Note- Over a year later and I know newer Nikons have come along. Yet, I feel the image quality and useablity of the D300 has yet to be surpassed by them, at least within the 200-800 iso range that I use. If I was buying now, I'd probably go for the D700, but I don't think the change would be as remarkable as I experienced coming from the D70. I am still enamoured by Nikon's updated colour output and resolution, even on largish prints (B4 size, for example).

What would make me upgrade? Something better, with usable 1080p video and more resolution, making this my backup. I'm still undecided on the benefits of full-frame for what I do, as it requires bigger lenses and right now Nikon has yet to have an affordable hi-resolution (20+ MP) full-frame camera, but more resolution is always good to have. When it is reasoably priced, I am very interested in something with the newer 24MP sensor. Not so much or now or for cropping, but for who knows how large I will decide to print. At this point I will have something like the advantages of medium-format, without the weight.


Christmas and the new year season's kimonos, along with the last few days of the autumn leaves, gave me lots of great subjects on which to appreciate just how adaptable this marvelous new camera it is.

They said it couldn't be done- an APS sensor at over 10mp that can do amazingly clear high ISOs. Somehow, it has been, which means night photography with a bright lens is very feasible. These are special to me as they were taken with feedback from the LCD as a guide, something else that wasn't so feasible before with the old generation of LCD's (well, it was, but not to this extent of clarity).

My enthusiasm comes from upgrading from the D70, which at the time impressed me itself. Having a more usable LCD and viewfinder has been a great breakthrough. I am also very pleased with the jpeg colour, sharpness and exposure that the camera is capable of, right 'out of the box'. This is fortunate, as despite it's dynamic range, Raw now takes up so much space (as much as 40mb), that I won't be using it much. The white balance is generally spot-on (under normal conditions) and 'active-D lighting' actually works, vastly reducing my time editing in Lightroom. The jpeg quality alone makes it a worthy upgrade in my view- the photo is what you took, though of course as ever, you can touch it up.

I highly recommend it, especially to Nikon users in search of an upgrade. For me, this brings back to digital the ergonomics I was enjoying with my now-ancient F90X- just more so and with the ability to take as many photos as I like freely. More photos will be uploaded here as they are taken, in as many genres as possible, at least in the early weeks. Many of these were taken at iso 800-1600, which gives me a lot of confidence that the D300 can handle night shooting really well.