Nikon Unveils D300 Digital SLR

The digital camera news just keeps on coming this week. Nikon enters the fray today with its latest digital SLR cameras.

The midrange, 12.3-megapixel Nikon D300 is being introduced side-by-side with the company's new, high-end professional digital SLR, the Nikon D3. Remarkably, both cameras share some characteristics--including using Nikon's internal processor, newly dubbed the Expeed Image Processing System (Nikon says Expeed is akin to Canon's Digic III branding for its image processor).

The D300 has a 51-point auto focus system with Nikon's new 3D Focus Tracking Feature. The camera continues the trend--first begun by Olympus--of having a digital SLR with a live preview of the image on the LCD screen.
The D300 has two LiveView modes: one for standard handheld shooting, and one for use with a tripod. It also has Nikon's new Scene Recognition System to enahnce he accuracy of photos' focus, exposure, and white balance; includes its Picture Control System for image adjustments; a bright 3-inch VGA LCD display; and Active D-Lighting for providing real-time highlights and shadow corrections. All of these features are also found on the D3.

And--perhaps most notably for those of us who loathe digital SLRs' dirty little secret about the misery of dust-on-the-image-sensor-- the D300 features a dust reduction system. Nikon's multipronged approach includes both a mechanical dust shake-off option and a reduction in the static electricity of components inside the camera. The D3 also has dust reduction.

Other noteworthy D300 attributes: Nikon says it has improved the camera's noise reduction abilities; given the camera a start-up time of just 0.13 seconds, and its shutter release a lag of 45 milliseconds; and supplied a shooting speed of six frames per second.

One key difference between the D300 and the beefier 12.1 megapixel D3: The D3 introduces Nikon's equivalent to a so-called "full frame" sensor (as found on Canon's EOS 5D). Depending upon the sensor size, a digital SLR can have what's often referred to as a crop factor (the crop applies a magnification effect to images when using standard 35mm lenses). The Nikon D300 has a 1.6x crop, for example.

By contrast, the D3 marks the introduction of Nikon's newly coined FX-format CMOS image sensor (the sensor measures 23.9 by 36mm). The D3 has virtually 100 percent frame coverage, and a .7x magnification. This camera format supports new digital-specific FX lenses (DX lenses will also work on this model). The specs on the D3 are impressive, and, says senior technical manager Lindsay Silverman, are intended to put this camera squarely in competition with Canon's EOS 1D Mark III.

A truly neat feature on the D3 that I'm sure pro shooters will appreciate: The inclusion of two CompactFlash card slots for a variety of image capture scenarios (including automatic switching to the second card when the first card fills up, and copying images between the two cards).

And high-definition fans will like the D3's integrated HDMI port.

An interesting trivia note: The D3 is being introduced eight years after the ground-breaking D1 professional digital SLR. In 1999, a time when digital photography was in its infancy, the Nikon D1 cost a whopping $18,000.
When the D3 ships later this year, Nikon expects the price to be $4995. The D300 is also expected to ship in November; Nikon estimates its price to be at about $1800.