V1.02
Thom Hogan’s Complete Guide to the Nikon D300
Page 39
lenses, so the edge problems—softness, vignetting,
chromatic aberration simply aren’t there on a D300.
Bottom line
: get used to the change and re-align your lens
arsenal with a few DX lenses. If you use both a DX and FX
camera (e.g. D3 and D300), you’ll need to carry a wide
angle option that works on the D300.
•
The D300 overexposes.
Users moving from earlier Nikon
DSLRs often complain about the “D300 overexposure”
problem. What’s actually going on is that they’re in matrix
metering mode and don’t fully understand how it works.
There’s also a small change Nikon made that comes into
play, as well. First, the matrix meter on the D300 is finely
tuned to the autofocus system. When you use Single Point
autofocus on a D300, the matrix meter has a tendency to
highly value the 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 previous
cameras) leads people to say “the D300 overexposes.”
No, it’s just doing what it was designed to do. Nikon’s
matrix metering system is very complex and has always
required study to understand. Meters are not “magic
exposure” tools that are always right, though sometimes
they seem like they are. They evaluate a scene and make
decisions about what to do. You need to evaluate what
they’re evaluating and learn when you need to override
them.
Bottom line
: Just learn how the matrix meter system works
(see “Matrix” on page <246>). Once you understand what
it’s doing, you can anticipate what you might need to do
in difficult situations.
