D300 image problems ?? You?

Bevel Heaven · Jan 17, 2008

people - thanks for the input - just want to say I have not been able to go back and do the tests again so far - new baby in the house and all that...

The photo posted above looks real blown out on the bottom left at the highlight. This is kinda what I am talking about [below the black round disk thingy].

reminder - we used different lens, we didn;t use any filters, we did use a new out of the box D300 and a D300 that had been used for 3 weeks, along with a D80 with several thousand clicks and a D200 been loved for a year. Both D300s showed the same thing....

Garbz · Jan 17, 2008

I've seen this before. My Nikkor 105mm AF f/2.8 D has this kind of CA if it even is CA. It's not a purple fringe but a red haloing effect around the subject.

However my 50mm f1.8 does not do this at any aperture. The CA it presents is the standard blue fringe and CR shift. I just tested it. We know the D300 has builtin CA correction, maybe it's correcting, incorrectly and thus causing the problem. This is just a pure guess since I don't have a D300 to try it.

Can you turn all image adjustment settings and stuff like NR vivid mode etc off and shoot in RAW to see if it still does it.

Val · Jan 17, 2008

Let me get my lunch, ill come back and do a little test :thumbup:

OK, here the test. I used 50/1.8 and 18-200 VR. Crops are taken from NEFs (although JPGs look the same) and reduced 50% in size, then compressed. NEFs are processed using PS at default settings.

Val · Jan 17, 2008

Val · Jan 17, 2008

Also took some shots with 10.5mm fisheye. No colour separation at all. At 2.8 it looks a bit reddish on the edges but this vanishes very quickly. This is trye for both center and sides.

Garbz · Jan 18, 2008

Fascinating. It looks like the D300's anti CA algorithms may be causing it. My f/1.8 shots look much worse CA wise. But my ff/2.8 shots do NOT exhibit any green shift like yours do.

simonsmith_7 · Feb 5, 2008

This thread may be dead but I just had to register on this forum after googling "D300 chromatic abberation" and finding this. Just taken my D300 out of its box and fired off a couple of shots (metallic objects back lit against window) and aaarrgggghhh!! shocking chromatic abberations; large red halo around one highlight and very pronounced green edge along another object (50mm 1.8). Immediately took the same picture with my D200 and it's smooth and natural as anything. It looks worse than my old D70 (not overall picture quality but these arifacts). My heart has sunk. Don't quite understand from some of the answers the conclusions but did any of you guys with the same problem find a solution.
(by the way it's on both RAW and jpeg).

notelliot · Feb 5, 2008

bit late with this, and it may have been covered already. but the d300 has a lot more resolution than the d80/d200.
when i shoot my 85 @1.4 on my d70s, no CA. wide open on the d80, noticeable CA. wide open on the d300, it's more noticeable. it's relatively easy to fix (i was unaware of the CA correct in the d300 until now) but in your case, it may be a setting that needs adjustment.
i think it's a resolution thing, though.

Bevel Heaven · Feb 5, 2008

UPDATE: My camera store guy tells me he shot 2 other D300 cameras with different lens again at different times and again saw the same things. I asked him about settings he said if didn;t go out of the way to try to make the probelm go away, but did a guick scan through the settings in each camera pretty much normal out of the box as Nikon delivered them. I also found a couple other guys local to me who are less than pleased for the same reason. But they all said the 300 is such a great photo taker on so many other levels..... especially for moving objects etc.... what to do, what to do. I think Nikon needs to get serious about their sensors and invest a lot of time and $$$ to try to catch up with canon's technology [did I just say that???]. Anyways, still hunting for a solution. Would love it if there really was just a simple setting or combo of settings to avoid etc...

Val · Feb 5, 2008

Has anyone tried D3?

Garbz · Feb 6, 2008

notelliot said:
bit late with this, and it may have been covered already. but the d300 has a lot more resolution than the d80/d200.

12.5mpx vs the D200's 10mpx. that is less than 15% larger in each direction. The resolution is definitely not the problem.

R0TT3NBURIT0 · Feb 12, 2008

My friend was looking into buying one of these. I don't know to much about them so i don't really know if its worth the price.

Trenton Romulox · Feb 12, 2008

The only thing I get that I don't like with the D300 is purple fringing. But, I got that with my D80 also, so I'm not exactly hating on the camera. If it's related to the CA algorithms or whatever, couldn't a firmware update fix that?

Iron Flatline · Feb 12, 2008

Yes, theoretically the firmware could do a lot regarding CA.

Bevel must be having a slightly unique problem though. Many D300 users are not noobs, and there would have been a huge out-cry if a camera of that caliber had problems handling CA. He may have a unique issue.

It could be any number of things - important right now is establishing that it is in the camera, and consistent across all lenses. That way he can call Nikon or his reseller and ask for a different camera body. It could be a flaw in the glass right in front of the sensor (IR filter) or it could be the sensor itself.

Could it be the printer? Have you tried a different printer? Or is it clearly visible in the RAW file as well? Or JPG of course, if that is your preferred way of shooting.

jstuedle · Feb 12, 2008

Does anyone remember when the D2X came out? The smallest pixels ever. The new smaller pixels were taxing even the best glass to resolve at this high resolution? Guess what, those pixels on the D2X are the same size as those on the D300. The answer was to only use the highest quality glass and practice the best photographic techniques. I did not own a D2X, but if an experienced D2X owner can check in, we might understand this phenomenon better.