The box arrived on August 31st. Nestled in it was a shiny new Nikon D300s body.
What follows are impressions of using the D300s. I’m comparing it mainly to the D300 I’ve been using for the past eighteen months. I may also comment a bit on the D90, since I used that fairly extensively last during the first few months of 2009, but most of my comparisons are to the D300.
This is also not meant to be an exhaustive review, but a set of impressions based on what interests me as a photographer.
Context: My Photographic Interests
For the past several years, I’ve been shooting indoor volleyball. My oldest daughter was on her high school varsity team, but she’s heading off to university in a week or so. Shooting indoor sports means shooting in venues with poor, uneven lighting. You also need to shoot at high shutter speeds. The combination of crappy lighting and fast motion necessarily means shooting at high ISOs with fast lenses.
Volleyball: Fast and Furious
When Elizabeth entered her senior year, I thought that it would be my last year shooting action shots in low light. My younger daughter, Emily proved me wrong. She decided to join the school marching band as a member of the Color Guard and went on to participate in Winter Guard, which involves indoor competition in – you guessed it – venues with crappy, uneven lighting.
Winter Guard: Four to Eight Minutes of Indoor Action
Hey loyd,
Been following you from ExtemeTech day’s was sad to see the that end,
especially enjoyed podcasts… you allowed me to embrace my midlife geekery.
Caught your guest appearance on Tech Report leading me here.
Anywaaay…My daughter just finishing high school sports last year and now is participating at college level. I have spent the last 4 years in dimly lit indoor arenas trying to get high quality results. Shooting fast action indoors sports is always a challenge, even for the pro’s. Shooting action indoors requires fast shudder speeds, fast glass and strobe if allowed.
Some of nikon’s older prime lenses 85mm 1.8 & 50mm 1.4, are fast & affordable, though these are “D” type lens’s and focus is pin driven from camera body, thus slower than “S” type, but they do offer 2-3 stops which as you know is huge. Depth of field does become a issue at these aperatures but with good technique & timing you can achieve some high quality results.
If allowed I prefer to use 2 to 4 sb800′s with justin clamps (clipped on to any available support). If line of sight is good ( meaning your commander or on camera flash can see your remote unit) you can use Nikon’s CLS system, but CLS is not really designed for sports action photography. I found Paul C. Bluff Cybercync’s are small & inexpensive & are rated to to work up to 800 ft. as a good solution reliably remotely trip my sb’s.
With the SB’s You wont be able to run 7-8 frames per second as you do shooting with a high iso but if you can balance your ambient light with strobes you can get 2-3 frames per second.
Both these options will yield better results keeping your iso down and reducing noise.
Strobes are a little more work, but hey what’s a photo geek to do?
All the best and continued success
Tim Adams
Hi, Tim:
I know of others who use primes, particularly the 85mm f1.4. But I like the flexibility of zooms, so stick with those.
When I was shooting volleyball, it was actually against the rules to use speedlights. So while they’re great for freezing action, I wasn’t able to actually make use of them. So fast lenses and high ISOs was the rule of the day. I use a pair of Nikon speedlights in my product shoots, coupled with reflective umbrellas (an SB-900 and an SB-800). Commander mode is terrific; I just could never use them for shooting volleyball.
Here’s a link to some of my volleyball shots:
California State Championships last year:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/casehouse/sets/72157610820528929/
California Central Coast Section Championships:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/casehouse/sets/72157609913998324/
Loyd,
Thank you much for this write-up on the D300s. I’ve had a D50 since it first came out and its been an excellent cam for me these past 4 years or so. However, I’m wanting to move up from 6MP (to allow for larger prints) and D-Lighting has appeal as well. Your impressions come at just the right time for me, right when I was trying to decide D300s or D90. I’m going with the D300s for the extra flexibility.
Hope all is going well with you post-ET. Seems you’ve landed on your feet! I think you should guest on This Week in Photography sometime. You’d fit right in with that confab, me thinks.
Jon in Minnesota
The one thing you should know is that the D300 has none of automated settings that your D50 has. No “sports” or “portrait” modes, for example. There is a program mode, for quick shots. But you’ll need to set up individual groups of settings (called custom banks) for your favorite scenarios.
So the learning curve is steeper, but the rewards are greater.
One other note: it’s hard to quantify, but once you climb a little of that learning curve, the 51-point metering is much more usable than the 11-points in the D90. The more granular points, combined with center-weighted or spot metering, give you tremendous control over lighting (though matrix metering can be very useful, too.)