Nikon D300s vs Nikon D300 - Worth the Upgrade?

Nikon D300s and Nikon D300 Comparison
When I have heard that Nikon announced the new Nikon D300s I was really excited. I didn't know if it will actually make my decision about buying a new digital SLR camera harder, or it will simply my decision, because I've already wanted the D300 previously to this announcement. So let's take a look and see if the Nikon D300s worth the upgrade, or rather we should be satisfied with the older version, the Nikon D300. There aren't many in-depth reviews about the Nikon D300s yet, most of them are only brief hands-on. For my surprise, I've seen two reviews about the Nikon D300s on TechRadar.com Nikon D300s review and on dphotojournal.com, and they both gave it a high score. I've searched for Nikon D300s vs. Nikon D300 and also the phrase Nikon D300s in comparison to Nikon D300, in order to find more specific information about the differences between those two SLR cameras from Nikon. Unfortunately, many were just small talk blog posts without any in-depth formation.

Nevertheless, I try to do my best in order to bring you the main differences between Nikon D300s and Nikon D300. So let's start by examining the main differences.



HD Movie at 720p Resolution
It will not come to a surprise for many of you, when you discovered the Nikon D300s offers the ability to shoot HD movies at 720p resolution for a length of five minutes for the 720p resolutions and up to 20 minutes for lower video resolutions. Canon and Nikon are going head-to-head in order to win this sweet spot of what is called "the enthusiast photographers". So bringing HD movie capabilities to the new Nikon D300s camera was certainly a must. And as you know, because it didn't mention it, Nikon D300 didn't have a movie shooting option at all. There many times that you want to have such an option, especially for people with family who wanted record movies of their kids, and also photographers were fascinated with the ability of simple amateur cameras to take movies and wonder on their next DSLR camera.

Dual Card Slots
I guess many of you ,own Canon equipment and had the Canon 400D camera and wanted to upgrade to the 450D SLR camera, were pretty disappointed to see that Canon has decided to switch from CompactFlash memory cards in the 400D to SD memory cards in the 450D SLR camera. So the easiest thing to do, in order to solve this problem is to let the camera except two kinds of memory cards, both CompactFlash and SD (SDHC-compliant). In Nikon D300s can find dual card slots that will let you work with both memory cards in the same camera. You have the option to use the secondary card for overflow, backup storage or for a completely separate storage of RAW and JPEG files. So the RAW files will be copied to the first card and to JPEG will be copied to the second memory cards. So it's a pretty cool feature, that many photographers will be glad to have in their next DSLR camera. So far, going pretty good for Nikon.

QQQQcon (YouTube user) talks about the differences between the two cameras in the video:



Active D-Lighting with "Auto" and "Extra High"
This is one of my favorite features in Nikon SLR cameras. You had the Active D-Lighting also on the Nikon D300. However, Nikon has decided to add to options, because the Nikon D700 and the Nikon D90, have already had been enjoying the "Auto" mode. Nevertheless, some photographers have needed more control over the Active D-Lighting feature in some cases that at higher setting was needed to save the image. So Nikon added the "Extra High" Active D-Lighting feature that Nikon D300, Nikon D700 and Nikon D90 lacks. I'm just interested to see this feature in action and see how it behaves in field.

7fps Faster Continuous Burst Shooting Speed
You can find a small upgrade, but for sports photographers, it is a very welcome feature or upgrade as some of you may call it. The Nikon D300s offers 7 FPS, whether the Nikon D300 offers only 6 FPS. With the battery pack attached, you will be able to shoot in 8 FPS. So sports photographers would certainly appreciate this option and also by the Grip with the second battery. In the past, I thought that must sports photographers by Canon DSLR cameras because Canon had a stronger burst mode. Even so, as you can see any sport photographer can enjoy a really high speed bursting mode camera with the Nikon D300s. Great job Nikon!

Quiet Shutter Release Mode
This newly introduced feature that we have seen on Nikon D 5000 digital SLR camera. This quiet shutter release mode option allows the photographer to control the return phase of the mirror, so that it doesn't make a noise when releasing the shutter button after getting a shot. This is a welcome feature, especially for people who should in churches, museums and other sensitive places where noise is not welcomed.

Faster AF
Many photographers who tested the Nikon D300s camera, reported that the Nikon D300s has a must faster AF in comparison to the older Nikon D300 digital SLR camera. So this is probably and feature that we will have to wait to see how it proves itself in professional lab tested reviews. However, because many photographers have been reporting the same excitement about this improvement, I have added it here.

High ISO Performance

In terms of high ISO performance, we still need to wait for the professional lab testing results to appear on the major digital photography websites to review and compare between the two (hardly can wait for dpreview review on the Nikon D300s). But here are some photos taken in 3200 ISO in one forum which I have found on the web - D300 vs D300s ISO 3200 Comparison.

Summary
So as you can see, there aren't any major improvements between the Nikon D300s a new Nikon D300 digital SLR cameras. But  those "minor" changes, will definitely be a reason to upgrade their current gear, especially if they are coming from older versions of SLR cameras, and they have been waiting for a new camera release in this series. For people were still having hard time to decide which camera they want to buy, Nikon or Canon SLR, I think it just makes the competition and the decision-making a little harder for us. Any ways, this is an amazing camera which replaces one of the most popular DSLR cameras, which came from Nikon company ever. Canon for over two years, didn't have any response and equivalent camera in terms of features and quality. However, let's not forget that Canon introduced earlier this month, the Canon EOS 7D DSLR camera. So don't forget to check it out also. Have a great day, and see you soon on our next article.

Other page that you might find interesting, which are related to this topic:

dpreview discussion - A discussion about the differences between Nikon D300 and D300s.

Flickr Discussion - An open discussion about Nikon D300s vs D300 on Yahoo!'s Flickr.