Threads like this never cease to amaze me. The level of stupidity, foolishness, and shortsightedness that comes out in these things is truly staggering.
1) It is NOT all about image quality. It is NOT all about any 1 thing actually. We buy our equipment based on our own needs, budgets, and preferences. As long as we are educated consumers and are purchasing equipment that makes sense to us, who is anyone else to tell me, you, or anyone else that our logic is faulty.
2) We all have different preferences. Landscape shooters don't need anything more than 1 frame per second. Studio portrait photogs could give a rats sphincter about high ISO noise since they will be shooting no higher than ISO 100. Sports shooters demand the most out of their cameras, much more than any other style shooter, and there are aspects of their cameras they wouldn't give a second thought to as well. Everyone is different, everyone's needs are different. If you can't fathom that or just plain refuse to accept it ... get off the Internet, this whole "mingling" thing isn't for you.
With that said, if someone came up to me right now and said, "Bill, you can buy a D300 for $1800 or I can give you a 40D for free" ... the answer would be the D300. Why? Because I need a weather sealed camera. Simple answer isn't it? I need a weather sealed camera which the D300 is and the 40D isn't.
I was a Canon shooter for 15 years. But the time came for a body upgrade and my weather-proofed choices were the D200, D2x, 1DmII, 1Ds mII. That was it. I've said it before and I'll say it again ... I would take a D200 over a 5D any and every day of the week. Every single "grainy" high-iso pictures my D200 takes when wet is infinitely better than the dead electronics a 5D would have in the same conditions. End of story. To some of you, weather proofing means nothing and I'm all fine and dandy with that. Whatever body you chose, as long as it does the job for you ... great. I couldn't care less.
You measurbaters will attack me and call me a moron, but I have the pleasure of not being an internet-argument-junkie trolling website looking for any and every excuse to validate my purchase. Most of those who've argumented here in this thread and the countless others that compare 1 camera to another are doing just that ...arguing to validate their own expenditure and/or are trying desperately to be propelled to internet stardom by being a righteous defender of and advocate of your own brand and product. Case in point, if the OP really didn't understand why us Nikonians like the D300, the basic principals of common sense would have pointed him/her to posting his question in the D300 forum, not a Canon forum. You already spent your money, give it a rest.
Then there are the random posts arguing that the D300 takes horrible pictures. First ... what do you care? Do you own one? Are you miffed at Nikon? What exactly is your problem?
Second ... what pictures are you looking at? I've seen ISO 1600 and 3200 examples and compared them directly to the 40D - the D300 shows approximately the same amount of noise as the 40D at those ISOs. I would say the D300 looks better, but I had to actually blow the photos up to 100% to see that difference and you know what ... looking at any photo at 100% for any reason other than to determine point of focus/check-sharpness is dumb ... truly stupid. The pixel peepers who engage is this senseless time-waster probably print very little and measure the "quality" of their photos not by the impact it has on its viewer, but rather by how technically correct the image is and how little noise is or isn't apparent.
If you're someone who feels insulted by this post, then I assume something has hit a little too near to home. So do me a favor and read the last sentence in that last paragraph again. It's not about the noise, its not about the corner sharpness, it's not about a speck of flare ... it's about taking a picture of a child today that makes his/her parents cry 10 years from now when they're flipping through an old photo album. It's about a 40 year old woman proudly showing off her wedding album to her 10 year old daughter and that daughter saying, "Wow mom, you looked INCREDIBLE ... and whoah - dad had HAIR!".
I'm in the mall one day hanging out with my son while my wife is trying on an outfit in the fitting room. I roll my son's stroller over to a mirror and watch him look strangely into the mirror - he's about a year old at the time. I happen to have my D200 with 50mm around my neck when I catch him kissing himself in the mirror. With not a second to waste, I turn the dial to throw the aperture wide open, hit the button and turn the ISO all the way up (was dim in this store, didn't know how much ISO or aperture I would need, so I just took all I could get) and fired off two shots before my son realized he was kissing glass and not a person.
This photo is very noisy, the color is off, it's not sharp, it's very flat, and the composition could have been better .... but that all means nothing. It is the photo most requested by family members and friends who want a picture of my son, not to mention the half-dozen 8x10s I've made of it for my desk, my wife's desk, our wall, and few other places I keep a copy. This photo conveys the essence of all that is pure and simple and loving in my son and this photo, regardless of its technical flaws, will forever be in my home. That's what photography is about. When you've understood that, you'll put the ruler down and stop measurbating.
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