After the D100 and the D200, Nikon launched its latest model of this line, the D300. As for the price, which is around $1,800, Nikon targets at least semi-professional amateur photographs.

The launch of the D300 is considered by some as an aggressive design decision. Nokia has two quite similar products on the market, the predecessor D200 and the up-price model DX2, which was launched in June 2006 for a landed price of over $4500. Given its features and technical specifications, the D300 could not only replace the D200 but also obsolete the DX2 camera.

This SLR digital camera has a magnesium alloy body, which is more or less not a new one, but based on the forerunner. Only the bottom has been slightly redone, so new Arca-style plates are required. It is dust and weatherproof, weighs around 1.8 pounds and has a depth of 2.9 inches. Its width is 5.8 inches while its height is 4.5 inches. Its optical sensor type is CMOS and has a sensor dust reduction technology. It comes with 12,3 effective megapixels (meaning 4288 x 2848 pixel images) and a self cleaning sensor unit with low-pass filter vibration. It has a Multi-CAM3500DX auto focus sensor (51-point, 15 cross-type), which contributes to the camera’s new 3D-tracking 51-point Dynamic Area AF mode, and replaces the Group Dynamic AF of the D200.

The size of the LCD monitor is 3 inches and displays about 920,000 dots. It has a 170-degree wide viewing angle, 100% frame coverage and a low-temperature polysilicon TFT LCD with brightness adjustment. It continously shoots 6 frames per seconds (8 frames per seconds with battery pack).

The rechargeable Li-ion battery lasts for about 1000 shots and is interchargeable with those of the D80 and D200. As a storage media, the camera uses Compact Flash cards (CF) type I and type II, which are UDMA compliant, and a microdrive. The camera has four different exposure modes: programmed auto with flexible program, a shutter priority auto, an aperture priority auto and a manual mode. As exposure metering the D300 disposes of a 3D color matrix metering and a center weighted and spot metering.

Other features include Live View, 12-bit or 14-bit NEF, lossless compression for NEF, picture control settings, active D-lighting, automatic lateral chromatic aberration correction, optional shooting information displayed on the color LCD and a 9 Non-CPU data set.