395: ...witch on the back of the camera Switch to Single Point for focus and reframe to Dynamic Area or Auto Area for tracking focus depending upon the subject Note that you can assign Dynamic AF Area settings to the Fn button on the front of the camera via Custom Setting F4 Using this technique takes practice so don t expect to make those settings and rush out and take perfect pictures a few minutes late...

Page 396: ... due to the glass used in them But it s more likely that the mirror and autofocus sensor alignment and ever so slight variations in mount thickness are the real culprit for most doesn t focus quite right scenarios The AF sensors at the bottom of the camera have to be at the precise same distance as the sensor perfectly perpendicular to the light and the mirrors that pass the light to the AF sensor...

Page 397: ...rent and many older Nikkor ID values for instance110 1 50mm f 1 8 2 35 70mm f 3 3 4 5 3 70 210mm f 4 4 28mm f 2 8 5 50mm f 1 4 6 55mm f 2 8 7 28 85mm f 3 5 4 5 8 35 105mm f 3 5 4 5 9 24mm f 2 8 10 300mm f 2 8 IF ED 11 180mm f 2 8 IF ED 13 35 135mm f 3 5 4 5 14 70 210mm f 4 15 50mm f 1 8 16 300mm f 4 IF ED 17 35 70mm f 2 8 18 70 210mm f 4 5 6 19 24 50mm f 3 3 4 5 20 80 200mm f 2 8 ED 21 85mm f 1 8 ...

Page 398: ...45 200mm f 4D IF ED 46 70 210mm f 4 5 6D 47 20 35mm f 2 8D IF 49 60mm f 2 8D 50 105mm f 2 8D 51 18mm f 2 8D 52 16mm f 2 8D 54 24mm f 2 8D 55 20mm f 2 8D 56 85mm f 1 8D 58 28 70mm f 3 5 4 5D 59 35 70mm f 2 8D 61 35 80mm f 4 5 6D 62 28mm f 2 8D 65 180mm f 2 8D IF ED 66 35mm f 2D 67 50mm f 1 4D 69 28 80mm F 3 5 5 6D 70 35 80mm f 4 5 6D 71 24 50mm f 3 3 4 5D 72 300mm f 2 8D IF ED AF S 73 600mm f 4D IF...

Page 399: ...S 112 600mm f 4D IF ED II AF S 114 45mm f 2 8P 116 24 85mm f 3 5 4 5G IF ED AF S 117 28 100mm f 3 5 5 6G 118 50mm f 1 8D 119 70 200mm f 2 8G IF ED VR AF S 120 24 120mm f 3 5 5 6G IF ED VR AF S 121 28 200mm f 3 5 5 6G IF ED 122 12 24mm f 4G IF ED DX AF S 123 200 400mm f 4G IF ED VR AF S 125 17 55mm f 2 8G IF ED DX AF S 127 18 70mm f 3 5 4 5G IF ED DX AF S 128 10 5mm f 2 8G ED DX AF S 129 200mm f 2G...

Page 400: ...Nikon mount111 Nikkor lenses all have specific ID numbers which are passed to the camera and recorded in the EXIF data Curiously my D300 is pretty good about reporting focal length and aperture for a third party lens after I ve calibrated it but displays nothing on the calibration screen Enough preamble let s get to the nitty gritty First off you need something to focus on On the CD you ll find a ...

Page 401: ... tends to generate clear moire patterns when focus is achieved less so when using it on LCD monitors than when using CRTs or printed copies though At least it does if you re the right distance away from it I have a printed ISO focus chart I use when I m not in a hurry but those charts are probably too expensive for most users and I m getting essentially the same results with the quick chart I m su...

Page 402: ...tter or worse If it s better keep adjusting that direction if it s worse reverse course and adjust the other direction Live View Handheld mode113 to the rescue The fastest way is to use Live View The drawback is that you ll be evaluating on the camera s LCD which is small and will require zooming to be useful Unfortunately Nikon didn t make things as easy as it could have been by combining Live Vi...

Page 403: ...e option and press the key to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the AF fine tune On Off option and press the key to select it 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the On option and press the key to select it 6 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Saved value option and press the key to select it ...

Page 404: ... with the Off setting or you did something wrong and need to repeat the calibration Some caveats about AF fine tune Close and infinity focus can be compromised When you make large tuning adjustments you may make a big enough adjustment that the camera can no longer get to infinity or the close focus marked on the lens You re only making an adjustment for the focus distance you tested If you perfor...

Page 405: ...y removes lateral chromatic aberrations A chromatic aberration is the result of different wavelengths of light focusing at different points after going through a lens These show up in images as color fringes and are especially noticeable at high contrast edges Two types of chromatic aberrations exist longitudinal and lateral sometimes called transverse Longitudinal aberrations are those where wave...

Page 406: ...0 still provides a focus aid that s useful the focus indicator at the far left of the viewfinder information display displays if your focus is correct Regardless of the autofocus sensor chosen the confirm focus indication can be used This is unlike many previous Nikons where only the central AF sensor could be used Only a couple of caveats exist for this manual focus confirmation function The lens...

Page 407: ...e the approximate depth of field of the final image Note Immediately after you ve taken a picture the Depth of Field Preview button doesn t always work you can hit it too soon after the previous exposure was taken Press the shutter release partway to establish an exposure and then retry the button Many D300 users question whether depth of field on a D300 is the same as on a 35mm film body or the F...

Page 408: ... cameras with your D300 simply add a stop for a conservative approach For example if your 35mm film chart says that the hyperfocal distance is 50 feet for a 50mm lens at f 2 which it should if it uses the conservative Zeiss circle of confusion value simply use f 2 8 on the D300 Note The depth of field markings on most Nikkor lenses appear to be calculated using a circle of confusion of 0 03 with a...

Page 409: ...2 62 2 50 2 33 2 15 1 91 1 68 1 40 near 3 33 3 43 3 50 3 75 4 20 4 95 7 02 14 10 Infinity far 5 4 28 4 13 4 03 3 74 3 38 3 01 2 55 2 15 1 71 near 6 01 6 33 6 59 7 54 9 64 14 79 134 44 Infinity Infinity far 10 7 47 7 02 6 74 5 96 5 08 4 29 3 40 2 73 2 05 near 15 13 17 36 19 40 31 10 324 78 Infinity Infinity Infinity Infinity far 20 11 90 10 81 10 14 8 47 6 79 5 44 4 09 3 15 2 28 near 62 63 134 10 7...

Page 410: ...ar 3 2 91 2 88 2 87 2 82 2 75 2 66 2 53 2 39 2 19 near 3 10 3 13 3 14 3 21 3 30 3 43 3 68 4 01 4 74 far 5 4 74 4 68 4 64 4 51 4 33 4 12 3 81 3 50 3 08 near 5 29 5 37 5 42 5 61 5 92 6 36 7 26 8 74 13 25 far 10 9 01 8 79 8 64 8 19 7 61 6 98 6 14 5 36 4 43 near 11 24 11 60 11 87 12 83 14 60 17 64 27 01 74 63 Infinity far 20 16 37 15 66 15 19 13 86 12 24 10 69 8 82 7 29 5 66 near 25 70 27 67 29 27 35 ...

Page 411: ...rovided on the CD All distances in the above charts are in feet but the workbook also provides tables in meters as well The areas labeled in green are changeable by you which mean that you can enter your own distances and apertures if the ones I provide aren t to your liking The focal lengths in these tables by the way are the marked focal lengths on the lens not the D300 angle of view equivalents...

Page 412: ...eiss calculation for example was based upon prints smaller than an Epson 1800 or 2400 can produce and which are viewed from distances longer than many of us examine our photos from I ve seen hundreds of interpretations of how to deal with all the variables that come up When I questioned my mentor about it one day he showed me that he basically was always using values for one stop faster than the c...

Page 413: ...you want to render For example with a 50mm lens on the camera if you wish to resolve details as small as 5mm regardless of how close they are to you you d need to set the lens to approximately f 11 Please be aware that the preceding is a gross oversimplification of something that takes Merklinger an entire book to describe A short summary of the thesis is at http www trenholm org hmmerk DOFR html ...

Page 414: ...can sample the detail is under sampled and combined into a single pixel and sharp edges tend to gather data from either side Sharpening uses contrast adjustments at edge boundaries to trick our eyes into seeing clearly defined edges If the green dots are photosites on the sensor and the black lines high contrast detail when a line falls perfectly on a photosite top we get a perfect rendering If so...

Page 415: ...a dark gray block on the right and then applied an Unsharp Mask Note how on the lighter side of the image the edge was made even lighter while on the dark side of the edge it was made almost black Most unsharp mask filters have settings for amount controls how much lighter or darker the values are made radius controls how wide an area over which the value shifts are made and threshold controls how...

Page 416: ...hould be minimized as much as possible A final sharpening should only be applied to an image when you know the reproduction size For example I often use a Radius value of 0 3 to 0 5 when sharpening small images destined for the Web or computer view When printing on an Epson inkjet printer such as the 1800 or 2400 I sometimes use Radius values as high as 0 8 to 1 2 since I know that the ink tends t...

Page 417: ... category and should probably select something between 3 and 6 for the sharpening setting depending upon whether the scene is normal contrast or low contrast respectively But be careful if you venture above ISO 1600 as sharpening interacts with noise and can create unusable images Note also that high levels of sharpening also tend to increase the size of JPEG files as sharpening increases detail t...

Page 418: ...methodology based upon how the image is used Note If you ve set a sharpening level on the D300 it is applied by default to NEF format files in Capture NX if you ve left it at the default settings This is yet another reason to turn sharpening OFF on the camera that way the camera s settings match what you get Sharpening set to 0 The fuzziness is the normal antialiasing that happens in the analog to...

Page 419: ...ly best avoided if possible I generally want to do noise reduction and get out of JPEG before running sharpening on my images and the amount and type of sharpening will depend upon how the image is eventually going to be used Still if you re in a hurry and shooting JPEG fine at low ISO values the in camera sharpening is not likely going to get you in trouble Sharpening is set via the Picture Contr...

Page 420: ... Vertical Release Lock switch if left unlocked you re pretty much guaranteed to get random pictures you didn t want as your hand and other things brush by the shutter release on the MB D10 grip Personally I rarely use the MB D10 vertical release I like many professionals use quick release mounts on my cameras most of the time the camera is used on a tripod Thus I have an L bracket mounted on my ca...

Page 421: ...e thing that catches D300 users unawares is the potential for lag in the time between pressing the shutter release and the picture being taken Since many users purchase the D300 for its speed this can be a frustrating aspect of the camera at least until you understand that the settings you choose contribute to the problem In manual focus and manual exposure mode with no images in the internal memo...

Page 422: ...ide that with Custom Setting A2 With telephoto lenses that do not have a built in motor i e are not AF I or AF S the number of turns the autofocus motor has to make to drive a lens from one extreme focus position to another can also be a factor generally you don t see this with wide angle lenses Suggestion if you use Single Servo autofocus also select Single Point autofocus and confine yourself to...

Page 423: ... CCD in the viewfinder the mirror has to be down while preflash signals and responses are made Even the short pause necessary for this communication is enough to make the D300 feel sluggish I measure the delay added by preflash to be about 60ms which means that shutter lag is slightly more than doubled Suggestion learn how to use Manual flash mode AA flash mode also uses preflashes so Manual is th...

Page 424: ...u use Custom Setting D4 to set another value from 1 to 7 fps If the buffer fills and you continue to hold the shutter release down the D300 shoots another picture each time one image has been completely saved to CompactFlash CH Continuous High Images are recorded at 6 fps with internal batteries or 8 fps118 with AA or EN EL4a batteries in the MB D10 vertical grip while you hold the shutter release...

Page 425: ... viewfinder is blanked out while the mirror is up Also if you haven t pressed the shutter release a second time after 30 seconds the camera will do so automatically and take a picture for you In other words MUP can also function as a dedicated 30 second Self Timer MUP has a bug the camera appears to ignore shutter speeds of slower than second when this option is active Another anomaly with Mirror ...

Page 426: ...which delays the opening of the shutter after the pressing of the shutter release õ To turn on the self timer hold down the Shooting Method Lock Release button and turn the Shooting Method dial until o aligns with the white marker When the self timer is set the camera blinks the white lamp on the front of the D300 from the time you press the shutter release until two seconds prior to the exposure ...

Page 427: ...rent than on some other Nikon bodies Exposure may be wrong in automatic exposure modes Stray light can enter the viewfinder and influence exposure settings when using the self timer Be sure to use the Eyepiece cap on the viewfinder if you won t be looking through the camera when the exposure is taken or use manual exposure mode And yes this is a real problem I ve seen exposures vary by more than a...

Page 428: ...r with AF S lenses where you can override the camera s focusing decisions Set correct white balance Perhaps the most intriguing and useful of the possible uses of Live View is the ability to look at white balance settings in real time and pick the one that is most appropriate for the scene Caveat you re checking color on a display that is not finely calibrated so you can still be off Frame when yo...

Page 429: ...u tell the camera to take a picture So ask yourself this question what do I need to know better before I snap my photo Your answer to that question is likely the thing you ll use Live View for You ll note that I didn t put Check exposure in my list of primary advantages That s because Nikon left out a key element that would help you do that histograms That s right on the D300 you can t see a histo...

Page 430: ...es that the mirror be down to focus and Live View requires the mirror to be up to get light to the sensor so that you can see a preview image Nikon has used a trick to resolve this difference I call this mode the three press method press the shutter release once to raise the mirror and start the Live View partially press the shutter release a second time to lower the mirror for a focus and exposur...

Page 431: ...tic exposure mode Program Aperture priority or Shutter priority That s because the metering sensor is just behind the eyepiece and can detect light coming from behind the camera if nothing is blocking the eyepiece usually your eye is there Noise Running the sensor and associated electronics for long periods of time generates heat and as I pointed out earlier heat tends to increase electron migrati...

Page 432: ...you re activating the shutter whether you take a picture or not This isn t a big issue but some people have been bothered by the fact that their file numbering doesn t align with the shutter count on their D300 This is probably the reason Using Hand held Live View To use the phase detection autofocus version of Live View 1 Hold down the Shooting Method Lock button and rotate the Shooting Method di...

Page 433: ...age 433 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Live view mode and press the key to select it 6 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Hand held and press the key to select it 7 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Release mode and press the key to select it ...

Page 434: ...tream of images from the main imaging sensor To cancel Live View press the MENU button at any time during this and the following steps 10 Frame your picture using the color LCD the viewfinder is now black due to the mirror raising a At any time you see the image on the color LCD you wish to look more closely at the image you may press the Zoom in button h b Likewise you can press the Zoom out butt...

Page 435: ...ment while autofocus is performed and the stream of images stopped briefly 12 Press the shutter release fully to take a picture or pictures if you ve selected a continuous setting in Step 8 Using Tripod Live View To use the contrast detection autofocus version of Live View 1 Hold down the Shooting Method Lock button and rotate the Shooting Method dial to the Live View icon 2 Press the MENU button ...

Page 436: ...Page 436 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Live view mode and press the key to select it 6 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Tripod and press the key to select it 7 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Release mode and press the key to select it ...

Page 437: ...system acts as if it is in Single Area Press the AF ON button to initiate focus 10 Press the shutter release all the way down as if taking a picture This starts the Live View function The camera s mirror is raised and the color LCD now displays a video like stream of images from the main imaging sensor To cancel Live View press the MENU button at any time during this and the following steps 11 Fra...

