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High-precision, high-performance & unrivalled handling
Nikon D200 - My second DSLR camera First of all I must say that after using D70 for over two years it is still a wonderful camera. I like to do landscape shooting or urban shooting and for those D70 is very nice. Sometimes I do also nature photography and this was the case when D70 did let me down. In spring 2005 I was taking pictures in Helgoland (germany). It was a workshop lead by my friend Claus Brandt. During the workshop I was able to test some bigger Nikon lenses with D70 and then the reality hit me. It just isn't camera for bird shooting. Auto focus is too slow and weak, so is the continuous shooting mode with 3 fps and four raw frames. For the rest of the workshop I used D2h/D2x cameras. Late 2005 I found out that there will be a new camera coming to the market. It was Nikon D200 having technology derived from D2 series cameras. I knew it was the one for me. I got mine in early spring 2006 and kept D70 as a backup body.
Initial feeling My initial feeling after using the camera for few days was: So did my expectations fullfil ? Yes and No. All the other aspects were as I thought they would be expect the focusing. For nature photography purposes I bought Sigma EX 70-200/2.8 DG HSM lens. With a 1.4x tele converter it became 280mm lens and with crop factor of 1.5 it gives same view as 420 mm lens. With D200 and this combo my results were quite poor. Images were soft or out of focus. This was odd as this specific Sigma lens is rated as one of the sharpest in the league. I was really thinking my D200 might have back focus issues but as it worked flawlessly with other lenses I had to find the root cause. Solution - is there one ? D200 has plenty of options to tweak and this applies to AF as well. First of all you have four different AF modes and good amount of AF settings. I tweaked settings for my need and kept focus mode as single (center) area. I did some test shooting and seemed that pictures were a bit better. Still I had hard time for some bird images. One thing I learned was that D200 focusing is a bit more picky than in my earlier cameras. Nikon also admits this by saying that scene must have certain contrast level for proper AF functionality. This might explain my problems with shooting white swan. It was too white :) But the root cause, what is it. I think many of us relies in the rule of thumb that shutter speed should be equal or faster and focal length. When you are shooting with digital body you have the crop factor and this applies to this rule as well. I didn't take that in account. Second main thing is that D200 is heavier than D70. With body weight of 920 grams and weight of Sigma 70-200 including 1.4x TC it totals almost 2.5 kg. For steady handhold shootings thats too much, at least to me (exercise needed!). As I recently got battery grip for the camera it adds even more weight and therefore tripod is a must for this combo. Also for that reason I went back to 70-300 world by buying used Nikon 70-300 ED zoom. It is ideal combo for this (well ideal would be 18-200VR) and there is no sign of focus issues with it, after all it weights only ~500 grams. Conclusion So after all I think D200 has delivered all the bells and whistles it promised. After figuring out some of the problems it really feels and is excellent camera. It offers me so many settings that I will take quite some time to know them, although I guess I never know them all. So if you need top quality camera with fast continuous shooting mode this one is for you. If you're more into less action kind of shooting e.g. landscapes, D70 or new D80 will be surely enough.
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© 1994-2010 Janne Hämäläinen, All media included in these pages are owned by Janne Hämäläinen unless otherwise stated. Nikon logo used with permission of Nikon Nordic. Sigma logo used with permission of Sigma Corporation of America.