klausboedker
on - last edited on by
ElizabethS
Having shot with and tested the new Nikon D300s DSLR for a week and a bit now, I am tempted to think that Nikon's engineers and designers have been watching too much Simpsons lately. As Homer puts it, when approached by his long lost brother, Herb, with a new innovation: "People are afraid of new things. You should have just taken an existing product and put a clock on it or something."
↓ Back of camera (top), side view with Nikon 18-105mm VR lens attached (middle), and D300s compared with 'smaller brother' the D3000 (bottom).
So that's pretty much what Nikon did with the new D300s. With the D300, Nikon hit the ball out of the park. The camera (along with the D3) put Nikon back on the DSLR map with the its exceptional high ISO/low noise performance, 51 points powerful autofocus system, an abundance of customizable buttons and features all in a neat, magnesium-alloy, weather-sealed package.
So how do you improve on that? Well, "just put a clock on it" as Homer puts is.
↑ Photocredit: www.thesimpsons.com
What clock?
↓ Walk-through of new features in the D300s compared to the older D300.
A nicer way to paraphrasing the changes made from the D300 to D300s is: "why change a winning formula?". Meaning the Nikon D300 is such a good camera that minor complementary/evolutionary changes is enough to warrant a new product cycle. The most significant changes are the addition of 720p HD video (@24 fps), a beefed-up frames per second rate from 6 to 7, and a dual memory card slot (CF and SDHC).
Other minor changes include a slightly improved button layout, an updated multi-selector dial, a new quite-mode, an improved auto-focus system (although, in my opinion the AF was so good anyway that I did not see any improvements), and an (even) larger viewfinder with a full, 100% frame coverage.
↓ Improved button layout (left) and new dual card slot (right). The dual card slot is a great addition if you are migrating from an entry-level camera that records to SD/SDHC cards and/or because SD/SDHC cards are less expensive than the physically larger CF cards.
Read on in part 2.
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