Page 438: ... focus while you hold the button down it only does a single focus acquisition This means that if you need reacquire focus you must press the MENU button and go back to step 9 or 10 Also if you ve set the camera to Beep it will make a short noise when focus is achieved 13 Press the shutter release fully to take a picture or pictures if you ve selected a continuous setting in Step 8 Note that the ca...

Page 439: ...oblem Rapid shooting with a flash produces inconsistent exposures Solution You probably need to use a Speedlight with faster recycling properties or you need to set the flash to one of its lower power manual modes many Speedlights can fire at high frame rate speeds when set to manual flash mode at reduced power see my Nikon Digital Flash Guide for more details If you need to shoot with flash with ...

Page 440: ...erval shooting 1 Press the MENU button to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SHOOTING menu the camera icon tab 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Interval timer shooting option and press the key to select it if it s grayed out check the Shooting Method dial and make sure you re not in self timer Live View or mirror up mode 4 You re taken to a complex screen tha...

Page 441: ... and press the key on the Direction pad otherwise skip to Step 4b i Enter the hour at which you want the pictures to begin by using the and keys Press the key to move to the minutes ii Enter the minutes at which you want the pictures to begin by using the and keys Press the key to move to the interval selection process and skip ...

Page 442: ...Step 5 b If you want to start immediately taking photos after completing the interval setup process navigate to Now and press the key to move to the interval selection process 5 Use the and key to set the hour interval between shots Press the key when you ve done so ...

Page 443: ... key when you ve done so 8 The next menu item is divided into two parts labeled Select Intvls and no of shots unfortunately Select Intvls is poorly named you selected the interval in Steps 5 through 7 Nikon should have named this no of intervals or just Intervals If you set an interval of 1 second in Steps 5 through 7 and want the D300 to take a sequence that lasts ten minutes you d need to enter ...

Page 444: ...b If you want more than one shot taken at each interval use the and keys to set the value to the number of shots you want taken at each interval Note that you need to make sure that you have enough time at each interval point to take the number of images you enter here If your interval is one second and your shutter speed is second you can t set 3 for this value and expect to get your wish c Press...

Page 445: ...you want to terminate the intervals early Well a Press the MENU button to get to the menus if an interval picture is about to be taken sometimes the camera will fight you on this so be persistent b Navigate to the SHOOTING menu c Navigate to Interval timer shooting and press the key to enter the submenu d Use the key repeatedly to navigate to the final menu item which should now say Start You ll s...

Page 446: ...te how big a storage card you need to store all those shots at the image quality you ve selected If for some reason you need to come out and change cards in the camera during the interval shooting select Pause in Step 10d change your card and then select Start If you use a starting time make sure the camera s clock is correct Seems simple enough but if you need the camera to begin shooting at a pa...

Page 447: ...ngle Servo autofocus the interval sequence ends You need to keep light from entering the viewfinder eyepiece If you specified multiple shots per interval they re taken at the speed specified in Custom Setting D4 for S and CL frame rate at the maximum speed the camera can attain in CH Phew Tidbit Bet you didn t know that the interval shooting ability of a Nikon D2h was used for many of the unique f...

Page 448: ...t EXIF Data Is from first image Is from first image in sequence Image overlays are created on existing images via the RETOUCH menu see Image Overlays on page 725 Multiple exposures are a little different Here instead of using two preexisting images you use the camera s frame rate features to advantage to create overlapped images during shooting First let s go through the set up necessary 1 Press t...

Page 449: ...and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Use the and keys on the Direction pad to select the number of shots 2 to 10 and press the key on the Direction pad to enter that selection 6 If you want the camera to adjust exposure for the multiple images automatically a Use the Direction pad to navigate to Auto gain and press the key on the Direction pad ...

Page 450: ...On and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 7 Navigate to Done and press the key on the Direction pad or the OK button to select it The camera is now set to take a sequence of photos and combine them into one But there are some twists involved so let s look at them individually ...

Page 451: ...to pretty much the same thing long lapses of time or specific actions on your part will cancel the multiple exposure setting Specifically the option is canceled if you do nothing for 30 seconds turn the camera off exhaust or replace the battery or cancel the multiple exposure operation specifically Remote Control The D300 supports the 10 pin connection for remote releases see D300 Accessories on p...

Page 452: ...most Garmin and Magellan units including the popular eTrex and SporTrak models If you re interested in a more elegant but expensive solution check out the D2X GPS product by Red Hen Systems see http www redhensystems com products video_collection_ha rdware d2x gps asp This cradle for the Garmin Geko GPS units mounts into the hot shoe on the top of the D300 and has a short integrated cable that doe...

Page 453: ...inking and appears steady in the D300 s top LCD Any time the camera loses the signal from the GPS unit for more than two seconds the GPS icon will go away and GPS information will no longer be recorded Make sure that your GPS isn t set to an auto off setting However you can take pictures when the GPS hasn t yet acquired or has lost the satellite signal those pictures just won t have GPS data in th...

Page 454: ...ll see something like the following on your color LCD The main portion of this display default is black characters on a light blue background mimics the top LCD and just provides you a brighter easier to read rendering of data that is already available The bottom line white characters on black background displayed important other information that isn t normally available short of looking at values...

Page 455: ...CK menu tab to the SHOOTING menu tab for example you may have to press the key on the Direction pad to select the tab area then use the and keys to select the tab menu you desire Use the key to then move back to the main portion of that menu and then use the and keys again to move between menu items That all sounds more complicated than it really is Short course if you find you can t get to someth...

Page 456: ...ns available than can be seen at one time Note the scroll bar on the right side of this menu the white box shows you where you are in the scrolling Menu Item list When you move past the bottom of the visible Menu Items additional Menu Items are revealed Note The PLAYBACK menu is disabled and inaccessible if no card is present in the camera Delete Selected All Playback folder Current All Hide image...

Page 457: ... Show previous Continue as before Rotate tall On Off121 Slide show Start Frame interval 2s 3s 5s 10s Print set DPOF Select set Deselect all Note Print set is grayed out if you have no JPEG or TIFF images SHOOTING menu õ camera tab 121 Showing images rotated on the LCD makes them too small to assess well IMHO ...

Page 458: ...e right side of this menu the white box shows you where you are in the scrolling Menu Item list When you move past the bottom of the visible Menu Items additional Menu Items are revealed Shooting menu bank A B C D Rename Menu Reset Yes No Active folder New folder number Select folder File naming Image quality NEF Raw JPEG fine NEF Raw JPEG normal NEF Raw JPEG basic NEF Raw TIFF RGB 122 JPEG fine J...

Page 459: ...bit 14 bit White balance Auto Incandescent Fluorescent Sodium vapor lamps Warm white fluorescent White fluorescent Cool white fluorescent Day white fluorescent Daylight fluorescent High temp mercury vapor Direct Sunlight Flash Cloudy Shade Choose Color Temp 2500K to 10000K Preset manual Set Picture Control Standard Neutral Vivid Monochrome Manage Picture Control Save edit Rename Delete Load save ...

Page 460: ...al Low Off ISO sensitivity settings ISO sensitivity 200 to 3200 plus LO 0 3 to LO 1 and HI 0 3 to HI 1 ISO sensitivity auto control On Off Maximum sensitivity 400 to HI 1 Minimum shutter speed 1s to 1 250s Live view Live view mode Hand held Tripod Release mode Single frame Continuous low speed Continuous high speed Multiple exposure Done Number of Shots Auto Gain On ...

Page 461: ...s four banks which allows you to preset the camera for several different configurations and then pick among them with a quick single menu option You choose which bank to use with the following steps 1 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 2 Navigate to the SHOOTING menu camera icon tab using the Direction pad 3 Navigate to Shooting menu bank using the Direction pad and press the key to sele...

Page 462: ... and press the key to select it a Navigate to the bank you wish to rename and press the key to select it b Enter a name for the bank Direction pad moves among the letters to enter center key on the Direction pad enters the currently selected letter Thumbnail button plus Direction pad moves the data entry location Delete button deletes the character at the data ...

Page 463: ... and ISO 200 I give this the name Thom NEF so that I can remember it Yes I know that a few of the setting suggestions I make elsewhere in this eBook may contradict a few of the things I set in my camera here the contradictions have to do with the type of shooting I do versus the general public Bank C is where I store my standard JPEG shooting behavior that s JPEG fine Large sRGB and my modified Pi...

Page 464: ...use pink for easy recognition of where you are in the menu system note the line Note The Custom Setting menu is a scrolling menu meaning that there are more options available than can be seen at one 123 Personally I wish Nikon had gone all the way with the bank idea The SET UP menu should have banks too and there should also be a set of Master Banks that control which of the menu banks are in use ...

Page 465: ...ons A Focus related B Metering and Exposure related C Timer and AE L AF L properties D Shooting and Display related E Flash and Bracketing settings F Control properties I ll deal with these individually a little later in the eBook see the section starting on page 508 SETUP menu Ø wrench icon Note The SETUP menu and its Menu Items use orange for easy recognition of where you are in the menu system ...

Page 466: ...4 If I have any gripe about Nikon s option ordering it is on this menu The things that you tend to change once LCD brightness for example really should be on the second page and the things you use more often e g Dust ref photo or Battery info should be on the first page In general Nikon still hasn t glommed on to the frequency with which certain settings are made or consulted and thus you end up h...

Page 467: ...month day Month day year Day month year Daylight saving time On Off Language Deutsch English Español Suomi Français Italiano Nederlands Polski Português Pycckn Svenska Chinese both traditional and simplified Japanese Korean Image comment Done Input comment Attach Comment Auto image rotation On Off USB Mass storage MTP PTP Dust off ref photo Start ...

Page 468: ...our camera as a starting place To load it 1 Copy the file to the root level on your CompactFlash card 2 Put the card into your D300 3 Turn the camera on 4 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SETUP menu yellow wrench icon 6 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Save load settings and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 7 Use the Directi...

Page 469: ... it RETOUCH menu folder tab Note The RETOUCH menu and its Menu Items use purple for easy recognition of where you are in the menu system note the line D Lighting Red eye correction Trim Monochrome Black and white Sepia Cyanotype Filter effects Skylight Warm filter Color balance ...

Page 470: ... Note Your MY MENU will look different This just happens to be the six items I use on this menu If you add more than five items the menu will be a scrolling menu note bar on right side Items always present on this menu are Add items Remove items Rank items Nikon has taken a haphazard approach to ordering Menu Items across the many menus in the system making many of the more useful ones sprawl into...

Page 471: ...uggest that you use the Custom Settings Banks to provide quick access to common camera changes Whatever items you choose add no more than eight of your selected Menu Items to MY MENU Adding more makes for yet another scrolling list and starts to defeat the purpose of making controls more accessible Here are the things I put on my MY MENU Set Picture Control ISO sensitivity auto control Long exp NR...

Page 472: ...tem you want to select and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 5 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Menu Item you want to select and press the OK button to select it Items that have a in front of them are not available for MY MENU Items that have a in front of them are ones that you ve already placed on MY MENU 6 If the item is not in the position on MY MENU you want it at use th...

Page 473: ...item doesn t belong on MY MENU 1 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the MY MENU menu white checked menu icon 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Remove items and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Menu Item you want to remove and press the key on the Direction pad to select it A check appear...

Page 474: ...estion appears press the OK button again Tip You can delete items faster by just navigating to an item on the MY MENU so that is highlighted then press the Delete p button twice once to initiate once to confirm If you later decide that the order of the items on MY MENU needs to be changed 1 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the MY MENU menu white c...

Page 475: ...o navigate to the Menu Item you want to move and press the OK button to select it 5 Use the and keys on the Direction pad to move the Menu Item to a new location the yellow line shows where it will be inserted 6 Press the OK button again to complete the move Repeat Steps 4 through 6 for all the Menu Items you wish to move To leave the ranking option at any time just press the MENU button ...

Page 476: ...hom Hogan s Complete Guide to the Nikon D300 Page 476 When you select items from MY MENU during shooting these apply to the currently active SHOOTING bank or CUSTOM SETTINGS bank This is important to remember ...

Page 477: ...attached or the lens that is attached doesn t have a CPU and you haven t set data for it Apertures shown will be indicated in stops from maximum aperture not the actual aperture Solution Use the Non CPU lens data selection on the SETUP menu to enter data for the lens i blinks Viewfinder top LCD Battery is exhausted and needs recharging This also appears if the battery is defective or cannot be use...

Page 478: ... not set proper exposure and the resulting ambient lighting will likely be underexposed Solution Choose a higher ISO value if possible In Program exposure mode use flash or choose another exposure mode in other exposure modes choose larger apertures or longer shutter speeds or use flash BVLB blinks Viewfinder top LCD The camera is indicating that you ve set the shutter speed to bulb in Manual expo...

Page 479: ...ality and Image size Solution Remove the current storage card and replace with a blank one or transfer the images to computer via USB and format the storage card If all you need is a couple more shots try deleting images you don t need or setting an Image quality and Image size that uses less storage space ÄÅÇ blinks Viewfinder The scene brightness exceeds that which the meter can handle Solution ...

Page 480: ... LCD Before exposure external flash unit is set to TTL and does not support i TTL Solution Change to Automatic or Manual flash mode on the external flash or use an SB 400 SB 600 SB 800 or SB R200 ERR blinks Viewfinder and top LCD A camera malfunction has occurred Solution Press the shutter release again If the problem persists take the camera in for servicing Also consider performing the steps men...

Page 481: ... not formatted correctly or already contains the maximum number of files Solution Use a different card or if the card you inserted wasn t formatted properly try to format it again FOR blinks This card is not formatted Format the card Top LCD color LCD The CompactFlash card you inserted hasn t been formatted for use in the camera Solution Format the card Note the FOR message also appears during for...

Page 482: ...r Sometimes appears when a file is corrupted by the camera Solution try looking at the image on a computer Cannot select this file color LCD Appears when you attempt to use the RETOUCH menu commands on images that cannot be retouched usually because they were taken with another camera Solution make sure you re using images taken on the D300 Check printer color LCD Appears when you re using PictBri...

Page 483: ...ion Put more paper in the printer and select Continue Check ink supply color LCD Appears when you re using PictBridge and the printer has run out of ink Solution Put more ink or film in the case of dyesub printers in the printer and select Continue Out of ink color LCD Appears when you re using PictBridge and the printer has run out of ink Solution Put more ink in the printer and select Continue ...

Page 484: ...age if you have used the color LCD since taking a picture The most recently taken image if you ve taken a picture since you last reviewed one Yes describing this difference is more difficult than it works out to be in practice Note The normally shows I just mentioned applies to the camera s default behavior It s possible that you last left the camera showing multiple thumbnails and if that is the ...

Page 485: ...47 Press the button to turn the color LCD back on If the meter off time has expired the color LCD displays the most recent image in memory when it comes on The image automatically appears for review on the color LCD after you take a picture if you set the Image review option on the PLAYBACK menu to On If you instead have this set to Off you can always press the button to see the image Image Review...

Page 486: ...can reverse the above Direction pad usage using Custom Setting F3 see Direction Pad Scrolling during Playback on page 575 The pages in order of paging down via the Direction pad are assumes you ve turned on all options in the Display mode setting on the PLAYBACK menu Page 1 folder and filename 100ND300 and DSC_0197 NEF in this example date and time size and image quality frame count in upper right...

Page 487: ...hannel or channels are being shown as overexposed just like in Highlights if none are highlighted then Highlights aren t being shown To show the Highlight indicator and move it between channels on this page hold the Thumbnail Zoom Out h button and press the or key on the Direction pad The next time you pull up an image and look at this page of information for it the highlights setting will be reme...

