V1.02
Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D300
Page 28
color LCD, and the Live View ability. The primary differences
between the D300 and the D3 amount to these:
•
Sensor.
The D3 has the larger FX-sized sensor, the D300
has the smaller DX sensor. There are three significant
differences that result from that change: the D3’s sensor is
a Nikon-designed one while the D300’s is a derivative of
the Sony IMX021 sensor; the larger size of the D3’s
photosites give it big advantages in terms of noise
properties; and the difference in sensor size means that
lenses work a bit differently on the two cameras.
•
Body.
The D3 has an integrated vertical grip and the
bigger viewfinder necessary for the FX sensor size.
Yes, there are some other feature differences, but they are
mostly minor, such as the D3’s horizon indicator.
Personally, I find the biggest difference between the two
cameras is the 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
the D300, as will most manual focus lenses (with a metering
limitation you’ll learn about).
As the D300 is a DX body, its sensor is smaller than the frame
size most Nikon lenses were designed for. I’ll have much
more to say about this in the section on “Lens Compatibility”
on page <367>, but for now note that all DX bodies impose a
1.5x crop, and thus you need a lens with 0.66x the focal
length to capture the same angle of view as you would with a
film camera or the FX-based D3 from the same position.
No doubt Nikon will announce additional lenses that would
be of interest to D300 users in the coming years. That’s one of
the joys of using an SLR-type of camera: different lenses give
