From a thread on another forum asking about the D300 experiences.

[quote name='CCColtsicehockey' date='12/29/07, 04:06 PM' post='105425']
I bought one received it the day before Christmas and have it with me on Vacation in San Antonio, TX right now for the Alamo Bowl. Gonna take it with to the game tonight along with my 70-200 and shoot some shots and will post them up this coming week. I will try to do a small review on it if I can find time.

PS: I was just informed I cannot take my camera in cause it has a lens that extends longer than 1.5" from the body. So unfortunately I will not be able to test it tonight which sucks. First bowl game I have been told this.
[/quote]

Well went to the game very early and went up and befriended a security guard and talked to him for a while and got him to agree to let me in with my cam as there main concern was keeping pros looking to sell photos from the game out of the stands. Personally I was just looking to test out the cam and possibly end up with a shot or two to add to the portfolio.

The D300 from using it and viewing on the new high resolution screen appears to be way ahead of the D200 in many aspecs. The High ISO noise is great for what I use of it in ISO800-1600 for sports. The 6fps is more than enough as I shot the first 3 quarters on that before switching to AA in the battery grip to get the 8fps in the fourth quarter which is just crazy fast. I didnt shoot in RAW unfortunately cause even with my 4gb card you can only fit 180 RAW images with small jpegs on the card. Guess I will be upgrading to an 8GB for sports or adding another 4GB card so that I have 3 of them. The auto focus is light speed in my opinion compared to that of the D200 also.

Another improvement I noticed is much more vivid colors to start with even on normal. I switched to shooting Vivid and +2 sharpening halfway through the game and if the pictures look like they do on the camera screen on the computer I will have minimal contrast and color editing to do on the shots.

The only problem I have had so far with my D300 and unfortunately is a big problem yet an isolated problem is that with my 70-200mm VR lens if I wiggle the lens just a bit the camera shuts off saying low battery and then I have to switch it off and back on and if works fine till I shift again. This was not bad at beginning only happened 3-5 times during the first half but then during the second half began happening much more frequently. After the game was over and I was rotating between landscape and portrait a lot it happened almost every 5 shots which wasn't very pleasing experience. Hopefully this can be resolved as I haven't noticed it with other lenses and only the 70-200mm VR so maybe it might be the lens mount. I carried the camera on my shoulder while not supporting the lens on a 15min walk to the game but I figure cameras take much more abuse than that on sports sidelines.

I will add more to this review at a later date but going out to celebrates Penn States Alamo Bowl Victory!!!!!

 

Re: the camera shutting off when you move it.

Sounds like a problem with the lens. My 70-200 does not act like this at all (on a D200).

 

Well my lens never acted like that on my D200 either. I haven't used it in about 3 weeks before last night but before that I had shot 7 hockey games this fall on my D200 with it. I actually am not sure which I hope it is more. Doesn't feel like it mounts very securely to my D300.

 

I don't have that kind of problem with my D300 and 70-200 VR.

 

I think I fixed it by cleaning the contacts on the lens. So far so good with the bit of forced movements I put the camera through this morning. still havent uploaded the pictures though.

 

So, which dynamic AF area did you use for shooting the game? I found that 3D tracking does not work very well for shooting sport games. 21 points works best for me.

 

I was using 51 point and didnt have any trouble as I was sitting about 60 rows up in the stands so it was easy to pan with and actually nice at times being able to use the 51 to focus. when I shoot my first hockey game with it tomorrow I will probably switch to dynamic AF 21 or 11 point as it will be easier to move from point to point with the faster pace of being right on the ice basically.