Page 488: ...set Data to appear using Display mode Noise reduction Active D lighting retouch and comment are displayed over the image Page 6 Camera metering method shutter speed aperture exposure mode compensation ISO focal length flash mode white balance Color Space Picture Control noise reduction and a small luminance histogram are all shown The folder number and file number appear in the upper right corner ...

Page 489: ...s unfortunately has the side effect of making it more difficult to determine if you ve blown out the luminance channel as the right edge of the chart is also white Nothing you can do about that except turn on a highlights display or examine the channel histograms you can t have a blown luminance channel without at least one individual channel also blowing out You can protect the currently viewed i...

Page 490: ...uring Playback on page 575 You can delete the currently viewed image by pressing the Delete p button You ll be prompted to confirm the deletion press the p button again to do so If the image was protected you ll see Cannot delete protected pictures when you press the Delete p button Unprotect the image before trying to delete it by pressing the Protect button You can display thumbnails of multiple...

Page 491: ...r still reach the histogram page by pressing the center of the Direction pad assuming that you haven t used Custom Setting F1 to assign another function to the button Pressing it again takes you back to the thumbnail display even if the display has gone off or you ve taken additional pictures 4 images per screen 9 images per screen You can magnify the view by pressing the Zoom In h button Each pre...

Page 492: ...tion can also be set to this via Custom Settings Image reviewing has a different timeout setting from the shooting mode of the camera the default is 20 seconds see Custom Setting C4 Color LCD Active Time on page 547 Don t panic if you see the Folder contains no images message The camera is trying to tell you that it can find no images in the current folder of the card that doesn t mean that there ...

Page 493: ...era created it while the latter only looks for folders created by the D300 Current only looks at the folder set by Active folder on the SHOOTING menu Rotating Images Images are usually displayed on the color LCD with the long axis across the long axis i e vertical images aren t displayed rotated The D300 has an automatic rotation detector however You can activate this so that images are correctly ...

Page 494: ... OK button to complete the setting If you ve set Auto image rotation to On Nikon Transfer automatically rotates the images during transfer to your computer so that they ll show up in the correct orientation in whatever software you use However even if Auto image rotation is set to On that doesn t mean the images show up rotated on the color LCD on the camera For that you have to make a change in t...

Page 495: ...y or the OK button to complete the setting Not rotated Rotated Personally I don t like the Rotate tall option as it starts to make the review image too small to quickly evaluate not how little of the LCD space is taken up by the image in the rotated example above That s especially true if you use the RGB Histogram page as your primary review page I leave this option Off on my D300 and just tilt th...

Page 496: ...select the highlighted item Note that some of the items on this menu can be performed directly on the currently shown or selected image without using the menu system e g Delete using the p button The following sections detail the various PLAYBACK Menu Items Deleting Images õ You can delete the image that is shown on the color LCD or the currently selected thumbnails by pressing the Delete p button...

Page 497: ...either a few images or all of them 1 Press the MENU button to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the PLAYBACK menu blue playback button icon 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Delete and press the key on the Direction to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Selected and press the key on the Direction to select it ...

Page 498: ...eletion you ll see the p icon appear on it see image 100 25 below If you need to see the image better in order to determine if this is one you want to delete press the Zoom In h button 7 Press the OK button to get the confirmation prompt Use the Direction pad to navigate to Yes and press the OK button again to confirm the deletion The two choices in the Delete Menu Item are ...

Page 499: ...pressing the OK button navigating to Yes and pressing the OK button again when prompted Step 4 above Images marked with a protect symbol cannot be deleted hidden images aren t displayed All The D300 immediately displays a confirmation prompt Selecting Yes and confirming that by pressing OK immediately deletes all photographs on the card except for ones that have been marked as Protected or are Hid...

Page 500: ...ges then the camera selects Show next if you were scrolling backwards through images then the camera selects Show previous 1 Press the MENU button to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the PLAYBACK menu blue playback button icon 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to After delete and press the key on the Direction to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the opt...

Page 501: ...image it simply marks the space used by the file as available Thus if you write additional images to a card after deleting a file you often can t recover the deleted file as the D300 may have used the space for the new images Dealing with Folders I ve dealt with it earlier but it s worth repeating here as we go through the PLAYBACK menu options the D300 uses folders to organize images stored on th...

Page 502: ...ree characters and the D300 identifier as the last five e g 102ND300 which isn t particularly flexible Once again here s the full extent of what you can do with folders on a D300 õ Create a new folder 1 Press the MENU button to see the menus on the LCD 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to SHOOTING menu green camera icon tab 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Active folder and press the key o...

Page 503: ...three digit portion of the folder name 6 Press the OK button to complete the creation Note that your new folder becomes the Active Folder into which images are put automatically õ Select which folders to display in playback 1 Press the MENU button to see the menus on the LCD 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to PLAYBACK menu blue playback button icon ...

Page 504: ...HOOTING menu Images are always stored in the currently selected folder called the Active Folder and set by the Active folder option on the SHOOTING menu Folders cannot be renamed curiously they can be on the D50 D70 and Coolpix models The D300 doesn t allow you to delete folders To actually get rid of a folder number you d have to first set your Active folder value to a lower number then delete th...

Page 505: ...ng Hiding Images The D300 allows you to hide images which prevents them from displaying in PLAYBACK mode or in slide shows When copied to a computer hidden images are marked with both the hidden and read only attributes meaning that they don t normally display in directories õ To hide images 1 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the PLAYBACK menu blu...

Page 506: ... exactly as you would in thumbnail view using the and key pressing the center of the Direction pad on each image you want to hide each press toggles between hide and unhide 6 Confirm the hide action by pressing the OK button Hidden images get a icon on them e g image 100 24 in the following screen At this point you re done 7 If you selected Deselect all in Step 4 the D300 next displays a confirmat...

Page 507: ...ocked file attribute by using Get Info Apple I on the file it s in the General section which is usually opened by default click on the next to it if it isn t The easiest way to restore hidden images is to use the Deselect all option on the Hide image menu see Step 4 and 7 above Other PLAYBACK Menu Items Display mode is dealt with in Options for Evaluating Exposure on page 263 Image review is dealt...

Page 508: ...ks of Custom Settings If there is a group of settings you use regularly you should create them in one of the banks and name that bank so that you can remember it Since the banks are the first item in the Custom Setting menu if you have them set up well you can reconfigure the camera very quickly Generally I leave one of the banks set to the camera defaults well my version of the camera defaults as...

Page 509: ...f settings generally isn t something you do the first day But after a few weeks if you ve been paying attention you should be able to recognize camera setups you use regularly Good you re ready to create banks of Custom Settings 2 Pick a bank As I wrote earlier I generally leave Bank A alone giving me one bank that I know I can return to fiddle with and reset at will 3 Bring up the Custom Settings...

Page 510: ...e applied to the currently selected bank which you set in Step 5 Take your time Make sure you run through all the Custom Settings and set each one as necessary 7 Finish up Use the Direction pad to navigate to Custom setting bank and press the key to see the options 8 Name your Bank Use the Direction pad to navigate to Rename and press the key ...

Page 511: ...put area highlighted in gray iii Press the center of the Direction pad to enter the currently selected letter iv Use the Thumbnail Zoom Out h Direction pad keys to move the cursor within your entry v Press the OK button to complete your entry Yes with 48 possible settings in each of four banks this could take you a while to do Another option is to use Nikon Capture Camera Control to make the setti...

Page 512: ...ttings are made by 1 Pressing the MENU button to show the menu system 2 Using the Direction pad to navigate to the CUSTOM SETTING menu purple pencil icon and press the key to select it 3 Using the Direction pad to navigate to the group a b c d e or f in which the custom setting you wish to change is located and press the key to select it ...

Page 513: ...ng other than the default in the screen shot that appears just above this note There are 48 individual Custom Settings plus the Custom setting bank and Reset custom settings options and the values and terminology used for each are sometimes obvious sometimes cryptic so follow along closely I ll provide a complete description of each option along with my recommendations for each Note In the section...

Page 514: ...Rename Assign a name to a bank When you select Rename you are taken through a procedure that allows you to assign a name up to 20 characters in length for each bank Recommendations 1 Leave one bank for impromptu use name it something like Defaults Since there s a chance you ve set something in that bank and forgotten to cancel it always use Reset custom settings see page 519 on the bank immediatel...

Page 515: ...how you might set the banks differently what follows on the next page is a table of my usual bank settings on the D300 The difference between Bank A and Bank B is that the former is the camera defaults the latter is my personal default choices for my normal shooting typically landscape and nature work I ve highlighted in green my changes from the defaults to make them easier to see When I use flas...

Page 516: ...Auto Auto On On A7 Focus Area No Wrap Wrap Wrap Wrap A8 AF Pt Selection AF51 AF51 AF51 AF51 A9 AF Assist On Off On Off A10 AF On for MB D10 AF ON AF ON AF ON AF ON B1 ISO Step 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 B2 EV Step 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 B3 Exp Comp EV 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 B4 Exposure Comp Off Off Off On B5 Center Weight 8mm 8mm 8mm 6mm B6 Fine tune Exp 0 0 0 0 C1 AE Lock Off Off Off Off C2 Auto Meter Off 6s 6s 6s 6s C3 ...

Page 517: ...0 s 1 250 s Auto FP E2 Slowest Flash Shutter Speed 1 60 1 15 1 15 1 30 E3 Built in Flash Mode TTL TTL Commander TTL E4 Modeling Flash On On On Off E5 Auto BKT Set AE Flash AE only Flash only AE only E6 Manual Mode Bkting Flash speed Flash speed Flash only Flash aperture E7 Bracketing order Mtr Mtr Mtr Mtr F1 Center Button Center AF Thumbnail Center AF Histogram Center AF Histogram Center AF Zoom F...

Page 518: ...t is pre filled with the settings listed here in the eBook You may think that setting and naming all of those Banks is going to be a big pain Not really With your D300 connected to the computer use Nikon Camera Control Pro 2 0 1 Start Nikon Camera Control Pro 2 0 2 Choose Custom Settings from the Camera menu 3 For each bank i Choose the bank from the popup at the top left ii Click the Edit button ...

Page 519: ...ng them to the defaults No No change to Custom Settings no reset Yes Reset the Custom Settings in the current bank to the default values When you select Yes the default values are restored for all custom settings For the record the defaults are Autofocus CSM A1 AF C priority Release CSM A2 AF S priority Focus CSM A3 Dynamic AF area 9 pts CSM A4 Focus lock on Normal CSM A5 AF activation Shutter AF ...

Page 520: ...ting Display CSM D1 Beep High CSM D2 Grid lines Off CSM D3 Viewfinder warning On CSM D4 CL shooting speed 3 fps CSM D5 Max cont release 100 CSM D6 File No Seq On CSM D7 Shooting info display Auto CSM D8 LCD illumination Off CSM D9 Exp delay mode Off CSM D10 MB D10 batteries LR6 AA Alkaline CSM D11 Battery order MB D10 Bracketing Flash CSM E1 Flash sync speed 1 250s CSM E2 Flash shutter speed 1 60s...

Page 521: ...s setting carefully While you can reload your Custom Settings via the Load save settings option on the SETUP menu this is an all or nothing thing all camera settings are saved or loaded Thus I try to keep my Custom Setting experimentation to a single bank and only reset that bank Custom Setting A1 Continuous Servo AF Priority AF C priority selection When the camera is set to Continuous Servo autof...

Page 522: ...e shutter release is held partway down Personally however I don t like this as it introduces a potential shutter lag into a camera that at the default settings has almost none Generally you re using Continuous Servo AF for action and thus I suggest that you leave the default setting in place lest you risk missing the picture 125 Go back and re read the autofocus section if that didn t make sense T...

Page 523: ...ne of the Dynamic Autofocus Area modes 4 When I jab the shutter release fast with Release set I sometimes don t get in focus shots despite what I just said in 3 while I never had this problem with the F5 I do note that if I switch to Single Point autofocus or press the shutter release in a more stately fashion the number of in focus shots I get goes up and of course holding the release partway pri...

Page 524: ...Release Shutter activated on press of the shutter release Recommendations 1 If you use other Nikon bodies especially ones that don t allow you to override this function consider leaving this setting at its default for consistency 2 Because of changes to the autofocus system I find the Release option not as interesting as it was on previous Nikon DSLRs Indeed I can t really think of a strong reason...

Page 525: ...hoose the range of sensors beyond the initially selected sensor that the camera uses to focus 9 points Uses the currently selected sensor and the sensors immediately next to it if the subject moves from the originally selected sensor default 21 points Uses the currently selected sensor and sensors up to two away from it if the subject moves from the originally selected sensor 51 points Uses any of...

Page 526: ...ball using 9 points allows you to keep focus on one player while using 51 points might let the focus system bounce from player to player Overall I suggest you error on the too tight side rather than the too loose side 2 The other critical aspect of this function is the difference that 3D makes on the 51 point options Here you re choosing whether or not to keep the focusing solely chosen by the aut...

Page 527: ...ose Obviously it s much more complex than that but in a nutshell that s the choice you re making between 51 points and 51 points 3D tracking In the former only the autofocus sensors are being used and they may stumble in low contrast or low light situations In the latter setting the color metering system gives the system more information that make it much more likely to find the right spot in chal...

Page 528: ...this ability Long Change has to occur for a long time to trigger AF shift Normal Nikon s default pause before shifting AF default Short AF shifts even on short changes Off Focus Lock On is deactivated Recommendations 1 This is an action specific setting for some sports and activities you ll want Lock On active while with others you won t If you ve been getting photos where the action in the backgr...

Page 529: ...ng the default for this function I say consider because I ve experienced mixed results Sometimes I want it short sometimes longer but the results don t seem to be perfectly predictable In general however shorter seems better to me when shooting continuously Custom Setting A5 Autofocus Initiation Method AF activation Nikon bodies have long had a number of flexible and useful autofocus customization...

Page 530: ... the first place no player hitting one of the autofocus sensors is going to reset it to someplace you might not want it if you ve ever had a pitcher intrude into the near part of the frame and catch one of the outer AF sensors you ll know what I mean and b you remove a teeny bit of lag out of the shutter release to picture time helping you catch the exact moment of action 2 If you re one of those ...

Page 531: ...ult On Sensors always light briefly in red to show which one will be used for focus information Off Sensors never light in red Recommendations 1 Personally I like the default In dim light I get the brief red boost to help find the selected sensor in bright light the black outline is good enough 2 You re probably wondering why you might want to turn this off One word power If you set On you ll be u...

Page 532: ...lay but continue in the same direction Recommendation 1 I like the wrap around effect but you ll need to try both options to figure out which you like better I will note that you re more likely to like the wrap option with 51 points than you did with only 5 points to choose from so if you re coming from one of the earliest Nikon DSLRs strongly consider setting this option to Wrap Custom Setting A8...

Page 533: ...the lower value doesn t take the 51 sensors out of use when you re in Dynamic Area autofocus You re only restricted to selecting the initial focus area from 11 Indeed many sports or action shooters are going to want to explore this option as it gets them to an initial focus point faster but doesn t compromise the final focusing 51 point 11 point Custom Setting A9 Autofocus Assist Illumination Buil...

Page 534: ... dim red it s not intrusive 2 Note that you must be in Single Servo autofocus and the center autofocus sensor must be chosen if you re in Single Point or Dynamic Area autofocus Otherwise the Autofocus Assist light will not function even if you ve set this function to On Custom Setting A10 MB D10 AF ON Button Options AF ON for MB D10 Because the optional MB D10 vertical grip hand position puts the ...

