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Until I have read a detailled test made by a reviewer I trust I think the improvement of the D300 on the D200 is about 1 stop. But Ed at Nikon Cafe is claiming a much greater improvement in this thread at Nikon Cafe:

“Been shooting a D300 all morning.

There is most definitely, absolutely, positively, leave-there-no-doubt-whatsoever a HUGE improvement in the RAW data from the D200 to the D300.

I would say the D300 comes close to par with the 5D. And before anyone challenges that, I have over 20,000 high ISO images worth of 5D experience. I also own 2 D200s.”

and

“They did something! I can hardly believe it.

I would guess it is improvement in the quality of what they capture and more likely they are removing noise in the RAW data.

In ACR, they behave a lot like 5D files. Even at ISO 3200. I’m not just being a fanboy here!

I saw this in Gale’s image. That’s why I bought one. You have to try this stuff in light YOU know. Shooting at things you have shot thousands of times before. Then you get goosebumps!”

As the Nikon D300 has been in the hand of users for a short time the first reports show up about the new autofocus features of the cam. To sum it up: the features are useful but expect no miracles (isn’t it like that all the time?). Some interesting comments:

“Coming from a D2Xs, it appears that the D300 focuses faster and more precisely, acquiring lock instantly (500 AFSII and TC14EII this morning).

The two areas I’m still seeing difficulties (this is from a bird shooter):

A) Acquiring lock when the subject is flying low to the water. The camera still prefers the water from this mornings tests. Even when shooting more than just single area, you can watch the AF points stay with the surface of the water, even when an initial solid subject lock is obtained.

B) Subject flying against busy backgrounds: AF still prefers the background unless you’re shooting single focus point and can keep it dead nuts on the subject….even when using lock on.

For my type of shooting, I didn’t find that 3D tracking worked any better at all.”

(Visit thread at NikonCafe)

and

“In the air a single bird (in my case a gul and white trumpeter swan) worked Ok in 51 Pt 3d mode as long as the bird was flying straight, however, once in a while it would focus on a wingtip or something instead of the body or head.

On erratic subjects the 3d Tracking would jump to and from the bird and then grab the water

NOW, all of these birds were white or grey and I was shooting against grey skies, most shutter speeds were 1/50th to 1/100 even at ISO 400/800. Very very dark morning.

Much Much easier lock in with my 200-400 against a grey sky with low contrast birds than my D2Xs or D200. It really is much better at acquiring focus in dark conditions, and the lock in is fast, little hunting with my 200-400 lens.

With a flock of snow geese, the 51 point 3d looked like it was going spastic! lol It was jumping from bird to bird to bird, with different birds in different shots in focus.”

(Visit thread at NikonCafe)

and a thread about fine tuning AutoFocus:

“Simply stated, it works wonders”

(Visit thread at NikonCafe)

The D300 is rolled out! See this thread at Nikon Cafe about the first D300 delivered to normal consumers…

D200 and D300 raws compared…

New D300 test pics at ImageResource…

D300 panorama made with a fisheye and panorama software…

There is an interesting discussion at Dpreview (one of the better threads) about the D3 and the way Nikon handles dynamic range and noise in comparision to Canon. Emil J. Martin explains how to measure dynamic range with dcraw.

D3 and dynamic range

D3 and sensor efficiency

The manuals for both Nikon D3 and D300 are available on the Nikon site.