Nikon D300 Reviews and Samples

Last update: Ketzal Sterling's mini D300 review.

The Nikon D300 was launched worldwide on November 21st, 2007. As the camera makes its way into the hands of excited new owners, we'll be hearing a lot about their impressions of the cameras and enjoying the posted pictures.

Linked here are summaries of user and professional reviews, opinions, tests and feedback on the Nikon D300, as well as sample images, photos and galleries.

Configurations available

The Nikon D300 can be bought for the body only, or bundled with lenses.

See what's available on Amazon.com.

Nikon D300 Samples

My Nikon D300 Photos

With the Nikon 105mm VR Nikkor lens

Here's a quick portrait in a camera shop

I took a quick shot of this gentleman while waiting for my Nikon 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor lens purchase transaction to go through.

I used the built-in Standard Picture Control with Sharpening cranked all the way up to the maximum 9 (which is not recommended unless you know what you're looking for in the image).

A Nikon SB-800 flash was mounted on the D300 with a Demb diffuser. White Balance was at Auto 0, 0. Aperture f/5 was selected by the camera.

EV was accidentally left at -1 EV from a previous shoot.

The 14-bit uncompressed RAW / NEF file was subject to a straight-through conversion in Nikon Capture NX 1.3, resized to 1280 pixels on the longer end and saved as JPEG at Excellent quality.

I'm extremely happy with the performance of the camera and lens for this picture - the level of detail has to be seen to be believed, and the bokeh is very pleasant.

Great photos

This is a list of photos shared on forums, galleries and such which I've personally found to be great examples of Nikon D300 images shot by gifted photographers.

• Winter scenes by Yves P. Each photo has a link to the EXIF where you can see what lens Yves shot the photo with - two examples include Église de la Belle-Rivière taken with the Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S Nikkor and Canis Latran taken with the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Nikkor lens.

Nikon D300 samples by lenses

In the following section, I link to various D300 photos which I found interesting, and classify them by the lens used.

Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 G Nikkor lens

• Joe Josephs shared a fantastic set of D300 photos shot at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with this lens. Joe has some comments about the lens in this post, re: color, contrast, resolution, lens hood, lens cap and how it regrettably does not accept filters. View more images at his Smugmug gallery.

Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens

• Here's a nice set of photos of hi-fi equipment shot by Draganga.
  He's also shared a well-photographed series of a couple taken with the Tamron 17-50mm and Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses - the full gallery is at Photobucket. Once there, click on the thumbnail to view the large image and access EXIF details. Interestingly , most of the images were taken at a high ISO of 1250. One example of a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 shot is this.

Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 G AF-S VR Nikkor lens

• Squirrel at the local park by Valeriecook
• DeSono snaps a photo of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF Nikkor lens

• Chinese New Year celebrations in Penang - Alex Lim shares some amazing photos in this gallery. I really dig the composition, colors and bokeh. My favorite is Guessing the Lantern Puzzle.

Nikon 200-400mm f/4 G AF-S VR Nikkor lens

• Ice hockey at ISO 2000 by Raymond J Barlow - read his forum post for details of camera settings and view the photo gallery for the photos and other Nikkor 200-400mm images.

Nikon 500mm f/4 Nikkor lens

• Fantastic bird photography by JimPearce. A Nikon TC-14E teleconverter was also used. See an ISO 800 photo of a white-breasted nuthatch taken with the 500mm f/4 lens at wide-open aperture.

Nikon D300 user reviews, tests and opinions

AF - Nikon D300 vs D200: After an initial learning curve, LuvLatins conclude that the D300's autofocus system is better than the D200's.

AF capability - Nikon D300 vs Nikon D2Xs: Jim Fenton praises the superior autofocus capability on the D300.

Nikon D300 mini-review by Ketzal Sterling of TheScooterReview.com: Ketzal rates the D300 as "brilliant" for shooting scooters and landscapes, and shares some thoughts on a couple of Nikon lenses. Conclusion: The D300 is the "best camera on the market" if you're a "serious amateur or a professional". In this post, Ketzal talks about the benefits of Advanced D-Lighting and the use of ISO 100 (1 stop below ISO 200) to get the lowest possible image noise.

Ex-Pentax users: Here's an interesting thread where ex-Pentax owners share their impressions of the D300. Some continue to use both systems.

AF (autofocus) fine tune calibration: Wade Dowdy a.k.a. Commodorefirst tests the AF fine tune feature on the Nikon D300 with 4 Nikkor lenses - 35mm f/2, 50mm 1.4, 85mm f/1.4, 105mm f/2.8 VR, 180mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-D. Using this feature, Wade adjusts for front- or backfocus for each lens and the amount of compensation is stored in the Nikon D300 for the individual lenses.

Clint Thayer on the D300's Live View mode: Clint remarks that the Live View on the D300 cannot be activated via the built-in timer, which is a shame. The refresh rate of the LCD is also slow. Regarding his Nikon D300 vs Canon 40D comments, RXGolf reports to the contrary - that both the Canon 40D and Nikon D300 perform at the same level with regards to noise in blue skies and AF (the 40D was tested with the 24-105mm f/4L and EF 100-400mm L while the D300 was tested with the Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR). Another poster, Shawnski, confirms that AF fine tuning works with 3rd-party lenses too, specifically, the Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 HSM.

Noise and sensor efficiency comparisons - Emil Marinec posts a highly technical article comparing various digital SLR cameras, including the Nikon D300 and Canon 40D.

Nikon D300 videos

DigitalRev's video review of the Nikon D300: You get a good idea of how the D300 body might feel in your hands, and also how the D300 sounds like firing at 6 frames per second. They've also written a Nikon D300 review here and to be honest, while the model looks great, image quality from the two full-sized samples provided aren't inspiring at all, with a lot of noise showing up in this ISO 400 portrait. Additionally, you won't be able to view the EXIF data from that image if viewed through Nikon View NX as it had been run through Adobe Photoshop CS3 - use a program like IrfanView to see the EXIF data. The studio portrait doesn't have the level of sharpness and detail that I expect.

Miscellaneous facts, figures and topics

Write speed The D300 is able to write files out to the storage media at a rate in excess of 30 MB per second.

... more to come ...