Page 535: ... locks when the button is pressed and stays locked until it is pressed again or the camera s metering system turns off AF lock only Focus locks when the button is pressed Same as FUNC Button Pressing the AF ON button on the MB D10 performs the same function as the camera s FUNC button see Custom Setting F4 Recommendations 1 You ll note that there are three assignments you can make with the AF ON b...

Page 536: ...two buttons labeled AF ON that do different things this function only changes the button on the vertical release Custom Setting B1 ISO Increment ISO sensitivity step value ISO values that the D300 sets can be chosen in three different increments The increment chosen with this setting is used for all ISO settings in the camera excluding Auto ISO 1 3 step 1 3 stop increments default 1 2 step 1 2 sto...

Page 537: ...you are simultaneously shooting with another camera body that doesn t support 1 3 stop increments i e you want exposure settings to match between both cameras If you set 1 2 stop increments for instance you could find yourself in situations where you re underexposing more than necessary to preserve highlight detail Generally you want to set your brightest point as close to the top end of the D300 ...

Page 538: ...endations 1 It really doesn t make much sense to set the alternative values unless you are simultaneously shooting with another camera body that doesn t support 1 3 stop increments i e you want exposure settings to match between both cameras If you set 1 2 stop increments for instance you could find yourself in situations where you re underexposing more than necessary to preserve highlight detail ...

Page 539: ...ng the button Exposure compensation is canceled and set to 0 0 whenever the exposure meters turn off or the camera is turned off Which Command dial is used depends upon the exposure mode and whether you ve switched the Command dials using Custom Setting F7 CSM F7 Exp Mode Exposure Compensation set by OFF A Rear Command dial OFF S P Front Command dial OFF M Exposure Comp not allowed ON A Front Comm...

Page 540: ...s changing between bodies problematic especially if the other body doesn t have a custom setting to make this setting However some D300 users only have one camera and always use their camera in one exposure mode usually aperture preferred and thus find this custom setting useful Your choice But know what you re doing 2 If you ve used Nikon 35mm film bodies for any amount of time the button is righ...

Page 541: ...mm 13mm circle for 75 Average Averages entire image area Recommendations 1 This one is personal and I think somewhat dependent upon the types of things you shoot For example landscape photographers might prefer to use 6mm to lower the potential impact of the sky on exposures Likewise sports photographers might want to narrow their center weight circle if the playing field background isn t middle t...

Page 542: ...s lenses this option is not available to you actually your setting is ignored Any lens for which you have to set Non CPU Lens Data will default this function to 8mm Custom Setting B6 Meter Compensation Fine tune optimal exposure The D300 has a Custom Setting that allows you to individually dial in a permanent exposure compensation for each metering system This fine tuning of the meter systems is h...

Page 543: ...tuations use one of the other metering systems instead 2 If you always spot meter off of a gray card consider dialing in the appropriate compensation for the spot metering system to compensate for the slight difference in the way camera meters are calibrated Note I said always This Custom Setting would always override the metering null value so you have to meter consistently for this to be of exce...

Page 544: ...he AE L AF L button is pressed Off Exposure locks only when the AE L AF L button is pressed default Recommendations 1 If you re used to having exposure lock when you press the shutter release partway the behavior of most consumer cameras then consider setting this option to a value of On Note that if you like to set exposure and then pan over to your final composition you need to either set this o...

Page 545: ...stom Setting C2 Meter Camera Active Time Auto meter off delay The D300 like all Nikon bodies has a higher power demand when it is active metering autofocus etc Thus Nikon has programmed an aggressive time out for the camera s basic functions Normally the camera stays active only while the shutter release is held partway down and for ten seconds after you release it This delay can be changed 4 s Fo...

Page 546: ...ndeed they were the ones that asked for it in the first place Why Because they don t want any lags in their camera as it might make the difference between getting the moment and not If the camera s metering and focusing system goes inactive there s a very short but still real delay before they come up again Sports photographers love to just follow action through the viewfinder and be able to punch...

Page 547: ...the countdown It flashes during the first part and then lights steadily during the last two seconds prior to exposure 3 MUP gives you a fifth Self Timer delay 30 seconds Custom Setting C4 Color LCD Active Time Monitor off delay The D300 uses more battery power when the color LCD is active This function allows you to program the amount of time the LCD stays active when no other activity button push...

Page 548: ...more often 2 Avoid the 1 to 10 minute delays unless you have extra batteries handy 3 If you re working with AC power or any battery connected to the DC In connector you don t need to worry about this setting it is automatically set to 10 minutes and you can t alter that Custom Setting D1 Sound Feedback Setting Beep For some reason the D300 has the consumer body beeping sound capability and worse s...

Page 549: ... time This will teach you and reinforce a better sense of how fast the focus system works in various situations But eventually you ll want it off it s distracting to those you re trying to photograph Custom Setting D2 Grid Line Display in Viewfinder Viewfinder grid display The D300 has the ability to show grid lines overlaid in the viewfinder which help with alignment On Grid lines are shown in th...

Page 550: ...ion either However if you imagine a line between the outer left and right edges and the first vertical grid line in the viewfinder you ll have the approximate position of a standard 8x10 crop The actual position of the 8x10 crop markings would be somewhere between the halfway point I suggest and the outer edge of the autofocus sensor area so you could also use the outer edge of the autofocus senso...

Page 551: ...n you do Custom Setting D4 Continuous Low Shooting Speed CL mode shooting speed The D300 is a responsive camera In either of the Continuous release shooting method settings the camera can rattle off a burst of more images than you might expect from a single shutter press Continuous High always shoots at 6 fps or 8 fps if the right battery is used in the grip But you can vary the speed at which Con...

Page 552: ... ll lose track quickly It also means you re less likely to jab the shutter release hard and get multiple shots Custom Setting D5 Maximum Continuous Shots Max continuous release By default the D300 will stop at 100 shots when you shoot in continuous release shooting methods This is to keep the sensor and digital circuitry from overheating and producing less than ideal results However Nikon has adde...

Page 553: ...ge 182 that the D300 has two basic capabilities for naming files file numbers are reset to 0001 by a number of actions formatting new card new folder etc or they aren t reset until you hit 9999 This is where you set that behavior On File numbering picks up after last number default Off File numbering always resets to 0001 Reset Same as Off but number immediately reset to highest file number in the...

Page 554: ...s than where you want to start numbering into the appropriate folder on your memory card has to be the active folder insert that card into the camera then immediately set this option back to On Custom Setting D7 Shooting Info Display Style Shooting info display The D300 has the ability to display a detailed shooting information display on the color LCD when you press the Protect button also marked...

Page 555: ...Manual to set Light on dark Custom Setting D8 LCD Illumination Control LCD illumination The top LCD has a yellow green backlighting that makes it easier to see at night To preserve power the backlighting isn t applied unless you specifically tell it to By default that is done by turning the Power switch to the illumination icon just past the ON position which provides backlighting for about six se...

Page 556: ...Thus I say you should only set this control for situational conditions i e when you need it All other times it should be Off 2 Most people don t realize it but this function is also linked to external Speedlight LCDs and it works both ways If you set backlighting to be On for the SB 800 using its setup options that setting is applied to the camera too Indeed since I m usually shooting with a flash...

Page 557: ...he preflash Some people will blink in response to the preflash and have their eyes closed at the main flash Some insects and animals will bolt on the preflash 3 In general I prefer this function to the MUP frame rate function only when I m handholding the camera and not using a wired remote The timed shutter lag also works best for static subjects some people and animals react to hearing the mirro...

Page 558: ...Lithium Use for AA lithium batteries such as the Eveready Lithium series ZR6 AA Ni Mn Use for AA Nickel Manganese batteries rare Recommendation 1 You must set this function if you use AA batteries in the MB D10 otherwise you won t get accurate and reliable power indication In some cases the camera could report the battery exhausted when it is isn t But here s the rub you need to set it for all Cus...

Page 559: ...ithium AA batteries are expensive and disposing of lithium isn t exactly something you want to do regularly it s not a great environmental friend though it s better than some of the other materials batteries have been made of Alkaline AA batteries are cheap and ubiquitous but they won t last as long as NiMH or Lithium batteries 4 Note that only the full low and empty battery displays are shown whe...

Page 560: ...the MB D10 and want to save them as the last resort Custom Setting E1 Flash Top Sync Speed Flash sync speed Nikon allows you to adjust the flash sync speed on the D300 downward from its normal setting plus set to faster sync speeds 1 320 Auto FP 1 320 second lower limit plus TTL FP with external Speedlights at shutter speeds over 1 320 1 250 Auto FP 1 250 second lower limit plus TTL FP with extern...

Page 561: ...pecially if you reset Custom Settings banks 2 The 1 320 option may raise eyebrows Nikon as usual hasn t clarified anything in their documentation about this if anything there is conflicting information in the manual about whether this applies to internal or external flashes It appears that this is option is a return of the old F5 trick where the power is restricted on the flash Indeed there s one ...

Page 562: ...e are pretty weak reasons to use this function and it would probably mean you d need to be shooting in Shutter priority exposure mode as in Program and Aperture priority you d be getting the other end of the shutter speed range Custom Setting E2 Flash Low Shutter Speed Barrier Flash shutter speed The section on flash that comes later in the eBook see Setting Flash Options on page 608 describes an ...

Page 563: ... 15 but I watch for that Custom Setting E3 Flash Mode for Internal Flash Flash cntrl for built in flash I wish Nikon had set flash mode up differently e g put the flash mode control into the Flash Pop up button in conjunction with the command dials Because buried down in the Custom Settings menus and requiring multiple settings for some functions partially negates a very useful feature Nikon neede...

Page 564: ... third stop increments the D200 only supported full stop increments If you set Repeating flash you also need to set the power setting suddenly renamed Output in this menu by Nikon the number of times to repeat the flash during the shot and the interval at which the flash is repeated This is a little complex to figure out as there s an interaction between your shutter speed Times and Interval that ...

Page 565: ...e going to use Let s say your shutter speed will be 1 60 Next use Interval to determine how many flashes will be fired a second An interval of 1Hz means 1 times a second so we need to divide the lower value of our shutter speed 60 into this which tells us that we could have as many as 1 flash while the shutter is open which obviously isn t going to generate a repeating flash effect By contrast if ...

Page 566: ... field especially since it s usually around dawn or dusk when I m shooting with flash 3 If you use visual slaves to trigger studio lighting try leaving your D300 set at Manual flash mode at 1 128 power That s generally not enough flash to do much more than produce a minor catchlight effect on your models but it s usually enough to trigger you main studio lighting 4 Note that if you mount an SB 600...

Page 567: ...hotographers get the most benefit out of this setting a those who work with flash in a flash bracket or further off camera they can t always conveniently press the SB 800 s Modeling Light button and b macro shooters who are trying to evaluate how shadows and depth of field interact 3 Surprise surprise The SB 600 which does not have a modeling light button does have a modeling light function I had ...

Page 568: ...sh exposure compensation WB bracketing White balance is bracketed instead of exposure Recommendations 1 This feature catches many users by surprise Or it just puzzles them But changing exposure via flash exposure compensation doesn t look the same as changing it via ambient exposure compensation This is especially true if you ve set flash mode options such as Slow Sync The default setting is okay ...

Page 569: ...et if you are taking NEF images it won t even allow you to make bracketing active 4 If you use Manual exposure mode and are considering setting Flash only see the next Custom Setting E6 for a better option Custom Setting E6 Manual Exposure Mode Bracketing Auto bracketing Mode M If you ve elected to have bracketing change the ambient exposure any AE value in Custom Setting E5 you also can specify w...

Page 570: ...east if you re bracketing often in Manual exposure mode Why Because it gives you a quick and dirty way to play with flash and ambient balances by switching exposure modes Custom Setting E7 Bracketing Order Bracketing order You can select the order in which the D300 exposes the photographs when automatic bracketing is set see Exposure Bracketing on page 299 Note Bracketing can set sequences fewer t...

Page 571: ...nce the D300 names every file only with numbers this becomes even more important You could browse through the EXIF data to figure out which is which 2 I personally prefer to have my numbered images go from underexposure to overexposure so I select Under MTR Over That s because that s the way I used to set up bracket sequences on the light box when reviewing slides I m used to seeing values from lo...

Page 572: ...u can press it any of eight directions or press the center This option controls what that center press does while shooting and playing back images While Shooting Shooting Mode Select center focus point Selects central autofocus area or center sensor group default Highlight active focus point Shows which autofocus area is the currently selected one by illuminating it Not Used Pressing center of the...

Page 573: ...ntentionally Thus the last two choices are probably safer for someone who is in a hurry focusing and hard on the Direction pad When an Image is Played on LCD Playback Mode Thumbnail on off Toggles display of thumbnail view default View histograms Toggles display of histogram view Zoom on off Toggles zoom with preset user defined zoom amount Choose folder Pressing the center displays a list of avai...

Page 574: ... evaluating focus One note if you shoot NEF set a Sharpening value of at least 5 if you re going to try to evaluate focus using the color LCD Note that the values for zooming are Low magnification 50 view Medium magnification 100 actual pixel view High magnification 200 view Thus you want to use Medium magnification to evaluate focus Custom Setting F2 Additional Direction Pad Control Multi selecto...

Page 575: ...s D3 and D200 so if you use multiple bodies you might want to consider leaving the camera at the default Custom Setting F3 Direction Pad Scrolling during Playback Photo info playback When reviewing images being played back on the color LCD one axis of the Direction pad controls the information page that s displayed the other axis controls the image Info PB Left Right moves between information page...

Page 576: ...e of many useful things Moreover you have the choice of making the assignments using only a button press or by using the button in conjunction with the Command dials133 Button Press only 132 sic Nikon s manuals refer to it as the FUNC button Apparently there wasn t enough room to stencil FUNC on the camera body 133 Some settings allow you to choose an option for both press and press dials For exam...

Page 577: ...ressing the Fn button locks exposure but releases the lock if you press the button again the meter times out or you press the shutter release AE lock Hold Pressing the Fn button locks exposure until the meter times out or you press the button a second time AF lock only Holding the Fn button locks focus Flash off Flash is disabled while the button is held Bracketing burst If held at start of a brac...

Page 578: ...s held down None Pressing the Fn button does nothing but holding it and turning the Command dials may do something if set default Button Held with Rotating Command Dials 1 step spd aperture Holding the Fn button and turning the Command dials controls apertures and shutter speeds in full stop increments Choose non CPU lens number Holding the Fn button and turning the Rear Command dial sets the non ...

Page 579: ...y assigned bracketing as the default for the Fn button If you set something other than the default you need to set one of the other buttons so that you can still bracket 3 The FV lock option is interesting because the preflash occurs before the mirror goes up on the D300 There s just enough of a pause between the preflash and main flash that you might get blinkers people blinking in reaction to th...

Page 580: ...shing down and popping up the flash that s because of the various constraints the other exposure modes may put on the ambient exposure 6 Whatever you set don t set it without first considering what you ll be setting for Custom Settings F5 and F6 These three options have overlapping choices so you really need to consider them all as a group Custom Setting F5 DOF Preview Button Setting Assign previe...

Page 581: ...ed a second press cancels FV lock default AE AF lock Holding the DOF Preview button locks both exposure and focus AE lock only Holding the DOF Preview button locks exposure AE lock Reset Holding the DOF Preview button locks exposure but releases the lock if you press the button again the meter times out or you press the shutter release AE lock Hold Pressing the DOF Preview button locks exposure un...

Page 582: ...t will be taken i e shots continue until you let go of the shutter release Matrix metering Matrix metering is active when the DOF Preview button is held down Center weighted Center weighted metering is active when the DOF Preview button is held down Spot metering Spot metering is active when the DOF Preview button is held down None Pressing the DOF Preview button does nothing but holding it and tu...

