The Nikon D300 (which superceded the highly-regarded D200), is such a great alternative to the top-rated Nikon D3 - offering many of the same features at a more affordable price - that it will make the D300 a camera that many professional photographers will chose as their main camera.  

Many of the custom settings of the D300 are the same as for the D200, but there are a few differences.  (eg, Auto ISO is now set in the Shooting Menu.)

Here are my preferences for the Custom Settings .. and why.

(And here’s the link if you’d like to order the D300 from B&H.)

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One of the original pages on this website a few years back, was on the subject of my choice of Nikon’s custom curves.

Since I went over to a raw-only workflow about 5 years ago, I haven’t had any need for custom curves. The reason for this is that there are an infinite number of scenarios under which we take photographs, and hence there won’t be any single custom curve which would suit all situations.  Lighting scenarios change. The contrast will change, and  brightness and other settings will also change.  A raw workflow is the most flexible way to adapt to this.

The quest for the perfect custom curve is a dead-end street, and the best advice I can give to anyone who is curious about custom curves - for whatever reason that may be - is to forget about custom curves, and go to a raw workflow.  You’ll avoid many headaches this way.

However, I still get emails asking for info and my opinion on custom curves.  So for those who are curious about the original page on custom curves, I am reposting the article here as it orginally appeared. 

(For anyone else, this page will be trivial and of marginal interest.)

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Here are two photos that I trawled from the archives …

Firstly, I never used this set-up like this. No, really!
This was honestly all assembled just to see how crazy it would look.

And even I have a sense of proportion about things, and realise I would’ve looked like the photo-geek cousin of The Terminator if ever I slung this around. It does look truly hardcore though!

That’s the D2H with the WT-1A wireless transmitter.  The antenna sticking out on the side is the extended range antenna … and this is actually the reason why I slammed all this together.  When the extended range antenna arrived I realised that that there was no good way of attaching this to a camera, aside from attaching it to a flash bracket. So I used a Monfrotto ball-head to attach the antenna to the flash bracket. 

The radio transmitter (which only appears in the rear photo), is used to trigger other remote flashguns.

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I tried the WT-1A in the studio a few times (without the extended-range antenna), and it was pretty amazing to see the images roll in on the computer while I shot. I even had parents check out the photos of their kids on the laptop, as I was shooting. It helped with the proofing of the images, since the parents had already seen every image by the time I was done.

The downside of using the WT-1A is that I am not a network engineer … it just needed one tiny setting somewhere to be off, for the thing not to work. And it was a headache then to track through every step and figure out what had changed. In the end I sold the WT-1A and the antenna, and never actually used the combination on a shoot. So that took care of my problem of how to actually use the extended-range antennna on a shoot.

The bracket is a Custom Brackets bracket that I modified by lopping the extraneous bits off. Some of it with an angle-grinder. (Actually, I AM hardcore!) These days I don’t use a flash bracket that much anymore. (It depends though.) And mostly I just have the Quantum radio transmitter velcro’d to the top of the strobe.

The D80 has 32 custom settings which allows this little camera to be set to your own preferences and needs - and this makes it a very flexible little beast.

This page details my preferences .. and why.

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I’ve had a number of email queries about using wireless TTL flash with the D70. So even though the D70 manual (p.150-151) is quite thorough on this, I think that the abundance of information might be overwhelming to someone who wants to set it up the first time.

I’m offering this as a quickie guide to getting wireless i-TTL flash going on your D70, even though there is no information here that isn’t clearly explained in the manual.

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With my Nikons I use the Nikon SD-8A battery pack, and simply fold the flap of the battery pack’s pouch, over my camera strap. I use NiMH rechargables with these.

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With my Canons I use the Canon CP-E4 battery pack, and I clip this onto the camera strap as well. Alternately, with the flash bracket that I use, I can screw the battery pack onto the vertical stem of the flash bracket. I also use NiMH rechargables with these battery packs.

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If I want more juice than that, or need to fire the strobe faster than those battery packs can deliver, I use the Quantum 2×2 Turbo battery pack clipped onto my belt.  Check this page for details about the specific connector cable for either the Nikon or the Canon speedlights.

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The advantage of the Nikon SD-8A and Canon CP-E3 over the Turbo, is that by clipping the much lighter battery pack to the camera strap, it leaves the camera bodies independent of me. That makes the cameras easier to set down, or switch them to the other shoulder.

Another advantage over the smaller battery packs by Nikon and Canon, is that they won’t damage your speedlight when you rapidly fire your flash.  The Quantum has the potential of doing that if you’re not careful.

The Nikon D200 has been described as the ‘D2x Lite’, because it has most of the best features of the awesome D2x and added a few new features into the mix. Therefore this page is similar to the page on the D2x custom settings.

Here are my preferences for the Custom Settings .. and why.

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[edited to add: Most of the information here have been incorporated and improved upon, in the subsequent pages on flash photography techniques.  But I am leaving this page here as a pre-cursor to those more informative pages.]

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Nikon’s flash system is truly superb, making it possible to often achieve excellent results without the photographer really needing to understand the finer workings of flash exposure metering .. but ultimately you will achieve the most consistent restuls if you understand how exposure metering works, as well as having a more clear idea of Nikon’s approach to flash technology.

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If the Nikon D2H was an awesome camera, then the bigger brother, the Nikon D2x is simply stunning, offering amazing picture quality. The controls and functions between the two cameras are virtually the same, and the D2x offers the same myriad of options that the photographer can set according to their own style and needs.
Here are my preferences for the D2x Custom Settings .. and why.

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Here is something to curb the enthusiasm of every Nikon enthusiast a bit.
The ugliest camera. Ever. 
Yes, you too can look like a pimp now.