Nikon D200 Digital SLR from a D100 user's perspective

I've recently had a chance to use the Nikon D200, the latest-generation digital SLR (single-lens reflex) camera from Nikon. As the title suggests, I've been a long-time user of the Nikon D100, the predecessor of the D200. Both cameras are aimed at the pro and "serious amateur" photographer, although they are very different beasts.

I've used the D100 since 2003, and have created almost 10,000 exposures (latest sequential frame number as of this writing is 9,688). In the process, I've learned a lot about this camera and have come to love it and respect it. In fact, if I hadn't gotten my hands on a D200 recently, I would have thought that the D100 was close to the perfect camera. Some of my favorite pictures were taken with it, and the combination of RAW format images and Nikon Capture application for editing the RAW files was almost unbeatable for producing great images.

However, as I mentioned above, I recently got to play with the D200 (while attending a friend's wedding, which I ended up shooting pretty much myself since they didn't get a real photographer), and I fell in love with the camera almost immediately.

Advantages of the D200

Controls First off, the controls on the D200 are much more logical. One thing that always bothered me about the D100 is that common tasks, like switching program modes, or switching the ISO value, were cumbersome. You had to rotate the top left dial to the setting you wanted to change, then rotate the right dials to get it set, and then rotate the top left dial back to Program shoting mode. On the D200, the rotating dial on the left became 3 pushbuttons: Qual (for picture size or quality), ISO, and WB (for white balance). To change either, just press one of the pushbuttons, then use the thumb dials on the left to set. For example, changing the ISO equivalent on the fly is as easy as pressing the ISO button, while simultaneously rotating one of the dials on the right to the right value. Much simpler than before!

The screen: Definite improvement in resolution, brightness, and viewing angle compared to the D100. I cringe now whenever I use the D100 at how bad that tiny screen is in comparison.

Flash: exposures are now much more accurate, thanks to the pre-flash that's fired just before the exposure is taken, which is used to fine-tune the flash duration. Also, Nikon went to wireless off-camera flash with the new SB-800 flash, which I haven't played with very much, but which promises to be very handy.

Color balance: the default color balance setting is much more accurate than on the D100. You could achieve the same result by manually tweaking the D100's color balance settings, and manipulating the RAW/NEF images, but that took more time.

Auto ISO function: for some reason, this never worked well for me on the D100. The idea is that if the shutter speed falls below a certain level, the ISO would be adjusted up automatically to keep the shutter speed high enough for hand-holding. You might get grainier, but still sharp hand-held images. On the D200, it works like a charm, and you can control the shutter speed threshold, which is very nice.

Customizability: The D100 has a lot of options to customize, but the D200 surpasses it by a lot. For example, there's a button on the front lower right of the camera (it falls right under your right pinky when holding the camera normally) that can be assigned multiple functions, from auto exposure lock, to focus lock (as in the old 8008), to flash value lock (it does a preflash on command then stores the value), to turning off flash altogether for that exposure. There are tons of other customizations as well. As a gadget head, I like that :-)

Where the cameras are about the same

Exposure: Nikon's matrix metering is right on most of the time. On the D100 it tends to underexpose by 1/3 - 1/2 stop, but that's OK for digital--it's a lot harder to recover detail from overexposed areas than those that are underexposed.

Shutter lag: there's no perceptible difference between the two. The preflash that the D200 sends out before a flash exposure doesn't add any noticeable lag IMHO.

Drawbacks of the D200

There aren't very many:

Batteries: One area where the D100 still wins is battery life. The D200 sucks batteries like crazy! It's only good for about 300 exposures in my experience, less with on-board flash usage. You can see the battery level going down as you're taking pictures. On the other hand, the D200 has a bigger CCD (10MP) which sucks much more power, and has a much bigger, much brigher, and more viewable LCD display which also I'm sure hurts power usage, but with the tradeoff of being much more useful for assessing exposure and focus. I'll just have to get a second battery or perhaps a battery pack for the D200 and suck it up :-)

Also, the flash fires a preflash before every exposure, thus draining batteries even more, especially if you use the built-in flash a lot.