Page 583: ...ne Holding the DOF Preview button and turning the Command dials does nothing but pressing the button by itself may do something default Recommendations 1 The options here are the same as for Custom Setting F4 so read my recommendations there 2 Whatever you set don t set it without first considering what you ll be setting for Custom Settings F4 and F6 These three options have overlapping choices so...

Page 584: ...AF L button is pressed a second press cancels FV lock default AE AF lock Holding the AE L AF L button locks both exposure and focus default AE lock only Holding the AE L AF L button locks exposure 135 Some settings allow you to choose an option for both press and press dials For example you can set the button to spot metering and still have it work with dials for bracketing But not all combination...

Page 585: ... held at start of a bracketing sequence all shots in the sequence are taken immediately with one shutter release press in continuous release shooting method multiple sequences of a bracketing set will be taken i e shots continue until you let go of the shutter release Matrix metering Matrix metering is active when the AE L AF L button is held down Center weighted Center weighted metering is active...

Page 586: ...AE L AF L button and turning the Rear Command dial sets the Dynamic Autofocus area size None Holding the AE L AF L button and turning the Command dials does nothing but pressing the button by itself may do something default Recommendations 1 The options here are the same as for Custom Setting F4 so read my recommendations there 2 Whatever you set don t set it without first considering what you ll ...

Page 587: ...work e g clockwise increases apertures normally Fortunately you can override four of Nikon s choices with this custom setting Reverse rotation No Operation is as described in the manual default Yes The rotation of the Command dials is reversed e g apertures now increase by turning the Front Command dial counterclockwise Change main sub Off Operation is as described in the manual default On The Com...

Page 588: ...The Direction pad is used to control navigation in menus and playback default On The Command dials are used to control navigation in menus and playback in addition to the Direction pad the Rear Command dial is equivalent to the left right keys on the 136 The Front Command dial doesn t always control the aperture as implied by Nikon s default choice after all you can change that function with anoth...

Page 589: ... likely to get confused when you move back and forth between bodies 3 Likewise this is a nice April Fool s joke to pull on Nikon users138 Just change the options to Yes On Aperture ring and On and watch your favorite Nikon user go mad in frustration trying to figure out what s going on with his or her camera 138 Guys if you pull this on your girlfriend or wife please leave me out of the fallout th...

Page 590: ...etting default Recommendation 1 This has got to be the most dangerous Custom Settings on the camera First Nikon s names for the options are terrible The option labeled No really means that a button press is equated as a hold Second unless you re absolutely anal about your control use I can almost guarantee there will come a time when you started to make settings say white balance then saw a shot o...

Page 591: ...nt in the camera default Recommendations 1 This is another place where Nikon switched the defaults in the Custom Settings and this time I don t agree You usually don t want the camera to operate as if it is functioning when it isn t saving your images Thus the new Enable release default is backwards from where I think most users will want their camera set Change your camera to Release locked unles...

Page 592: ...akers models Recommendations 1 Since the D300 is a pro camera let s make sure you know the reason why Nikon s metering bars seem the opposite of everyone elses they reflect the direction you should turn the aperture ring on the lens to correct the exposure problem you re seeing Turning a Nikkor lens aperture ring to the right from the back of the camera provides less exposure so if you saw a expos...

Page 593: ...otchas I encounter most frequently with students are these Flash only lights one distance correctly Light falls off with the inverse square of the distance If a flash is providing the correct light for 8 feet by 11 feet the light will be one stop less at 5 6 feet it will be one stop more The classic expectation most people have is that flash should light both a subject and a background that s many...

Page 594: ...ht actually produced is determined by when the electrical signal to the xenon is shut off When a flash fires at full power it essentially gives everything it has the xenon gas responds as much as it can and eventually decays to nothing That takes about 1 1050 of a second on an SB 800 When a flash fires at less than full power this is done by stifling the xenon flash prematurely by removing the ele...

Page 595: ...1 series the D100 and the D2 series with the SB 28DX SB 50DX SB 140 Note that one way the D2 series and the D300 differ is that the D2 series has an additional five segment sensor in the mirror box which looks at the shutter curtain This has subtle but real implications The D300 for example fires a preflash at the first shutter release press when set to MUP the D2 series waits until the second thu...

Page 596: ...call the entire set of new flash capabilities CLS for Creative Lighting System The D40 D40x D50 D70 D70s D80 D2hs D2x D3 D200 and D300 all use this i TTL capability Unfortunately a side effect of the i TTL update is that only the SB 400 SB 600 SB 800 SB R200 and internal flashes support it This is a critical change to note Just to be clear To get TTL flash on a D300 you must use the internal flash...

Page 597: ...ent occurs Preflash and again during exposure Preflash only Preflash only Flash Measured by 5 segment sensor in mirror box 5 segment sensor in mirror box CCD in viewfinder Multiple TTL flash supported Yes with cables or wireless with SU 4 No Yes with i TTL wireless functions TTL controlled wirelessly Yes but all flashes fire at same level No Yes flashes can even be grouped to fire at different lev...

Page 598: ...lenses you re quite likely to bump up against this limitation at some point Allowable Apertures in Program Mode143 ISO Value Range internal flash Range external flash LO 1 0 f 2 8 to f 32 f 4 to f 32 LO 0 7 f 3 2 to f 32 f 4 5 to f 32 LO 0 3 f 3 2 to f 32 f 4 5 to f 32 200 f 3 5 to f 32 f 5 to f 32 250 f 3 5 to f 32 f 5 to f 32 320 f 4 to f 32 f 5 6 to f 32 400 f 4 to f 32 f 5 6 to f 32 500 f 4 5 ...

Page 599: ...er angle than the D300 is taking in wasting flash strength Here s a handy table to use when shooting with a Speedlight flash D300 Safe Flash Head Focal Length Settings Lens Focal Length Set Flash to 14mm 20mm 17 18mm 24mm 20mm 28mm 24mm 35mm 35mm 50mm 50mm 70mm 60 70mm 85mm 85mm 105mm Assumes SB 800 In other words if you have a 20mm lens on the D300 manually zoom the flash head to the 28mm mark Th...

Page 600: ...information from the matrix meter with additional information from the lens focal length aperture and distance at which the lens is focused and from a series of nearly invisible pre flashes which the metering CCD in the D300 s viewfinder analyzes When set in this mode the D300 normally attempts to balance the flash with the ambient light Generally less flash is produced in this mode than if you se...

Page 601: ...ifier that needs some discussion Nikon DSLRs previous to the D200 tended to continue to try to balance ambient and subject light even in dark conditions Ones since then including the D300 don t do that as they recognize low light conditions and change the strategy of TTL BL Unlike for example the D70 or D100 the D300 seems to do a better job of lighting the subject independently of the background ...

Page 602: ...ing exposure The pre flash is usually a series of short pulses with a regular pattern The pre flash on a D300 is triggered within 20 milliseconds after the shutter release which occurs about 55 milliseconds after you press the shutter release button The main flash follows the pre flash by 60 milliseconds Thus the shortest time from when you press the shutter release to the flash going off is 135 m...

Page 603: ...etting Custom Setting E1 to 1 250 FP auto or 1 320 FP auto the upper shutter speed limit of 1 250 for flash is removed That may seem like something you d want to have available all the time it is a setting I suggest as a default but be careful Shutter speeds above 1 250 cause the flash to produce its light differently Instead of a single flash burst the output is done in a series of very short sma...

Page 604: ...modes can also be changed if the camera isn t set to Spot metering by using the Mode button on the external flash In other words if you see TTL BL on the flash LCD pressing the Mode button selects TTL instead One final note on sync speeds the D300 also provides a setting in Custom Setting E1 of 1 320 AUTO FP This acts like the 1 250 AUTO FP mode with one exception flash units that do not support F...

Page 605: ...be one of the simplifications Nikon made from the pro series cameras Automatic Ê Available with all external flash units that have an Automatic flash mode In Automatic flash mode the Speedlight usually146 sees only the signal to start the flash no preflash is fired You must transfer the aperture and ISO used on the camera by setting this manually on the flash Again a sensor on the front of the fla...

Page 606: ...s well as consulting a Guide Number chart On the other hand a correctly made manual flash calculation should always provide exactly the right amount of flash on a subject The general formula is Aperture GN Distance or GN Distance Aperture or Distance GN Aperture Make sure that the GN you plug into those formulas is expressed in the same units as the Distance feet or meters and that you re using th...

Page 607: ...led from the camera If Custom Setting E1 is set to allow it and you re using an SB 600 SB 800 or SB R200 FP may also appear to indicate that shutter speeds higher than 1 250 can be used though flash power will be reduced Auto Aperture Available on the D300 only with the SB 800 Press the Mode button on the Speedlight until ÊÊ is displayed on the flash unit s LCD Automatic Available on all Speedligh...

Page 608: ... and what component does the flash length calculations The D300 understands five flash sync options again Nikon calls them flash sync modes Front Curtain Sync The flash fires when the shutter is first opened Any shutter speed between 1 60 or other value set by CSM E2 and 1 250 second is allowed in Aperture priority and Program exposure modes Any shutter speed between 30 seconds and 1 250 is allowe...

Page 609: ...ight trails caused by subject movement in long exposures seem to follow the subject a more natural looking effect than produced by slow sync Notes TTL FP removes the faster shutter speed limit 1 250 SB 24 SB 25 and SB 26 flash units should have their Mode switch set to REAR Redeye Reduction The external flash or the Redeye Reduction lamp for internal flash is fired one or more times prior to the a...

Page 610: ...L or REAR depending upon which flash sync option you re using on the camera Since several settings intersect one another for these options here s a table that summarizes the information just presented Flash Option Interactions Exposure Mode Allowable Shutter Speeds with Front Curtain Allowable Shutter Speeds with Slow Sync or Rear Sync Additional Shutter Speeds Allowed with FP set Program 1 60 to ...

Page 611: ...o try to use exposure compensation and flash exposure compensation to override the camera s automatic decisions The more EV change you ask for the more the camera is likely to fight you Solution Put the flash in Standard TTL mode if you want to set exposure and flash exposure compensations yourself Note that the way you set this for the internal flash is to use spot metering You don t always get w...

Page 612: ... body If you also use a Nikon DSLR that doesn t have an internal flash and always use external flash then always set flash exposure compensation only on the external flash The in between cases are the ones that ll eventually catch you Personally I try to always use an external flash and always set my flash exposure compensation on the external flash Whenever I have to set flash exposure compensati...

Page 613: ...es Yes Yes No No SB 23 No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No SB 22s No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No SB 22 No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No SB 21B No Yes Yes No3 Yes Yes No No No 1 Auto Aperture supported 2 SB 27 needs to be set to forced A mode see Flash Troubleshooting on page 658 for details 3 Realistically only usable with Micro Nikkor lenses or with other lenses focused at close distances A automatic ...

Page 614: ...re mode you are guaranteed to be completely in control of the background exposure 2 If you want a full exposure on the background adjust the Front and Rear Command dials to adjust the aperture and shutter speed until the Manual Exposure Metering bar reads 0 If you want the background slightly darker than the foreground subject lit by flash set an underexposure of the background of 0 3 to 1 stop It...

Page 615: ...If you want the flash to provide fill light on the subject start with a flash exposure compensation value of about 1 to 1 7 EV for people from 1 7 to 2 3 EV for objects in shadow Again you need to experiment to find the value that looks right to you The background exposure you set in Step 2 and the subject exposure you set in Step 4 should be consistent for average toned subjects In other words on...

Page 616: ... somewhere I get a lot of grief from other posters Specifically Why does Program mode make aperture restrictions with flash Apparently Nikon made design decisions that had to do with the guaranteed reach of the flash in the all automatic modes All I know is that if you have an f 2 8 or faster lens and you re shooting with flash in Program exposure mode you ve wasted your money on the fast lens At ...

Page 617: ...ht changes in camera position sometimes produce slight differences in exposure when you don t expect them to That s why I tell you to take control of what the flash is doing and dial in your own compensation Third Party Flash Units The i TTL flash units required by the D300 to perform TTL mean you are restricted to the SB 400 SB 600 SB 800 and SB R200 if you want to purchase an external flash and ...

Page 618: ...limited to voltages of about 24 volts or less To play it safe you can use an isolation connection such as the Wein Peanut The Rear Sync option is only available using Speedlight units in the hot shoe by the way D300 Internal Flash The D300 has a built in low power Speedlight This internal flash is not automatically popped up as it is with some other Nikon consumer cameras You manually control when...

Page 619: ...d be 56 17m for TTL and 59 18m for Manual flash at ISO 200 That compares to a GN of at least 62 19m on an SB 800 at the same 17mm coverage area at ISO 100 and the SB 800 can provide even more light with longer lenses What s that mean for photographic situations For a subject at 10 feet and ISO 100 the internal Speedlight would require f 4 while the SB 800 would require f 6 3 That s a difference of...

Page 620: ...kon bodies and flashes shooting at distances shorter than 2 0 6m shouldn t normally be done as the camera won t always calculate flash exposure correctly Moreover with the internal flash there s an issue of whether the flash is pointed correctly for close up work At longer distances some lenses and lens hoods interfere with the internal flash A few of these are listed in the D300 manual but that l...

Page 621: ...o so by setting spot metering I generally recommend that you not use Balanced Fill Flash also known as TTL BL 4 Set the camera to Single Servo AF flash only operates when the camera achieves focus this step isn t technically required but I like to tell people to use it as a reminder that focus has to be achieved for flash to operate 5 Set the camera s exposure mode if you haven t already In Apertu...

Page 622: ...e Custom Settings tab Press the key to enter the Custom Settings menu b Use the Direction pad to navigate to Custom Setting E3 Press the key to enter the Flash Mode setting c Use the Direction pad to navigate to Manual flash mode Press the key to enter the Manual flash mode settings d Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Manual flash power you want to set Press the ...

Page 623: ...te the distance on the scale on the lens 5 Aperture GN Distance Work the calculation and set the correct aperture Determine the GN by looking at the tables below 6 Set the D300 to the exposure mode you wish to use and set your aperture and shutter speed as usual Just make sure that the aperture you set matches the one you just calculated in Step 5 Internal Flash Guide Numbers Feet Output Level ISO...

Page 624: ...ower 1 7 2 4 3 4 4 7 6 6 9 3 1 128 Power 1 2 1 7 2 4 3 4 4 7 6 6 Note All numbers above 10 rounded to the nearest digit all numbers below that rounded to the nearest tenth To Set Repeating Flash 1 Press the MENU button to show the menu system a Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Custom Settings tab Press the key to enter the Custom Settings menu b Use the Direction pad to navigate to Custom ...

Page 625: ... 128 are allowed Press the key to select the flash power to be used e Use the and keys on the Direction pad to set the number of flash repeats you desire Only 2 to 15 repeats are allowed Press the key to select the repeats to be used f Use the and keys on the Direction pad to set the frequency of repeats you desire Only frequencies of 1 to 50 times per second are allowed Press the key on the Direc...

Page 626: ...5 flashes while the shutter is open which we set in our repeats value Step 1e in the above as you can see from the steps in setting procedure Nikon got things backwards we d really want to perform Step 1f first not Step 1e 2 Activate the flash by popping it up press the Flash Release button 3 Set the camera to Single Servo AF flash only operates when the camera achieves focus this step isn t techn...

Page 627: ...t the Commander internal flash sends queries and instructions to the Remotes external flashes by using special preflash sequences Only i TTL capable flashes can be used for wireless work which means SB 600 SB 800 or SB R200 flashes must be used for Remotes For the wireless flash system to work the remote flash units need to be able to see the light output of the D300 s internal flash and the D300 ...

