So I’m in the market for an updated body, and face the proverbial fork in the road.  To click the “buy now” button, or just wait that extra time to see if the rumors are true, and that my purchase might be outdated before it even gets to my door.  It is a common fear among photographers I believe, at least the ones who are more wary of buying the next great thing.

So after 4 or so years of hard use on a D200, and getting some wonderful images, I’ve started looking around.  Right off, I know I’m not going to drop 7K on a D3, thats overkill.  I have ruled out (again) switching to Canon.  I’m torn between getting a D700 (Full Frame sensor, heavy duty build, etc), vs a D300s (crop sensor, HD video which I may or may never use), and oh, its a $1000 bucks less than the $2400 D700, which doesn’t hurt its cause.

Being the president of a large area camera club, I have access to lots of shooters with various gear.  Thankfully, two of my colleagues have the gear I’m looking at, so I get the benefit of trying it on before I buy it.  Of course I’ve read all the reviews, the Ken Rockwells of the world, the DP Reviews of the world, which are all helpful, but I still have to try it for myself.

I wanted to see, over a single frame, which camera takes the better shot.  All things being as equal as possible.  Each camera was set up with the same lens (an 85mm Nikkor 1.4), the same ISO of 400, an f stop of 4.5, and a shutter speed of 1/250 (the sync speed for the Nikon SB800 strobe mounted on the camera).  Both initial shots were on a tripod. (It should also be noted that both cameras internal noise reduction parameters were set to the same) The initial results I got were disappointing to say the least.  The D200, while appearing about a half stop under exposed (which I’ve attributed to possible outside lighting conditions being in flux due to a fast moving storm we were having), anyway, the D200 frame actually appeared to be a better photograph.

I sent my two shots to a colleague who examined both photos, and he agreed, yes, the D200 while containing slightly more noise, appeared to be a sharper image overall (slightly).  Which brings me to this point…All the reviews I keep reading are talking about incredible degrees of difference.  Sorry, didn’t see that here.

D300s on left, D200 on right

Ok, Now What?

So, now I’m thinking, other than simply needing a new body, is this camera really even a better camera?   Trying to think of an reasons at all why I would not be seeing a better photograph from the d300s, I decided to try my experiment one more time, this time taking ME out of the equation completely.  The previous attempt while done on a tripod, I was using my finger to actuate the shutter, would that really account for it?  Only one way to find out, so I broke out the shutter release and set  up a new shot, one with vivid colors, fine text detail, and some black/gray to see what kind of color range we’re talking about.

The Trix Box & Mika Hakkinen to the Rescue.

Who?  Never mind that,  for my purposes, a die-cast of this world championship F1 car will provide a lot of fine detail for me to try and capture.  As you will see in the sample below (and I will make the high res version available as well for a better look), this time my results were more in line with what I would have expected.

At distance, not much in the way of discernible difference

Upon closer inspection, the image clarity begins to be more of a factor. On the image below some of the fine detail really starts to fall apart on the D200.  However, to my eyes, the D200 images here, the blacks in the Mobil 1 logo appear to have more punch on the D200, and there appears to be more detail in the gradients of color on the Trix box.

Fine detail is more apparent in the D300 image on the left, not only in the highlighted area, but in the larger, black letting "Mika", the edges are sharper by a good degree.

Finally, in this series, same set of images, I got in really close on the files, and looked at the details on the drivers helmet and some of the body work lines.  This is where I finally began to see a good difference between the two cameras.  On the following image, the lettering on the visor of the driver’s helmet is clearly readable (and this print is really, really tiny to begin with on this 1/18th scale die-cast).

Text detail on driver's helmet is unreadable on the D200 image on the right, while very clear on the D300s on the left. Also highlighted is the sharper edges of the body work just behind the drivers head. Keeping in mind that all this text is very, very tiny tiny (reference the first photo of this series)

So…
So, I’m fairly disappointed that there wasn’t more of a clear difference between the to images when viewed at a distance.  The bottom line appears to be, that yes, there are some great technical enhancements (the LCD display on the 300s is lightyears better than the D200 for example), and yes, there is some fine detail difference, and maybe that is all one can expect.

So, The Next Question…D300s vs D700 Over a Single Frame
Since I also have a D700 on hand, but am not likely to purchase it, it was at least worth a try to see how it fared against the D300s over the single frame test.  Same conditions, same lighting, etc. The one thing that has to be accounted for is the fact that the D300s multiplies the image 1.5 times, while the D700 is a full frame sensor.  What this means is that a 50mm lens on the D300s is effectively a 75mm lens.  So I set up both camera with the Nikkor 24-120mm lens, I set the D300s to 50mm and the D700 to 75 to fill up approximately the same frame.

Again the results were interesting to me.  Looking at both shots side by side in Lightroom, there is no difference.  Not even color wise.

Looked at side by side, there is no discernible difference between the two cameras in terms of pure image quality. (That is afterall why we take photos right? Features are nice, but image is king)

And finally, looking at the ultra fine dots around the edge of the big red spot, the D300 appears to show much finer edge detail, while the D700 appears fuzzy.

Conclusion
For me, the fact that I need an updated body will probably lead me to get the D300s. Its not the quantum leap forward I was hoping for in terms of pure image quality, but it has a good combination of right price, great image quality, and noise reduction (I didn’t not spend a lot of time on this as I do not typically shoot in higher ISO ranges)  The video for me is a complete non factor, I played with it a bid, and with no auto focus, its completely worthless in my opinion.  It could never be used for capturing say a kids birthday party, or fun little things.  It would have to be used in carefully planned video shoots where things are not going to be moving in and out of focus.  Still not sure why Nikon and Canon are trying to cram this technology into an SLR.  As far as the comparison between the D300s and the D700, I do not see any reason for me to spend another grand for image quality that appears to be less than the D300s.  I just don’t know why that would even be an option.