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First shots from D300

etrigan63

Active member
Quick shots from lunchtime today at The Falls:

Wide Angle Shot


Shade shot


Cloudmane


Partial Shade/Bokeh Shot


The rest can be seen here.
 

etrigan63

Active member
Thanks Helen. All of the shots are unaltered NEFs straight out of Aperture 2.1. Shot data in the EXIF.
 

jonoslack

Active member
HI Carlos
They look fine, congratulations on the new acquisition!

To my mind your skies are a little over-cooked - I found that the D3 rather over-exposes (I guess it's to keep the shadow noise at bay). I've found it worth setting back the exposure by about 2/3 stop. Mind you, it's just my feeling - they look like nice skies!

The other think which you should try (if you haven't already) is the Viveza plugin for Aperture - it's a bit pricey, but very very very good!
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member
Congrats Carlos, beautiful flower shots, and I think I once saw that very same horse statue in some early Zeiss ZF review, well not sure about that. Anyway, what software did you get along with the D300, Capture NX or ... ?
 

Terry

New member
Hi Carlos, I'm on an iPhone and it has been hard to get this whole thing to load. Hope you are getting in well with the 18-200 as well. Any thoughts on the lens so far?
 

etrigan63

Active member
Thanks gang. I am still getting a feel for this camera, but it's quite nice. To answer your questions in turn:

Jono: I am planning on getting Viveza for Aperture. Mind you, these shots are straight from Aperture with no adjustments. I am getting a feel for the baseline performance of this model.

Bondo: I have used that horse statue before. However, with this image I have managed to come up with a name for that beast: Cloudmane. Take another look at the shot and you will see why. I used Aperture 2.1 to process the images and post them to flickr. No adjustments were made.

Terry: The 18-200 appears to be a sharp copy. I will be doing some more test shots to check performance at various focal lengths. I will post the results on my blog.

I will say that David gave me some excellent pointers on the features of the camera and help me set it up. This is what buying from a local dealer gets you: hands-on support. The only thing is he flipped through the menus so quickly that I got lost.
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member
Ok, but is Nikon Capture NX still a part of the package or have Nikon stopped doing so ?
I just wondered what they would put into the box with the camera if not the NX software any longer.
/Steen
 

Terry

New member
Ha ha, Carlos I did my settings over the phone with Guy and we also zipped through the menus.... But I've overridden him on a few:D

my camera also came from David and he sent me a list of some of his favorite ways to set it up which were similar. I'm just learning it bit by bit and next need to work on continuous focus methods.

Glad the lens is sharp!
 

jonoslack

Active member
Ok, but is Nikon Capture NX still a part of the package or have Nikon stopped doing so ?
I just wondered what they would put into the box with the camera if not the NX software any longer.
/Steen
HI Steen
I got capture NX with my D3 - 3 weeks ago I suppose.
I haven't loaded it yet though!
 

etrigan63

Active member
The D300 comes with a trial version of Capture NX. Only the D3 includes a full version. I guess that's one of the reasons why the D300 is 36% the price of a D3.
 

Terry

New member
The D300 comes with a trial version of Capture NX. Only the D3 includes a full version. I guess that's one of the reasons why the D300 is 36% the price of a D3.
Looks like they ended the NX promotion when they did the $300 rebate because the D300 came with a full NX for the last several months.
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member
Yes, at the beginning they provided us with NX along with D300, but apparently they have now stopped doing so. Personally I got NX with my D300, and I use it for all the post processing.
If only they would then at least give you a Nikon Capture 4.4.2 upgraded to read and understand the D300 NEF files, that would be a somewhat acceptable solution. But only to provide the customer with some trial version of an appropriate RAW converter for a brand new DSLR purchase is really bad manners, I think. Shame on you Nikon. I can't think of any other manufacturer who does this ? Of course I don't know them all.
 

etrigan63

Active member
Nope, they're pretty much the only ones. Everyone else bundles some species of RAW converter with their cameras. Heck, Mamiya includes Lightroom with the 645ZD bundle!
 
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