Page 628: ...ash will work Outdoors has more ambient near IR and fewer reflections so distance is usually restricted and there usually has to be direct line of sight between camera and remote flash units Because of bounces off walls and ceilings wireless flash is a bit more flexible indoors you sometimes can hide a remote flash out of line of site of the camera because its light reflects well enough for the ca...

Page 629: ...h sequence But for a three flash setup the camera s internal plus two remotes the D300 s wireless abilities are excellent and all that you need If you need more than two Remotes Groups you need to substitute an SU 800 or SB 800 on the D300 as the Commander instead of the internal flash But that s a subject for another book Here s how to set up a three flash wireless shoot I ll use one SB 600 and o...

Page 630: ...eys on the Direction pad you set value in the boxes with the and keys on the Direction pad i For each flash internal Group A Group B set the flash mode You can set TTL AA not for internal flash M or The last item means that this flash or Group will not participate in 150 I guess Comp is supposed to stand for compensation But that s not quite accurate If a flash is set to TTL Comp sets flash exposu...

Page 631: ... compensation for TTL or AA or power output level for Manual flash f Finally use the key to navigate to Channel and then use the keys to set one of the four channels that the preflash sequence uses Press the OK button when you ve completed this step 2 Let s move on to our first remote flash which for illustration purposes will be an SB 800 ...

Page 632: ... Hold the SEL button down for two seconds to leave Custom Settings on the flash The SB 800 should now be set for remote use f To set the Channel press151 the SEL button until CH is highlighted inverted white letters on black then use the and keys on the SB 800 Direction pad until the channel number you set in Step 1f is highlighted 151 I m specific in word use This is not the hold down that you us...

Page 633: ...ng towards the D300 s internal flash note that you can rotate the flash head to fix the orientation if necessary 3 Now to our final flash this time an SB 600 a Simultaneously hold down the Zoom and buttons on the SB 600 for more than two seconds to get to the Custom Settings for the flash b Use the and keys on the SB 600 Direction pad to highlight the wireless flash icon c Press the Zoom button un...

Page 634: ...ngle Servo AF this step isn t technically required but I like to tell people to use it as a reminder that focus has to be achieved for flash to operate 6 Set the camera s exposure mode if you haven t already In Aperture priority A Shutter priority S and Manual M exposure modes make any necessary aperture or shutter speed selections Note In Program exposure mode you can usually override the camera ...

Page 635: ...great deal of infrared energy present some incandescent lighting produces infrared you may have to give up some distance where other infrared sources are present as they ll overwhelm the sensor and it won t see the faint output of the internal flash I ve been able to achieve remote triggers at better than 120 angles but only at close distances 10 feet 3m Triggering the remote flashes is only part ...

Page 636: ... the same spot e g one is used for filling light on one side of the face while another is used for the background while the internal flash is used for key light this trick works well But even if they are all firing their light on the same spot you can easily control this by simply dialing down the internal flash with flash exposure compensation every other flash will respond in kind so it s usuall...

Page 637: ...Speedlights to fire a little hotter than the internal flash but this is a big trial and error process you ll just have to experiment with yourself External Flash Models for the D300 SB 400 The SB 400 is the simplest of the four external Speedlights that can provide TTL flash with the D300 This small flash was introduced with the D40 models in 2007 Specifications GN 98 ft 30 m atISO200 Weight 4 5 o...

Page 638: ... the camera s selection of aperture and shutter speed combinations by turning the D300 s Rear Command dial when the camera is active But note that the maximum aperture you can use is restricted in Program exposure mode the actual value depends upon ISO setting see Allowable Apertures in Program Mode on page 598 Note The D300 may warn you of several possible errors when you partially press the shut...

Page 639: ...3 7m f 8 f 11 f 16 f 22 f 32 f 45 2 0 8 5 0 6 2 6m f 11 f 16 f 22 f 32 f 45 f 64 2 0 5 9 0 6 1 8m f 16 f 22 f 32 f 45 f 64 f 90 2 0 4 3 0 6 1 3m Red apertures not available in Program exposure mode Blue apertures not available on most lenses SB 600 The SB 600 is one of four external Speedlights that can provide TTL flash with the D300 The SB 600 is similar to the SB 800 but with fewer features and...

Page 640: ...al press of the shutter release activates it otherwise press the power ON OFF button on the SB 600 to turn the flash ON 2 Select the type of TTL to be performed Basically you only have one choice whether to cancel the balanced fill flash mode you do so by pressing the Mode button on the flash until only the TTL indicator appears if TTL BL appears the camera is in a Balanced Fill Flash mode see Sum...

Page 641: ...ever the camera will use any shutter speed In Manual M exposure mode under and overexposure is indicated solely by the analog exposure display If the exposure bar goes to either side of the point the ambient only lighting exposure will not be correct 5 Focus on your subject by pressing lightly on the shutter release Confirm that the subject is within flash distance Unfortunately the SB 600 does no...

Page 642: ...flash ON 2 Press the SB 600 s Mode button until Ë appears on the LCD 3 Set the camera to Aperture priority A or Manual M exposure mode and set your aperture and shutter speed as usual 4 Set the camera to Single Servo AF While not absolutely required this generally makes the camera s response more predictable 5 Focus on your subject by pressing lightly on the shutter release Note the distance on th...

Page 643: ... flash direction pad to choose a value Wait a moment and the flash locks in the current value Note The SB 600 is capable of keeping up with the D300 at 5 fps at powers of 1 8 1 16 1 32 or 1 64 as follows 1 8 4 consecutive frames 1 16 8 consecutive frames 1 32 16 consecutive frames 1 64 30 consecutive frames However let the flash cool at least 10 minutes after firing 40 consecutive flashes normally...

Page 644: ... 5 9 9 5 10 1 32 2 5 4 6 4 9 5 3 6 4 6 7 7 1 1 64 1 8 3 3 3 5 3 8 4 5 4 8 5 SB 600 Guide Numbers at ISO 200 feet Power 14mm 24mm 28mm 35mm 50mm 70mm 85mm Full 1 1 64 119 129 137 165 175 183 1 2 46 85 92 98 118 125 131 1 4 33 60 65 70 84 88 93 1 8 23 43 46 49 59 62 67 1 16 16 30 33 35 42 44 46 1 32 11 5 21 23 25 30 31 33 1 64 8 2 15 1 16 17 21 22 23 SB 600 Guide Numbers at ISO 200 meters Power 14mm...

Page 645: ...ual zoom setting press the Zoom button on the flash Direction pad until the m no longer appears on the LCD e g until the setting matches the lens being used Note Remember that the Guide Number of the flash changes with the zoom setting Note If you pull out the built in wide angle adapter and move it into position in front of the flashtube the SB 600 is set to the 14mm and the automatic zoom head f...

Page 646: ... Note Red eye reduction works in most flash modes but not in the Repeating Flash mode SB 600 Notes The D300 s focus mode should usually be set to Single Servo AF since the flash will generally not fire unless the camera has achieved focus The Autofocus Assist light on the SB 600 is used automatically if the ambient light is low and you haven t turned this function off on the flash Autofocus assist...

Page 647: ...ash s LCD along with a value This indicates potential underexposure This indicator only appears for three seconds after the shot The Rear Sync option must be selected on the camera Some earlier flash units had this selection on the flash so I ve included this note here just in case folks who previously had one of those Speedlights are wondering While the SB 600 has click stops for commonly used fl...

Page 648: ...eight 11 8 oz 335g w o batteries Size 5 127 5mm tallx 2 8 80 5mm wide x 3 6 91 5mm deep Power four AA batteries five with supplied adapter Recycle Time 6 seconds minimum full discharge of Flashes 150 at fullmanual Flash Duration 1 1050 to 1 41600 Coverage 120 degrees horizontal 110 degreesvertical 14mm lens also supports 17mm 24mm 28mm 35mm 50mm 70mm 85mm and 105mmcoverage Case SS 800 included Key...

Page 649: ...OFF button on the SB 800 to turn the flash ON 2 Select the type of TTL to be performed Basically you only have one choice whether to cancel the balanced fill flash mode you do so by pressing the Mode button on the flash until only the TTL indicator appears if TTL BL appears the camera is in a Balanced Fill Flash mode see Summary of i TTL Flash Modes on page 604 Note The FP indicator may also appea...

Page 650: ...e D300 and SB 800 may warn you of several possible errors when you partially press the shutter release to verify settings The lens must be set on its minimum aperture or else the error message FEE appears in the viewfinder Any HI visible in the viewfinder indicates that overexposure of the background exposure is likely The shutter speed will be automatically reset to 1 250 if you selected a faster...

Page 651: ...for ISO 100 would start with f 1 4 For ISO 3200 shift the aperture numbers in the ISO 1600 column up by one row To Set Manual Flash 1 Activate the flash If it s already in Standby a partial press of the shutter release activates it otherwise press the power ON OFF button on the SB 800 to turn the flash ON 2 Press the SB 800 s Mode button until Ë appears on the LCD 3 Set the D300 to Aperture prefer...

Page 652: ... to match that shown on the SB 800 Note The power setting of the SB 800 is controlled in 1 6 stop increments between and 1 128 power plus you can set full power 1 1 You control the setting by pressing the and buttons on the flash direction pad to choose a value Wait a moment and the flash locks in the current value Note The SB 800 is capable of keeping up with the D300 at 5 fps at powers of 1 8 1 ...

Page 653: ...ry is highlighted 5 The number frequency of flashes next to the should be highlighted If not Press the ø button until the number next to the label is highlighted a Then press the and buttons on the flash direction pad until the frequency you want is shown on the LCD b Press the middle button ø again to lock in that value and the next portion of the entry is highlighted 6 The number number of flash...

Page 654: ...ou must use e g if your subject is further away than this distance you re going to have to move closer or change your settings Note Nikon s flash documentation for repeating flash says the exposure is the correct exposure for the first flash in the sequence Actually it s the correct exposure for each flash in the sequence but if your subject doesn t move between exposures the overlap may result in...

Page 655: ...button for two seconds to complete the setting To cancel the lock repeat the process and select the other value 2 To cancel a manual zoom setting press the and buttons on the flash direction pad until the m no longer appears on the LCD e g until the setting matches the lens being used Note Remember that the Guide Number of the flash changes with the zoom setting Note If you pull out the built in w...

Page 656: ...0 0 Note Flash compensation does not change the background exposure calculated by the camera Note You can also set flash exposure compensation on camera bodies that have an internal flash such as the D300 body If you do this the value is cumulative with that you set on the external flash Get in the habit of only setting the flash exposure compensation in one place if possible hint if you own a D1 ...

Page 657: ...y works at distances from 3 3 feet 1m up to 33 feet 10m and is only guaranteed to work with lenses from 24mm to 105mm Note The Autofocus Assist illuminator will not function unless the central autofocus sensor is selected or Closest Subject Priority is in effect Note You can turn off the Autofocus Assist illuminator on the SB 800 by holding the Sel button down for two seconds and using the SB 800 ...

Page 658: ...me earlier flash units had this selection on the flash so I ve included this note here just in case folks who previously had one of those Speedlights are wondering While the SB 800 has click stops for commonly used flash head positions 45 60 75 and 90 degrees for tilt every 30 degrees for rotation you aren t restricted to those positions Setting an intermediary position is allowed though it can ea...

Page 659: ... 27 while turning its power switch to AUTO You may have to perform this last action more than once as each time you perform it the flash cycles through to only the next available flash mode You want the Forced Auto mode and the indicator for that is that the Ê on the SB 27 s LCD blinks Problem The Flexible Program function in Program exposure mode doesn t seem to change the shutter speed or apertu...

Page 660: ...ombo but the ambient light in the scene will be severely underexposed At a minimum you should use the Slow Sync option or Custom Setting E2 to lose the slow shutter speed restriction But I d recommend that you switch to Aperture preferred exposure mode to also remove the aperture limitation ...

Page 661: ...onfigure the optional WT 4 and your computer s WiFi network I usually double check the diopter and Custom Settings every time I change the battery It s easy to dislodge the diopter setting and if I ve handed the camera to anyone else common during workshops I ve found it wise to double check my Custom Settings at that time too Things To Do Before You Head Out on a Shoot Clean the mirror box and se...

Page 662: ...he inevitable dust specks Format the CompactFlash cards you ll be using First though check to see if they have any files on them see Things to do After Each Shooting Session on page 666 Formatting deals with any bad sector and fragmentation problems and with the D300 helps keep folder proliferation and the renumbering it causes to a minimum Top off your batteries I carry a converter charger in my ...

Page 663: ... card white balance card etc __ Cables FireWire video AC power etc __ Laptop with Nikon ViewNX Capture NX and plenty of storage space __ Other card reader PCMCIA adapter rain cover etc Check Each Time You Turn the Camera On Check the battery level Put in a fresh battery if necessary This is important because if the camera sits unused for a long period of time the battery will still deplete as it p...

Page 664: ...gle Servo AF S or Continuous Servo AF C plus Single Point Dynamic Area and Auto Area are your primary choices Unless you have a reason to choose otherwise Single Servo and Auto Area is the usual choice Set a metering method Matrix center weight or spot meter are the choices Matrix is your usual choice Get in the habit of looking at the indicator often it s conveniently right next to the viewfinder...

Page 665: ...heir needs Don t forget to review JPEG compression and NEF RAW recording settings Interval shooting and multiple exposures These items tend to be used for special purposes I try to make it a practice to check these settings every time I replace a battery or CompactFlash card just as I used to do when switching rolls of film on a 35mm film body Always watch the ISO setting You never want to shoot w...

Page 666: ...the camera for these Fortunately the viewfinder reminds you of your settings for the latter and the top LCD displays the former Get in the habit of looking at both those settings when shooting Better yet get in the habit of pulling up the INFO display to review settings every once in a while as it displays more of the options that are set than any other display Things To Do After Each Shooting Ses...

Page 667: ...w both instructions any card you notice with files on it probably hasn t been downloaded to the computer yet giving you one last chance to recover those original files before you erase them If you re going to shoot again within the next week put your partially exhausted batteries on the charger Since you can t count on running into a drugstore and buy batteries that ll run the D300 you also need t...

Page 668: ... you through a full day of shooting it might though Thus most D300 users carry multiple batteries with them The EN EL3e battery doesn t have any external mechanism for showing whether it is fully charged or not If you carry three batteries as I sometimes do you need some way of telling the charged batteries from the used ones Here are some of the methods I ve heard Number the batteries Using some ...

Page 669: ... through Maintaining Image Quality You ll get the highest quality images out of the D300 if you Shoot NEF format You have the original sensor data to deal with and can apply different interpolation routines on it after the fact The D300 JPEG engine still seems just a bit soft to me though not nearly as bad as the D100 was and better than the D200 was If you don t shoot NEF see Dealing with JPEG on...

Page 670: ...owest ISO you can and use Long exp NR noise reduction on the SHOOTING menu on exposures over 8 seconds This form of noise reduction does not lower detail Once noise is recorded in an image getting it out is difficult at best impossible at worst ISO 200 is where you want to be as often as possible at this value the D300 s images are nearly noise free and have a great deal of detail and clarity If y...

Page 671: ...graphers I want mostly automatic This type of photographer wants the quality a DSLR produces but generally doesn t want to have to pay a lot of attention to details They re likely to drop their photos off to a lab to be printed and less likely to crack open a software program to fix or adjust their images after the fact I m willing to invest time to get it right This type of photographer wants the...

