A few years back Nikon shocked the photography world by announcing they were going to release a Digital SLR and many questioned whether or not they could do it… Well that camera was the Nikon D1 and they surely did it introducing a camera with a hybrid build using the F100 frame, body and focusing along with the F5’s Matrix Metering stacked on top of new digital technology.

A lot has happened since that first DSLR hit the market as Canon, Olympus, Contax and Nikon all released at least one more DSLR (Canon and Nikon have several). Well I can honestly say that the D2h is currently the king of the Nikon Line-Up and in many ways is better then the competition at this point.

The D2h currently represents a whole new design breakthrough from Nikon the likes of which we haven’t seen in the Nikon line-up in 5 years (and that was a film camera). The camera currently features a new White Balance Sensor (more accurate then anything I’ve yet seen), A faster focusing motor (Cam 2000 only exists in the D2h at this point), a New Image Sensor Design (LBCAST JFET Sensor Designed by Nikon), New Flash System (Nikon’s new i-TTL has been called the best on the market) and better weather sealing so you can see this is no small upgrade.

Features

This list below covers most of the major features and I made a point to hit all of those features which I felt make the camera impressive!

ISO 200 – 6400
*4.1 Mega-Pixel JFET LBCAST Image Sensor (we’ll discuss the resolution later)
*40 Shot Buffer in JPG mode and 25 Shot Buffer in RAW mode.
*8 Frames per second shooting
*i-TTL Flash System Capable of communicating with 2 sets of slaves and passing both exposure and color temperature data back to the cameras White Balance System.
*Mirror Lock-Up to eliminate Mirror Slap Vibration at slow shutter speeds.
*Cam 2000 Focusing Engine capable of tracking subjects moving across the lens at greater than 250 MPH (yes that is fast).
*1/8000th of a second max shutter speed
*1/250th of a second Flash Sync (due to shutter design)
*1/8000 of a second FP Mode Flash Sync (uses multiple bursts of less power then full sync).
*Built In Portrait Grip with a locking controls (to eliminate accidentally tripping the shutter).
*Advanced Battery Monitoring System (shows percentage of battery left)
*Battery Life in optimal conditions can achieve over 6000 shots on a single charge (No VR, Wireless or Micro Drive, Compact Flash is a must for this).
*PC Sync Socket
*Ability to use older NON-CPU lenses with metering
*USB 2.0 (High Speed)
*Wired Remote Terminal Connector
*Class Leading 37 ms shutter lag, 80 ms viewfinder blackout (better than any other camera to date)
*3 Color Profiles including Adobe RGB
*1005 Pixel Color Matrix Metering
*Ambient White Balance Sensor
*Ability to lock either shutter speed or aperture independently or both together
*Color Temperature settable in 10 Mired Kelvin steps
*2 Percent Spot Meter
*5 White Balance Presets
*Built in MIC
*Custom Tone Curves
*Adjustable 6 Percent - 13 Percent Center Weighted Metering
*Voice Memo Recording
*Optional Wireless Transmitter

As you can see the camera clearly has some nice features but a spec sheet is only half the story because there are many things that look good on paper which don’t live up to the hype in real life. I’m not going to hit on all of these features but the new important ones I will cover as most things can be seen in reviews all over the web.

NOTE: I will point you to other reviews which help exhibit the points I’m trying to make from time to time.

Exposure

The exposure system on the D2h is top notch and features Nikon’s most advanced Matrix metering system (which is quite simply put the best on the market). This Matrix Metering features a 1005 Pixel RGB sensor that measure not only lighting but color variation as well; the camera will can then use the metering data to optimize the image tone. For those that don’t know what Matrix Metering is, it is basically the implementation of Ansel Adam’s Zone System built in to the camera (read “The Negative” – By Ansel Adams for more information).

Below is an example of what the D2h Matrix Metering can do (the whole frame has a consistent range between 8 and 9 stops; note though that this was a double exposure with lens blur combined in Photoshop).

http://www.pbase.com/image/27339462/original.jpg

In addition to Nikon’s Matrix Metering the D2h features an advance Center Weighted Metering system that allows you to adjust the percentage of the frame that is being metered from 6 Percent - 13 Percent. This is optimal for shooting portraits and being able to adjust this allows you to shoot smaller things with more balanced metering (say a small bird for example).

Below is an example of what Center Weighted Metering Can do (notice how the animal is optimally exposed at the expense of the background).

http://www.pbase.com/image/26493012/original.jpg

The final piece to the Metering System is the 2 Percent Spot Meter which basically allows you to obtain the most accurate exposure possible (provided you know how to you use it and how it works) where as both Matrix and Center Weighted have points at which they will fail you the spot meter when used correctly will not fail you.

Below is an example of what a spot meter can do (I simply metered the blue sky above the animal, locked the exposure, reframed and took the shot).

http://www.pbase.com/image/26489497/original.jpg

White Balance

As I mentioned earlier the white balance in the D2h is quite possibly the best on the market (it is currently the best out of all the present Digital SLR’S on the market). Lighting has to be very severe and from no less then 3 sources or you get near accurate color 100 Percent of the time (I won’t say anything is 100 Percent accurate at all colors). The only downside to this is the fact that the camera’s auto mode doesn’t cover a wide enough Kelvin range for some incandescent lighting and that can cause issues for indoor portraits.

The reason the D2h is so accurate at white balance involves Nikon’s new implementation of an ambient light temperature meter on the top of the D2h which works in conjunction with the exposure meter (1005 Pixel RGB Matrix Meter) to help assure color and contrast accuracy. This feature is something that Canon has been using for a few years now and Nikon has just added this feature; the interesting thing about this though is that Canon will no longer be including their ambient light temperature meter on newer cameras beginning with the 1D Mark II (and some have already noticed that the older Canon’s have more accurate white balance).

