Happy Day!....New Camera arrived!

[bvar22]

I ordered it on Sunday afternoon from "Prestige Camera", the same distributor that touchdown ordered from.
The camera arrived as ordered less than 48 hours later (noon today).
This distributor has a less than sterling reputation, but I had no problems. They are aslo the ONLY distributor I could find that had the camera and lens IN STOCK and promised same day shipping.

The salesman was slightly pushy about recommending accessories, and stressed that a memory card was not included, and that I couldn't use the camera without a card. Do NOT buy memory from them.
Prestige charges $450.00 for 1 gig standard compact flash memory (not Hi-Speed)
The SAME memory is available Retail at Best Buy for less than $50.
A 2 gig Hi-Speed card is available from NewEgg for $76.

I am delighted with the camera, but it is a little overwhelming.
It is BIG, and HEAVY, will take some "getting used to". I am very comfortable with the convenience of my Oly750 that could fit in a coat pocket.
There are many buttons and adjustments that are cryptic to me so far.

I did manage to get the lens on,
put a battery in,
put a memory card in,
turn it on,
point it at my cat,
and take a picture.



So, Happy Day!!!
Oh, I also took the studded ice tires off my bicycle, and rode on streeet tires for the first time in months!
Too much for just one day!

[The Straight Story]

1. SWEEET!

Good luck with it and post some more pics here :)

That camera looks rockin. Have a fun time with it!

[Touchdown]

2. Where's yours?

Don't give us a promotional shot. Show us your camera, with all the plastic bags and styrofoam hanging out of the box. I posed mine with Stephen Colbert (he was on TV when I took the shot).:D

READ that manual. I'm on page 120 and I get confused. It's a monster, and I'm going to have a learning curve with it too.

I got a quick release Tamrak leather strap at Wolf Camera for mine (has little clips to take it off the camera). That Nikon strap gives you a rash, lose it.

[bvar22]

4. That IS my camera.

I took it with my Oly750.
I wanted to take a picture of the two cameras side by side to show the relative sizes, but suddenly realized that I would have nothing to shoot with.:+
Maybe I can put them both on my scanner?

All the paper, air bags, boxes, wrappers, cords, and other stuff are just outside the picture frame.
I will take your advice on the strap. This camera is too heavy to have a less than maximum comfort neck strap.

BTW: Thanks for pioneering the route to Prestige. I wouldn't have ordered from them without your report.
I still don't really trust them, but NO ONE else could ship same day. I called 17th Street, and they said it would be over a month before they could ship.

The manual is big, and not very inviting.
I'm on page 1.

[Blue_In_AK]

3. Is this comparable to my Canon 20D?

If it is, all the bells and whistles will seem kind of overwhelming at first, but it doesn't take too long until you kind of get the hang of it. Your kitty turned out great.

ed. I see I should Google before I ask uninformed questions. So this is more like the 5D Canon, right? More pixels (10 versus 8) and 35 mm format.

[bvar22]

5. The Nikon D200 CCD sensor is slightly larger (23.6 x 15.8 mm)

than the Canon 20D CMOS Sensor (22.5 x 15.0mm) .
I believe that the focal length factor is the same 1.6.

It was a toss up with me whether to buy the 20D or the Nikon D200.
I consider them to be in the same class, and have been unable to detect much difference in any of the comparison shots posted on the INet. I would love to have the photographic skills and knowlege where the difference between these two cameras would make a REAL difference to me.

[regnaD kciN]

7. Actually, the D200 has a 1.5 crop factor...

...which is, admittedly, not much different from 1.6, except that it makes it easier to calculate 35mm equivalences on the fly. ;-)

From the discussions on various Nikon boards, it sounds like they're pretty committed to that sensor size (they call it the DX format), and have no intention of releasing a full-frame DSLR.

[regnaD kciN]

6. Envy...envy...envy...

Have you tried the lightbulb test yet? :evilgrin:

[bvar22]

8. Lightbulb test?

You'll have to let me buy a vowel.

BTW: You have a maximum cool website. Love the pics!

Bob
St Paul

[regnaD kciN]

11. Some D200s have a "banding" problem...

...where shooting extreme contrasts under certain conditions causes fine vertical lines to appear in the image.

Here is a brief demonstration of the problem. The author's case of banding is so mild that he doesn't think there's any point in bothering to send it in for repair, but other people's D200s have had much worse cases, where shooting high-contrast scenes at various ISOs has resulted in very visible lines over most if not all of the image.

I mention the "lightbulb test" because, most of the time, if your camera has the problem, it will show up if you photograph a bare lightbulb in a dark room at ISO 400 and EV +4. That might also tell you, if your camera has the problem, how severe it is. Various Nikonians have classified banding as "Type I" (just along edges of high contrast -- virtually unnoticeable), "Type II" (longer stripes showing up more frequently -- definitely a problem) and "Type III" (stripes over the whole image in certain circumstances -- totally unusable).

As noted, if you have this problem (or at least types II or III -- they claim type I is "within spec"), Nikon will fix it for free. This seems to have been a problem mainly on the first production run of D200s, so it is likely that any camera you would get this far along will already have a factory fix in place, but it's probably worth checking it out before you get too many shots on it. For further information, go to DPReview.com and do a search for "banding" in the D200 forum. Be prepared for a lot of hits! ;-)

[bvar22]

13. Hi...I was testing as you posted.

There is a BUNCH of information on the Net about this.
I set up a test that (from what I can tell) should have produced the banding.
I tried every iso from 200 - 1000 (with heavy concentration 400 - 800), various jpg save resolutions, and ev from -3 to +7 and was unable to detect any banding.


ISO 400, ev+7.
The above has been cropped and resized to 33%, but I couldn't see any banding in the 100% full frame.
Am I missing something?

Do you think this shot should have provoked banding?
Any suggestions that would make this test setup more conducive to banding?
You assistance is appreciated. I do have a window to return if I am not satisfied.

Thanks,
Bob

[regnaD kciN]

14. Oh, my God! You mean you CAN'T see the obvious banding in that shot...???

Neither can I.

:evilgrin:

The only thing about that test is that your lightbulb may be too close to the wall, so its border is with a medium-brown background from the light on the wall. For a true "lightbulb test," I think you would need to have the bulb in the center of a completely dark room, so that there would be a transition from incredibly-blown-out white to complete black.

Nevertheless, if your camera had a case of severe banding, I think it would have shown up in that image. I would also think that, unless your D200 came from a batch of "old stock" that was just sitting around the store (doubtful, since everyone seems to be having trouble keeping them in stock), it would probably have been manufactured after Nikon had taken steps to prevent that defect from going out on new units.

The one thing you should be aware of is that, if you shoot JPEG instead of/in addition to RAW, the in-camera sharpening for JPEG is set to an artificially-low level by default, so that JPEGS will come out of the camera looking softer than they should with a 10.2 MP sensor. Bumping up the sharpness setting a bit fixes this. I believe the review at DPReview mentions this, although it might have been the review at www.bythom.com instead.

[bvar22]

15. You are very bad, and need to be punished!

:spank:
.
.
.
.
.
Seriously though, thanks for the help.

[Touchdown]

9. No, but mine passed the Stephen Colbert "it has BALLS!" test.

See for yourself.

[priller]

10. I know, pea-green with envy here.

I've been lusting after that camera since I first read about it. And the 18-200 VR, a super-zoom that's actually good.

[Fovea]

12. I don't begrudge you this happiness

but I am *green* with envy.