It's hard not to like the Nikon D200. Really hard. Yes, it has a few flaws (namely its price and higher-than-I'd-like noise levels), but it has so many positives and was so fun to use that it easily e...
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It's hard not to like the Nikon D200. Really hard. Yes, it has a few flaws (namely its price and higher-than-I'd-like noise levels), but it has so many positives and was so fun to use that it easily earns my highest recommendation.
The D200 is a fairly large and very well built digital SLR. It has a magnesium alloy body with plastic and rubber on top, and it feels very solid in your hands. The camera does suffer a bit from "button clutter", and I'm not a big fan of the lack of a mode dial, either. The D200 has a large and beautiful 2.5" LCD display, which strangely enough was the first thing that caught my eye when I unboxed the camera. Being a digital SLR, every accessory imaginable can be had -- for a price. That includes lenses, flashes (via the hot shoe or flash sync port), viewfinder attachments, and a battery grip (which doubles the already great battery life).
The D200 is not aimed toward beginners, as the lack of automatic or scene modes attests. The D200 may be a little intimidating to new users, as well. Enthusiasts, however, will be thrilled with the manual controls and custom functions, of which there are too many to list here. I like how you can store four sets of camera settings, and the recent menu is a handy feature that no one has done before. The only thing that I really missed were the nice advanced white balance controls that Canon offers on their D-SLRs.
As you might expect, camera performance is first rate. The D200 starts up instantly, focuses quickly, and there's no shutter lag or delay between shots. The continuous shooting mode was amazing, especially with a high speed memory card. Low light focusing was excellent thanks to the built-in AF-assist lamp. The battery life on the camera was very good, as well -- I never had to charge it in three months of use.
Photo quality was excellent as well. Photos were properly exposed, with vivid colors and low purple fringing and noise levels. As is typical with D-SLRs, images are very smooth, and some folks may want to sharpen things up a bit. My only real photo quality complaint is that noise levels are higher than I would've liked at ISO sensitivities above 640. They're not horrible by any means, but after just reviewing the Canon EOS-5D, I'm a bit spoiled. Then again, the 5D costs $3299 and the D200 is $1699.
There are a few negatives to mention, though. First up is the price -- yes, the D200 is cheaper than the EOS-5D, but it's also $300 more than the EOS-30D, itself a very capable camera. Next is the software bundle: I'll be frank here -- it sucks. PictureProject is fine for your $350 Coolpix, but D200 users deserve better. If you plan on using the RAW image format you'll need to either pony up for Nikon Capture or Adobe Photoshop CS2, since PictureProject cannot actually edit the properties which make RAW worth using in the first place. For the price of the D200 they should just include Nikon Capture for free.
And those are really the only negatives that I can come up with. The most annoying of those is the noise issue, though with something like NeatImage you can clean up the yuck fairly well. If you're using a D200, it's probably safe to say that you own Photoshop CS2, so the crummy software bundle isn't as a big of a deal.
All things considered, though, the Nikon D200 is a heck of a camera. I really enjoyed using it, and I would recommend it to anyone, whether you're just starting out with a D-SLR, or if you're upgrading from an older Nikon D-SLR.
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