Below is an example of the color that I get consistently from shooting with the D2h on Auto White Balance.

http://www.pbase.com/image/26490848/original.jpg

The Sensor
Nikon shocked everyone when they announced they were releasing a sensor that was designed in house featuring new technology (and it wasn’t CMOS). The claim was the pixel quality was more important than resolution but nonetheless many were still unsatisfied with the fact that it was only a 4.1 Mega-Pixel sensor and refused to look beyond that.

This new sensor uses a technology that allows for smaller photo-sites (pixels) that have a lower signal to noise ratio then even CMOS can provide (although many say it is similar to CMOS) and this is just the beginning of the image quality. Still in-spite of the claims about this technology and the fact that you can actually see what Nikon is talking about in the images still many doubt how good a 4.1 Mega-Pixel sensor can be.

Well let me just say that this is easily the best 4 MP Sensor on the Market (I suspect Foveon will pass it if and when they get their act together) and I have a few links to prove it.

The first link below is to page 3 of Bjorn Rorslett’s review and if you look at the brick comparison half way down the page you can see that the detail is sharper and better than the 5.5 Mega-Pixel D1x (the D1x has comparable image quality to the Canon EOS 10D and Nikon D100).

http://www.naturfotograf.com/D2H_rev02.html#top_page

I know some may still be skeptical so I’m not done yet and still have a few more links for you…

This next link is from the very popular reviewer Phil Askey (DPREVIEW) and it drops you at page 21 of his D2h review where if you look at the 3 vertical resolution charts about 1/3rd of the way down the page you can see that the in camera JPEG resolution of the D2h is about 1400 (14 on the chart) before things start messing up but if you look at the Nikon Capture version of the chart you can see that the RAW image is between 1500 and 1600 before the resolution starts messing up (this is pretty impressive when you consider that Canon’s 10D and Digital Rebel both come in at 1450 Lines Vertical from JPEG showing that the D2h is in fact capable of producing higher quality images then a typical 4 Mega-Pixel Image).

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond2h/page21.asp

I think that anyone who actually doubts how good this sensor is either doesn’t want to see it or hasn’t even bothered looking.

Now the downside of this sensor is the fact that it seems to be more prone to IR Noise as pointed out by Thom Hogan in his D2h Review so some mid-tones in certain lighting will show more noise then this camera will typically show. The good news about this issue is the fact that you can buy a Hot Mirror Filter to eliminate this noise (of course it will run you $120 for one).

http://bythom.com/d2h.htm

The last link that I have is from Steve Huff (A.K.A. Videoman) who has owned both Canon and Nikon’s top of the line cameras (D2h and 1Ds). He claims the D2h has better overall image quality and at a pixel level has better quality as well.

http://www.pbase.com/videoman

I could go on and on all day but I’m going to stop there and move on to other topics or I’ll never finish this review… I do think that I’ve made a good enough argument for the quality of the sensor and I doubt that many will find major faults with the image examples posted.

Lens Compatibility

As I mentioned earlier the D2h has the ability to meter with NON-CPU lenses and compatibility currently runs at about 90%. This feature is enabled due to the fact that Nikon included some newer metering technology that allows you to set the Maximum aperture of the lens (with the lens already at that aperture) and then as the aperture is adjusted the camera detects the light loss and adjusts the shutter speed accordingly.

This feature may not seem so important but when you look at all the old Nikon glass that is known for being excellent and reasonably priced you quickly start to see the benefits. My only NON-CPU lens to date though is a Sigma Macro and below is a link to two images taken with the Sigma and D2h using Nikon’s Matrix Metering.

http://www.pbase.com/image/26888487/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/27414850/original.jpg

As you can clearly see the use of NON-CPU lenses works pretty well with the exposure meter and certainly adds value to the D2h as a whole.

Handling and Control

This is really the last part of the review that I’m going to cover because I don’t own the SB-800 Flash yet (but I will update this review once I can afford to buy one). So let me just start by saying this camera has so many features that make handling a breeze that it is tough not to like this camera.

Whether you shoot Macro or Landscape Mirror Lock-Up can be an excellent feature that eliminates Mirror Slap all together combine this with a VR lens and you can get some very long shots as slower shutter speeds.

Another feature of the camera that has to do with handling is Focus Priority shooting which will prevent the camera from taking a shot if the subject isn’t in focus. This feature can be very useful if you’re getting ready to take a shot and somebody walks in between you and the camera as it will prevent the camera from firing and getting a blurry shot of somebody’s backside!

There are overall far too many features to cover individually and the best way to really get an appreciation for what this camera is capable of is to go out and try one (be advised though that this one little test has caused many to buy this camera on the spot). I think you’ll agree that the camera is fast, accurate and powerful enough to meet most anybody’s shooting needs.

Conclusion

Basically this camera is pretty much as good as they get and it stands to do for Digital Photography what the Nikon F5 (It is currently referred to as the best film based SLR on the market) has done for Film Photography. The overall experience that this camera provides coupled with the image quality makes for one of the best experiences you can have with a Digital SLR because it is just plain fun to use (how about that Fun Photography)! So the bottom line is, if you’re in the market for a new DSLR and you don’t want to get anywhere near $3200 then stay clear of it altogether because the temptation might just be too great for you to resist!

Below are a few more links to some of my favorite D2h Images (some of them are taken by me using my D2h but a few will be by others and you’ll know this because you’ll go right to their gallery).

http://www.pbase.com/image/25998120/original

http://www.pbase.com/image/25998139/original

http://www.pbase.com/image/24234717/original

http://www.pbase.com/image/27339782/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/26487602/original.jpg

http://www.pbase.com/image/26492427/original.jpg




Recommended:
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 3199.00
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Solid Enough for a Professional