Page 672: ...and with most labs You re compromising a bit on image quality automatic white balance can produce slightly off color images but usually only slightly Read the section on Dealing with JPEG below for more tips on image quality The autofocus system will work hard to figure out what is and isn t the subject in low light you might have some speed issues with focus but that s why you ll leave AF Assist ...

Page 673: ...h JPEG If you shoot JPEG with a D300 you need to master the camera s digital manipulation settings In particular white balance contrast and sharpening settings often determine how good the final picture is Consider using 1 or lower for Contrast If contrast is set to 0 or worse still one of the higher values you may discover that the highlights are blown out and unrecoverable on your JPEGs and the ...

Page 674: ...at least at the lower ISOs Indeed most D300 images that are sharpened in camera can be sharpened again in post processing without much worry something that wasn t true on most previous Nikon bodies I tend to set my D300 to 4 or higher sharpening in camera as it helps me evaluate focus when zooming in on the preview image on the color LCD Note however that as you go up the ISO ladder you almost cer...

Page 675: ...ould look different in those two worlds no In a simplified way that s what we face with color reproduction methods Television screens and monitors can reproduce one range of colors an inexpensive printer another range and expensive multi plate print technologies yet a different range The inks in printing or the phosphors and shadow mask in monitors can limit or increase the color range In a perfec...

Page 676: ...got a Macintosh and want to compare gamuts start the ColorSync Utility application click the Profiles icon choose a Color Space click the little triangle in the upper left corner of the plot area and then select Hold for Comparison from the pop up menu that appears Then select another Color Space You ll get a dual plot similar to what I ve shown above sRGB tends to produce intense saturated colors...

Page 677: ...rint on your own personal inkjet or high end digital printer I suggest that you select AdobeRGB as your Color Space Note that colors may seem to be less saturated when displayed on your computer especially if you haven t profiled your monitor using a product such as Colorvision s Spyder hardware and Optical software see the review on my site http www bythom com colorvision htm but the color is mor...

Page 678: ...es are automatically recognized as being sRGB by most older software regardless of the camera s chosen Color Space That s probably because the software engineers simply followed the original EXIF specification which used to state that any EXIF file is in the sRGB Color Space156 If you use AdobeRGB you may have to set your program to ignore or discard the Color Space or assign the correct one NEF o...

Page 679: ... settings in each of your programs shoot a standard color reference in known lighting with the proper white balance setting such as the GretagMacbeth ColorChecker chart in sunlight with the camera set to the Direct sunlight white balance setting Then watch for shifts in color as you bring the resulting image through your workflow If your monitor is calibrated correctly and your programs set to the...

Page 680: ...olor management gets a bit confusing For example when you calibrate your monitor with Colorvision s hardware or software or any of the alternative choices I use Colorvision as an example because its low price and decent quality make it a good match for most D300 users what happens Well Colorvision s software alters information that your video driver uses to send signals to your monitor For example...

Page 681: ...it menu 2 On the pop up for Working Spaces select Adobe RGB 1998 or the Color Space you set on the camera or if you re a Lightroom user you might want to set ProPhoto RGB 3 Under Color Management Policies select Preserve Embedded Profiles and check all the boxes that begin with Ask Other Programs pose different problems and require us to make additional settings Nikon Capture NX on Windows for exa...

Page 682: ...Fine Tuning the Color In this abbreviated color management lesson we only suggested that you profile your monitor In general once you ve done this and set your working Color Spaces in your software correctly you should be able to take a picture with known colors in it and follow it all the way through to print without seeing any major deviations Note the word major in the last sentence If you do s...

Page 683: ...shifts are almost always the result of incorrect settings on your computer software e g Color Space doesn t match what the camera set Once your camera to computer color issues are resolved and you get repeatable accurate results on the display then and only then work on the print side First examine all the options for your printer driver and make sure that one of those doesn t fix your problem Mor...

Page 684: ...omalies in the capture process Many pros believe that if you shoot raw files NEF you should use the largest possible Color Space possible when working on those images That would be ProPhoto RGB Indeed many pros and Lightroom and Aperture by default set their raw conversion software to this Color Space in order to preserve every last bit of color accuracy and subtlety You don t need to and can t se...

Page 685: ...his limited spectrum At the low end you ll find ultraviolet light while at the higher wavelength values lies the infrared The visible and near visible spectrum goes from UV left through blue green and eventually red up to near IR right The D300 s sensor is almost completely insensitive to light outside the visible spectrum Each successive Nikon DSLR seems to be less responsive to UV and near infra...

Page 686: ...h a Tiffen Hot Mirror filter to hold back the near infrared spectrum slightly he takes what he calls invisible images using his Nikon bodies You can also use a Nikon FF or a Wratten 18A to block visible light by the way Note that if you try to duplicate his work with a regular lens you ll find that exposure times are exceedingly long on a D300 as I noted earlier most glass in regular lenses isn t ...

Page 687: ...e Since you re filtering out a fair amount of light and have a camera that isn t terrifically receptive to near infrared you ll certainly end up with tripod inducing shutter speeds The Hoya filter I use removes virtually all the visible spectrum and I find that I have to add significant exposure to what the meter recommends and end up with exposures measured in seconds no matter what aperture and ...

Page 688: ...red junkie you probably would like to get rid of the hot mirror filter over the sensor and replace it with a visible spectrum blocker like the above filters This would let you use the camera almost normally but the camera would always take near IR pictures instead of visible light pictures i e once converted the camera isn t usable for normal photography Well if you want to throw caution to the wi...

Page 689: ... also there is considerable variance between fluorescent tube manufacturers Fortunately Nikon did something about this last by adding support for different types of bulbs in the Fluorescent white balance setting Heat produces the light emitted by the sun incandescent bulbs halogen bulbs and most other light sources Heat generated light has the property of emitting a continuous spectrum of colors t...

Page 690: ...react and decay quickly If you take photographs with shutter speeds faster than 1 125 either early or late in a fluorescent light s cycle your images show an additional color cast usually green If you take photographs at shutter speeds faster than 1 125 midway through a fluorescent light s cycle resulting pictures tend to get an additional magenta cast That s in addition to any overall cast the tu...

Page 691: ...5 or 1 100 in Europe Shutter speeds that are not multiples of the AC cycle means that you don t get complete color decays from one or more of the phosphors 157 I ve had people report to me that even 1 125 isn t always safe the shutter speed should be 1 120 to match the AC frequency in the US I haven t had problems with this shutter speed so I suspect that it has to do with the specific fluorescent...

Page 692: ...n you can put around the D300 can decrease the chance that dust gets anywhere near the sensor In dusty Africa when I m not using a camera body I put it in a plastic bag with the air removed and then place the plastic bag in my camera case Then I put my coat over the camera case I also make sure that the sensor orientation during travel is downwards so that any dust already in the camera settles on...

Page 693: ...od but most of the smaller stuff is beyond your ability to see to put size in perspective several hundred photosites would occupy the space on this Even the so called sensor scopes won t resolve the smallest dust particles though they are useful for checking for other types of problems such as streaking left behind after wet cleaning If you use Capture NX it is possible to use what Nikon calls a d...

Page 694: ...the key to select it The Clean sensor and then start option performs the camera s automatic dust removal function prior to taking a dust off photo 6 Follow the instructions on the display which instruct you to take a picture of a white object card or sheet of paper 10cm 4 from the front of the lens Fill the frame with this object 7 Press the shutter release If you get the message INAPPROPRIATE EXP...

Page 695: ...t for sensor cleaning You re sacrificing some detail using this function and dust will continue to build up on the sensor which means that short of taking a reference photo for every image you make it may not correct every defect Moreover at some point there will be a dust particle that resists being corrected in this fashion I should also point out that the Capture NX tool has a maximum number of...

Page 696: ...has a built in ability to do modest dust removal from the filter over the sensor 1 Press the MENU button to see the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SETUP menu yellow wrench icon and the key on the Direction pad to enter the menu 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Clean image sensor option and press the key to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Clean...

Page 697: ...f Use the Direction pad to navigate to the Clean at startup shutdown option and press the key to select it 7 I personally prefer Clean at shutdown but if you re in dusty conditions consider using Clean at startup shutdown instead Use the Direction pad to navigate to your choice and press the key to select it õ If the above method doesn t remove all the dust you ll have to use a more aggressive and...

Page 698: ...irror up for cleaning and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 159 A slightly more elaborate description of sensor cleaning is on my Web site at http www bythom com cleaning htm There I describe the two commercial methods I use here Sensor Brush and Sensor Swabs but do it yourselfers can create their own versions of each For a brush you need a soft nylon brush that is free from additive...

Page 699: ...that dust won t resettle on the sensor or back in the mirror box 9 Press the shutter release to raise the mirror and open the shutter curtain revealing the sensor 10 Use a manually powered bulb blower to blow out any large chunks of grit usually hairs 11 Use a Sensor Brush to swipe across the sensor area remember to recharge the brush before each pass using compressed air or ...

Page 700: ...move the dust you ll need to have a Nikon service center clean your camera Remember Nikon specifically disclaims use of any method that touches the filter array on top of the sensor I m describing the methods that most of us pros have resorted to because we simply can t keep returning the camera to Nikon for cleaning every time our sensors get dirty we d never have use of our cameras Caution If yo...

Page 701: ...s to close This will dislodge the shutter blades rendering your camera inoperative While I and others successfully lobbied for this feature to be added to Nikon cameras a few years ago I repeat it s a last resort option because of the increased risk of damaging the camera Use it at your own risk It s Not Just Static Cling Dust clings to the filter array in front of the sensor only partly because t...

Page 702: ...to use both strong wetting and some pressure to remove them I learned this one the hard way by coming down from the cold dry air at 10 000 feet on a Hawaiian volcano to the warm moist air in a garden at sea level in the space of an hour Not only did it take another couple of hours to rid the condensation out of my lenses viewfinder and elsewhere but it was as if I had baked the dust onto the filte...

Page 703: ...n a humid climate it is probably wise to store the camera in a cool dry area or with a desiccant in a plastic bag from which the air has been removed Changes in humidity can play a part in sensor cleanliness as I ve already noted When condensation forms on the filter it tends to trap dust particles Moreover you can get small water rings on the sensor In general it pays to be careful when moving th...

Page 704: ...ce misleading histograms If you shoot NEF images use the correct white balance setting or at least a white balance of Auto Second many of Nikon s choices for white balance settings are slightly suspect either Nikon knows something about the photosite sensitivity and color rendering that they haven t told users about or they ve chosen values based upon visual review or the actual color temperature ...

Page 705: ...e One reason why sunrise and sunset scenes look red or orange to us is that the color temperature is extremely warm approximately 3100 3600K depending upon the exact timing of the shot and atmospheric conditions We perceive it as warm because the change occurs so rapidly prior to sunrise the color temperature may be 7000K or higher and the blue wavelengths are generally filtered out by the extra a...

Page 706: ... and using my own if possible Three SB 800 s and the internal flash can light a pretty large area plus subject Will a filter balance errant color If the problem is a mix of flash and fluorescent or even incandescent and fluorescent the primary problem is the fluorescent light Try using an FLD filter or a 30M as the primary problem with most fluorescents is going to show up as too much magenta With...

Page 707: ...e lighting sources lighting distinctly different areas of the scene If you are using flash to light the subject and fluorescent is lighting the background you can sometimes use Photoshop s layering to select the background and color correct it after the fact In short set up the shot so that you have distinct areas that can be selected and color corrected ...

Page 708: ...ary things you do with your images boil down to Modify them The D300 has a built in capability to make some basic modifications of images you shoot See The Retouch Menu below Transfer them to your computer Because your images are digital they fit right into the computer world at least once you get them there On your computer you can modify annotate email and print your images amongst other things ...

Page 709: ...300 brings a set of basic editing tools to the camera Before I get to describing each of these tools let me give you a word of advice for the most part I d tend to avoid them The primary reason is that the color LCD on the camera is just too small and inaccurate to make critical image post processing decisions The good news is that the camera always creates a new image while making changes leaving...

Page 710: ...version mostly only impacts the shadow areas highlights aren t really adjusted Note that D Lighting is different than Active D Lighting though they do similar things D Lighting performs changes on an image after it has been shot Active D Lighting changes exposure in anticipation of making tonality changes and does its work during the shot Nevertheless the overall impact of both functions is simila...

Page 711: ...e paintbrush icon and press the key on the Direction pad to enter the menu 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to D Lighting and press the key on the Direction pad or the OK button to select it 4 You ll be presented with thumbnails of six images at a time a Use the Direction pad and keys to navigate to the image you wish to work with b Use the Zoom In button h to see the currently selected image i...

Page 712: ...ish applied Low Normal High b Use the Zoom In button h to see the modified image in full screen size c Press the button to cancel the process and not create a modified image d Press the OK button to start the creation of the modified image 6 After pressing the OK button in Step 5 the camera will display an hourglass icon for a moment to indicate that it is creating a modified image according to yo...

Page 713: ...e 608 is to remove red eye after the fact Red eye correction is also a function in Capture NX so you don t need to perform this function in camera To use Red eye correction you must first take a picture using flash That picture also needs to be color i e you can t apply this to black and white images shot with the D300 nor can you apply it to images that weren t taken with flash and can be NEF or ...

Page 714: ...urrently selected image in full screen size c Press the OK button to select the image you wish to change 5 The camera looks at the image and tries to detect red eye If it does not it will report No red eye detected and you ll be returned to Step 4 Otherwise the camera will display an hourglass icon for a moment to indicate that it is creating a modified image according to your instructions After a...

Page 715: ...s you ll take a picture that covers more area than you want in the final image for example you couldn t get closer to your subject or didn t have a long enough telephoto lens Eventually you ll want to crop that image to get rid of the extraneous parts The D300 allows you to do that in camera though with some size constraints that might not match what you want to do ...

Page 716: ...aintbrush icon and press the key on the Direction pad to enter the menu 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Trim press the key on the Direction pad to select it 4 You ll be presented with thumbnails of six images at a time a Use the Direction pad and keys or Rear Command dial to navigate to the image you wish to work with b Use the Zoom In button h to see the currently selected image in full sc...

Page 717: ...o change the amount of trim you wish applied b Use the Rear Command dial to control the aspect ratio 3 2 4 3 or 5 4 c Use the Direction pad keys to move the area being trimmed d Press the button to cancel the process and not create a modified image e Press the OK button to complete the trimming process 6 After pressing the OK button in Step 5 the camera will display an hourglass icon for a moment ...

Page 718: ...cture That picture needs to be color i e you can t apply this to black and white images shot or created after the fact with the D300 and can be NEF or JPEG 1 Press the MENU key to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the RETOUCH menu purple paintbrush icon and press the key on the Direction pad to enter the menu 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Monochrome and press the...

Page 719: ...s of six images at a time a Use the Direction pad and keys or Rear Command dial to navigate to the image you wish to work with b Use the Zoom In button h to see the currently selected image in full screen size c Press the OK button to select the image you wish to change 6 The camera now shows an example of the converted image Press the OK button to begin the change ...

Page 720: ...sage and be returned to normal image review The modified version of your image will appear with a special icon paintbrush Filter Effects A very interesting retouching tool is the Filter effects option This allows you to change the color balances in the image using one of two techniques Skylight filter this option places a slight cool color cast on the image with an emphasis on the slight Warm filt...

Page 721: ... be NEF or JPEG 1 Press the MENU key to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the RETOUCH menu purple paintbrush icon and press the key on the Direction pad to enter the menu 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Filter effects and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to one of the two filter options and press the key on the Dir...

