Fred Jordan
Sample 2
First, a note: I am not a professional, nor do I pretend to be. The usual frantic pace of the end of the semester has kept me from “playing” with the new toy for any length of time.
Conditions of the test
This particular gym is dark and has mixed lighting. Without an Expodisk, the D200 (and the D50 I used last year) rendered images with a strong yellow and/or green cast.
Settings
I used a variety of settings during this tournament. All pictures were shot using auto ISO and auto white balance. The picture controls were normal, with sharpening set to 7. Noise reduction was set to low. I finally settled on the manual mode, 1/400th of a second with an aperture of f2.8. I used a variety of auto focus modes but most of these were shot in single point mode. The metering mode was centerweight.
I used a Nikor AF-S 80-200 f2.8 for all of these shots.
Post Processing
I used Capture NX to convert the files from RAW to JPEG—after I backed everything up, as Capture NX supposedly doesn’t play well with OS X 10.5. The first images are straight from Capture NX, with no additional processing except for a little resizing in Photoshop (the JPEG files out of NX were over Flickr's 10 mb file size restriction). The second example was post processed in Photoshop CS3 with the Define 2.0 plugin.
Conclusions
The D300 is a complicated beast, far more so than the D200. I’ve used a variety of focusing modes: the 3D tracking is a wonder to behold, in the right conditions. A basketball court full of players with similar uniforms isn’t the best situation. I’ve had good results with focus priority (9 point), but I seem to get the best results with the good, old fashioned single point mode.
The auto WB is a wonder. Exposure is quite good, although I was admittedly pushing it with these images. The end of the gym I usually shoot from has an overhead track that prevents any light from reflecting back onto the players’ faces, resulting in a bad combination of dim light and silhouetted players. The D300 handled the situation quite well.
The noise is quite acceptable for my use. Yes, it’s there and quite evident, particularly at 100%. Given that most of these shots were taken with an ISO of 2000 or above, I don’t think that’s bad.
What’s also present is detail: in one shot, the threads on the player’s uniform are quite visible. I could not have done that with the D200 under these conditions, period.
I printed a 13” by 19” shot from a different game that looked good at normal viewing distances (I did clean it up with Define). That might be stretching it, but it also gives you an idea of how much the high ISO game has changed in the past few months.
I’m not a pixel-peeper, so I’ll let viewers form their own judgments. I’ve only held a 40D in a store, I’ve never used a Canon dSLR and I’m neither inclined nor qualified to render a judgment on the image quality of the respective devices. I’m a neutral party in the Canon/Nikon war. Both companies make fantastic cameras, and I’m sure the 40D is capable of giving fine results in similar conditions.
Sample 2
First, a note: I am not a professional, nor do I pretend to be. The usual frantic pace of the end of the semester has kept me from “playing” with the new toy for any length of time.
Conditions of the test
This particular gym is dark and has mixed lighting. Without an Expodisk, the D200 (and the D50 I used last year) rendered images with a strong yellow and/or green cast.
Settings
I used a variety of settings during this tournament. All pictures were shot using auto ISO and auto white balance. The picture controls were normal, with sharpening set to 7. Noise reduction was set to low. I finally settled on the manual mode, 1/400th of a second with an aperture of f2.8. I used a variety of auto focus modes but most of these were shot in single point mode. The metering mode was centerweight.
I used a Nikor AF-S 80-200 f2.8 for all of these shots.
Post Processing
I used Capture NX to convert the files from RAW to JPEG—after I backed everything up, as Capture NX supposedly doesn’t play well with OS X 10.5. The first images are straight from Capture NX, with no additional processing except for a little resizing in Photoshop (the JPEG files out of NX were over Flickr's 10 mb file size restriction). The second example was post processed in Photoshop CS3 with the Define 2.0 plugin.
Conclusions
The D300 is a complicated beast, far more so than the D200. I’ve used a variety of focusing modes: the 3D tracking is a wonder to behold, in the right conditions. A basketball court full of players with similar uniforms isn’t the best situation. I’ve had good results with focus priority (9 point), but I seem to get the best results with the good, old fashioned single point mode.
The auto WB is a wonder. Exposure is quite good, although I was admittedly pushing it with these images. The end of the gym I usually shoot from has an overhead track that prevents any light from reflecting back onto the players’ faces, resulting in a bad combination of dim light and silhouetted players. The D300 handled the situation quite well.
The noise is quite acceptable for my use. Yes, it’s there and quite evident, particularly at 100%. Given that most of these shots were taken with an ISO of 2000 or above, I don’t think that’s bad.
What’s also present is detail: in one shot, the threads on the player’s uniform are quite visible. I could not have done that with the D200 under these conditions, period.
I printed a 13” by 19” shot from a different game that looked good at normal viewing distances (I did clean it up with Define). That might be stretching it, but it also gives you an idea of how much the high ISO game has changed in the past few months.
I’m not a pixel-peeper, so I’ll let viewers form their own judgments. I’ve only held a 40D in a store, I’ve never used a Canon dSLR and I’m neither inclined nor qualified to render a judgment on the image quality of the respective devices. I’m a neutral party in the Canon/Nikon war. Both companies make fantastic cameras, and I’m sure the 40D is capable of giving fine results in similar conditions.