Page 722: ...tly selected image in full screen size c Press the OK button to select the image you wish to change 6 The camera now shows an example of the image as modified Press the OK button to complete the action 7 After pressing the OK button in Step 6 the camera will display an hourglass icon for a moment to indicate that it is creating a modified image according to your instructions After a few moments yo...

Page 723: ... you know what you re doing with two dimensional color representations you can change colors in your image to match just about any style you d like Note On some earlier Nikon DSLRs this function lived in the Filter effects menu To use Color balance you must first take a picture That picture needs to be color i e you can t apply this to black and white images shot with the D300 and can be NEF or JP...

Page 724: ...r Rear Command dial to navigate to the image you wish to work with b Use the Zoom In button h to see the currently selected image in full screen size c Press the OK button to select the image you wish to change 5 The camera now shows an example of the image along with the two dimensional color space Use the Direction pad to move the black square that marks the color shift you wish here taken deep ...

Page 725: ...ructions After a few moments you ll see an Image saved message and be returned to normal image review The modified version of your image will appear with a special icon paintbrush Image Overlays The D300 has an in camera facility for creating composite images Things to note about this function Number of shots 2 only Image Format Pre shot NEFs are used to create a finished JPEG TIFF or NEF Auto Gai...

Page 726: ...two images you d like to combine Make sure that these source images are in NEF format 2 Press the MENU button to show the menu system 3 Make sure the camera is set to the Image quality and Image size that you want the final image to be saved in 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the RETOUCH menu paintbrush icon tab and press the key on the Direction pad to enter the menu 5 Use the Direction pa...

Page 727: ...ghlighted a Press the OK button to show the NEF images on your card b Navigate to the image you want to use as your base image c Press the OK button to use that image as Image 1 d Use the and keys on the Direction pad or Rear Command dial to adjust the gain for Image 1 A value of 1 0 means use the exposure as is A value of 0 5 would mean to ...

Page 728: ...osure You can set values between 0 1 and 2 0 for each image e Press the key on the Direction pad to select the second image area Image 2 f Once again press the OK button to show the NEF images on your card g Navigate to the image you want to use as your second image Image 2 h Press the OK button to use that image as Image 2 ...

Page 729: ...reen version of the currently selected image 8 When you re satisfied with the images selected and the gains assigned them use the key on the Direction pad to navigate to the Preview image right hand image a Navigate to Overlay and press the OK button to see a full screen preview of the effect prior to saving b Or navigate to Save and press the OK button to complete the effect 9 It ll take a few se...

Page 730: ... this is there a reason to use the overlay function Maybe It seems to me that the strongest use of this function would be for the classic moon and landscape sandwich This allows you to use a wider lens for the landscape and a more telephoto lens for the moon to make it a bigger object in the sky This would work best if the sky were truly black so that you aren t adding sky exposure into the moon a...

Page 731: ...attached device to your computer 3 Remove the card from the camera put it into a portable storage device such as the Coolwalker or Epson P 5000 and transfer the images Later connect the portable storage device to your computer and transfer the images from it to one of your hard drives Methods 1 and 2 are the most commonly used transfer mechanisms I usually recommend 2 First if you re shooting a lo...

Page 732: ... the first two methods require either specialized software or manual copying The third method requires special hardware as well If you plug the camera into your computer the CompactFlash card in the D300 will show up as a drive on your computer on Windows that s true if you ve set the USB function to Mass storage or MTP PTP163 Thus you can manually drag files from the camera to your computer just ...

Page 733: ...software The D300 comes with a UC E4 USB cable though it s relatively short If you choose to replace Nikon s cable with one from a third party note that 15 feet 5m is the maximum distance at which the D300 can reliably communicate with the computer through USB164 We ve got one other issue to deal with how the D300 presents itself on the USB port Essentially there are two options Mass Storage devic...

Page 734: ...00 and the computer can direct what the camera does Essentially the USB cable is like a network cable between two intelligent devices This is the mode you need to be in if you want to control the camera from the computer using Capture with Windows or Macintosh OS X165 õ To set the USB connection mode 1 Press the MENU key to show the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SETUP menu...

Page 735: ...oot or reboot your PC running Windows XP or Windows 2000 the computer may see the camera as a mass storage device and perform an integrity check of the drive card in the camera This is problematic for two reasons First do not cancel any such disk scan usually accompanied by information about scan progress on a blue screen prior to the Windows main screen appearing and do not reboot If you interrup...

Page 736: ...off otherwise data may be lost Nikon designed the D300 so that it would continue to operate normally while connected to a computer That means that you can take pictures while the camera is connected to the computer You can also control the camera from the computer with Nikon Camera Control Pro 2 0 something that is useful in studio situations see the appropriate section on this software in Introdu...

Page 737: ...ary goal we have a few things we need to get out of the way Make sure the image is ready to print Most labs and all PictBridge printers require your image to be in JPEG format and using the sRGB Color Space You ll note that my recommendations for most folk Which Type of Photographer are You on page 671 were to shoot JPEG and use the sRGB Color Space so there s no real need to change anything if yo...

Page 738: ...age 744 Selecting Images to Print The D300 supports the DPOF specification Digital Print Order Format which allows you to insert your CompactFlash card into a DPOF enabled printer and automatically get prints of images pre marked for printing called the print set Most inkjet printers that allow you to insert a CompactFlash card support DPOF e g the Epson 875 as do most print labs that accept Compa...

Page 739: ...ect it 5 The camera displays a thumbnail view of the images six at a time Navigate through them exactly as you would in thumbnail view and key pressing the plus the key on the direction pad to increase the number of copies you want to print of an image or the key on the direction pad to decrease the number of copies A small 1w icon indicates that the image will be printed and the number tells you ...

Page 740: ...on pad to navigate to the Done setting and press the key to complete your action No images are actually marked until you complete this step Note DPOF printers expect images using the sRGB color space If you plan to use the Print set DPOF option you should set the Color Space of your D300 to sRGB See Color Profiles and Color Spaces on page 674 So what have you done here Essentially you ve put data ...

Page 741: ... your prints as requested PictBridge Printing The steps for printing using PictBridge to print are also simple I ll use a Sony DPP FP30 in my example but any PictBridge printer should work similarly 1 Press the MENU button to display the menus 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SETUP menu 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to USB and press the key on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use t...

Page 742: ...ogo appear This takes you directly to a browsing mode where you can directly print pictures You ll be shown the first image on your card with a PictBridge overlay at the top 8 Press the OK button to get to the PictBridge menu system you can also press the MENU button 9 You have two choices Print select and Print DPOF some printers may also offer the option of an Index print Navigate to either of t...

Page 743: ...s the key to increment the number of prints you want When you re done browsing through pictures and picking the ones you want printed press the OK button to continue 11 If you printer has options for Page size Border and Time stamp you can set them now Otherwise navigate to Start printing and press the key on the Direction pad to start the printing ...

Page 744: ...lost almost half its charge Generally I d recommend that you use the EH 5a AC Adapter to power the camera when printing directly from the camera Printing Resolution Okay if you re reading this section you ve opted to print images from your computer to your printer instead of using a direct PictBridge connection to the camera While this might seem easy enough you re left on your own devices by most...

Page 745: ...your original data That s why you ll find that most tutorials on post processing ask you to look at the effects of destructive tools like Sharpening filters at 100 View That way you see the exact effect on a portion of your original data not a simulation of it Bottom line viewing at different scales or sizes on your computer monitor does not change the actual resolution of your image Another place...

Page 746: ...Resolution box in the Image Size dialog For an Epson and most other inkjet printers I d suggest 288 pixels inch If you then need to resize the image set your dpi value as just described then 3 Recheck the Resample Image box 4 Enter new dimensions in the Width and or Height boxes However if you perform this step you ll no longer be dealing with the actual pixels you captured while shooting but Phot...

Page 747: ...sional printing options that it makes sense to give a brief set of tips here especially since color issues are usually the biggest complaint As I write this the Fuji Frontier is probably the most ubiquitous automated printer you ll run into at labs and Wal Mart and Costco in the US 167 Thus I ll present the overall workflow for it other printers should be similar but work with your lab to verify e...

Page 748: ...rinters resizes your image causing all kinds of ugly artifacts 7 Use Photoshop to convert the Color Space you were working in if necessary e g AdobeRGB to the one the Frontier uses sRGB If you give a Frontier an image in a Color Space it doesn t support guess what you get wrong colors 8 Save the image as a TIFF or JPEG file Do not embed the Color Space usually a checkbox in the Save dialog it s ig...

Page 749: ...button to display the menu system 2 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the SETUP menu yellow wrench icon and then the key on the direction pad to select it 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to Video mode and then the key on the Direction pad to select it The video connection top connector labeled Video Out just below the connector is on the left side of the camera and interferes with holding t...

Page 750: ...hile reviewing images 8 When you re done turn the camera off before unplugging the video cable You may also plug the D300 into a VCR s Video In and Audio In connections Depending upon your VCR and television to see the image from the D300 you will either have to have the VCR feed the TV s Aux composite video input or tune the television attached to the VCR to a specific channel usually 3 or 4 afte...

Page 751: ... to select it 3 Use the Direction pad to navigate to HDMI and then the key on the Direction pad to select it 4 Use the Direction pad to navigate to the proper HD setting for your television or monitor and then the key on the direction pad to select it In theory you should be able to leave this on AUTO and most HD devices should negotiate with the D300 as to what format to display But if you re hav...

Page 752: ...ould normally be displayed on the color LCD appears instead on the television This facility is useful in studio shooting Note You should note that battery consumption for the camera is considerably higher as long as it driving an external display device The D300 continues to show images on a television for up to 10 minutes after which this connection is turned OFF regardless of the color LCD s sta...

Page 753: ...he button actually just about any button At the end of a slide show the pause display is shown allowing you to restart the show from the beginning if desired Obviously if you re using the slide show option you probably are displaying images to others perhaps in a review session The D300 supports television display of the images for this very situation see Television Playback on page 749 Timeouts a...

Page 754: ...g strap EN EL3e Rechargeable Li ion Battery This Lithium ion battery pack is a custom enclosure with a proprietary connector and provides 7 4 volts at 1500mAh The EN EL3e battery can power the D50 D70 D70s D100 D200 or D300 body plus the WT 4 One EN EL3e battery is supplied with the D300 Third party versions of this battery exist some will work with the D300 some won t EN EL4a Rechargeable Li ion ...

Page 755: ... 21 Eyepiece Cup This small device slides into the viewfinder rails and has a rubber rim to shield the viewfinder from receiving light If you take pictures without looking through the viewfinder and your camera isn t in Manual exposure mode you must block light coming in through the viewfinder using your hands or the supplied DK 5 eyepiece shutter which goes into the viewfinder rails in place of t...

Page 756: ...front of the camera MC 22 Remote Cord This 3 3 1m cord connects to an additional sound or electronic triggering device to fire the D300 s shutter remotely For example some news photographers covering the Space Shuttle attach a sound detection mechanism to the MC 22 s three terminals to take pictures of launches unattended as NASA prohibits manned cameras in areas close to the shuttle s launch pad ...

Page 757: ...35mm film bodies such as the F100 F5 and F6 Besides operating as a regular release it can also function as a timer remote or intervalometer remote Plugs into the 10 pin socket on the front of the camera ML 2 Modulite Remote Control Set requires MC 25 This unit provides remote control at up to 328 feet 100m using infrared signals Multiple units can be daisy chained together to trigger the camera fr...

Page 758: ... or 14 bit and with two optional compression types JPEG Compression 1 4 at Fine 1 8 at Normal 1 16 at Basic Storage Media CompactFlash Type I or Type II Frame Rate 6 fps up to 100 frame buffer 17 27 with NEF Self Timer 2 5 10 20 seconds user settable 30 seconds with M Up White Balance Auto 6 manual modes 7 step modification Manual from picture Autofocus Modes Single Servo S Continuous Servo C Manu...

Page 759: ...images at increments of 1 3 or 1 stop Metering Features User selectable center weighted area 51 spot metering areas spot metering follows focus AE AF lock button Shutter Mechanical 150 000 cycle tested Shutter Speeds 30 seconds to 1 8 000 second in 1 3 or 1 2 stop intervals Bulb Maximum Flash Sync 1 250 second 1 8000 with FP 1 320 with internal flash at reduced power Flash contacts ISO type hot sh...

Page 760: ...ge 100 Viewfinder Eyepoint 19 5mm at 1 0 diopter 0 94 magnification Viewfinder Adjustment 2 to 1 diopters accessories extend range Focus Screen B type BriteView clear matte with on demand E type grid LCD Coverage 100 coverage both dimensions LCD Protection nearly transparent BM 8 tempered glass covering over LCD Video Output NTSC or PAL user selectable plus HDMI Computer Interface USB 2 Size 5 8 w...

Page 761: ...chase of the item in question they typically assume that product is out of warranty Tip always get the store to put the serial number on the invoice Registering your product on Nikon s Web site or sending in the Product Registration card is not enough Unfortunately there isn t a clear warranty card that comes with the D300 in the US Thus that dated sales receipt is even more important as it s the ...

Page 762: ...his but that s your fault if it happens to you I ll tell you how to avoid it in a moment Small part expensive repair Most repairs require tear down of at least part of the camera and quite a bit of testing time Beyond that most parts are replaced modularly e g you get an entire new shutter not just one piece of it or heaven forbid you often get an entirely new sensor and filter assembly if you bre...

Page 763: ...d list those things in your note along with all serial numbers Provide Find the original warranty form if the product came with one make a copy of the purchase invoice for the product and staple them to the note you wrote Provide these items even if the product is out of warranty Make sure the serial number is visible on all of these things and matches the item you re sending in If the item has be...

Page 764: ...ow up In the US that usually means phoning or checking the Web site that Nikon will point you to once they receive and log your item into service Be sure you have any number Nikon provides you along with the serial numbers of the items you sent Authorize If your repair is going to cost you something as in the case of impact damage you re at some point going to need authorize payment Usually you sh...

Page 765: ... of them changed so rapidly it became a chore to stay up to date In the US your equipment will need to be sent to Nikon Inc Attn Service Dept 1300 Walt Whitman Road Melville NY 11747 3064 Or Nikon Inc Attn Service Dept 841 Apollo St Suite 100 El Segundo CA 90245 The Nikon service Web site for NikonUSA is at http www nikonusa com template php goingto inc_service ...

Page 766: ...e Q How can I tell if I m getting an officially imported D300 A There s no simple way unfortunately In the US the serial number at least until they run out of numbers should be in the form 30 That s not a perfect method of determining origin though Q Can I have older manual focus lenses modified to work better with a D300 A With a few minor caveats yes First if the lens is pre AI you should have t...

Page 767: ...n t see any dramatic differences in exposures between non D and D type lenses at the same focal length and focus distance despite Nikon s claims for improved 3D matrix metering I have seen some small differences though especially with really wide angle lenses focused at close distances What does make a difference for both flash and non flash use is the maximum aperture information which is require...

Page 768: ...DMA which is more than five times faster than a non UDMA card can perform A very good report on a reasonable selection of different cards can be found at http www robgalbraith com Rob s results very much parallel mine and his database of cards is larger than mine and kept more up to date so his site is the preferred source for card speed info Q Are there any underwater housings for the D300 A Yes ...

Page 769: ...eing done at a reasonable cost is low so it s more likely that a replacement camera model would appear instead Nikon has been on about two year cycles with their pro cameras D1 appeared in 1999 D1h x in 2001 D2h in 2003 D2x in 2005 and a slightly longer cycle with their consumer models Any D300 replacement wouldn t appear until 2010 based upon current Nikon cycles Q Is there a software development...

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