It's been a Roller Coaster Ride....but worth it!

I definitely think Nikon has a winner here. Originally I was going to get a D70s but when I heard about the D200, I waited. I'm glad I did....well, based on four days of use.

I placed my D200 on order in mid February. I was immediately told that it was backordered - no surprise. I was told at that time that there was a two month wait. Three weeks later, I got a notice that it had been shipped.

I got my D200 on Monday, 6 March. I pulled it out of the box, put the battery on the charger, and started reading the manual. The battery was fully charged in just a little over an hour. I popped on a Nikon 24-120mm lens and turned it on. I got an "Err" code in the LCD.

After holding 15 minutes on the Nikon Tech Support line, the tech walked me through a few steps before telling me to either return it to the seller or send it in to the Nikon Repair Center in California. I mailed it that afternoon.

The following Monday, I called the Nikon Repair Center to inquire about status. I was told that it had arrived on Thursday and shipped back out on Friday (the very next day!). I got it back via UPS this past Tuesday. According to the repair order, Nikon replaced the shutter blades, shutter mechanism, and adjusted. It's been working like a champ since. I wish all other customer service centers were as good.

I love the solid feel of this camera versus the D70. It feels just like my F100. The magnesium alloy frame does add weight so its heavier than the D70 but lighter than the D1X. It also has weather sealing that the D70 does not.

At work, I have a D1X. I prefer using the D200. The controls are easier to access on the D200. Changing the ISO or white balance is much faster on the D200. The D200 is smaller and lighter than the D1X.

Speaking of white balance, I find the auto white balance on my D200 to be far superior to the D1X. Under flourescent lights, you must adjust with the D1X or have to do it later in Photoshop. With my D200, the results were very acceptable as is.

The viewfinder is one of the brightest that I've seen yet.

The viewing screen is large and bright. No complaints there either.

I have a SB600 flash and 18-200mm lens on order so I'll update on that later. If you have an older flash, I have the SB-28DX on my F100, you'll want to get the SB600 or SB800 for full functionality.

The battery life is not quite as good as Nikon advertises. I have an extra battery on order but as of right now only have the one that came with the camera. I can take about 800 photos before I start getting nervous about my battery reserve.

My particular camera seems to prefer Lexar CF cards. I tried a Hagihara (hey, that's all they had in Baghdad so I got a bunch of them!) and it wouldn't read it. But my Sony V3 works fine with the Hagiharas so no loss. I'm going to try a Sandisk soon.

So other than the initial bobble, this camera has been great so far. My one dealing with the Nikon Repair Center has also been quite impressive. I'm going to be taking this camera out this weekend so I'll be back to update later.

I know a few professionals that are replacing their D1Xs with this camera. I know a few people with D70s that are selling their cameras on Ebay now to get this camera.

We all know that its the photographer and not the camera. A co-worker who owns a D70s hefted my D200 and complained about the additional weight. She then remarked that she was not going to replace her D70s with a D200 because it was not enough of a leap. After playing with my D200 for about 5 minutes, she sighed and then wondered how much she could get for her used D70s. Consider yourself warned!

At this one moment in time, I do think this is the best deal in digital SLRs.

UPDATE:

Now that I've had the chance to take about 2,000 photos with this camera, I love it even more. For the majority of the shots, I let it just run on Program mode to see what it would do. See what the default mode will do under a variety of conditions before I start making adjustments. Why change something if it works great? I've been very pleased and didn't feel the need to make any adjustments.

Once I was satisfied with the Program mode, I did play around with the "Optimize Image" capability. The default is "Normal". It gives you the following options: Normal, Softer, Vivid, More Vivid, Portrait, Custom, B & W. Normal works fine for just about everything - no complaints. I'm ignoring softer for now but will get back to it. But if you're taking scenery pictures or anything with color in it, you owe it yourself to try "Vivid" and "More Vivid" (VI+). I loved the extra pop that Vivid gave to colors. I took some photos of some pear flowers in my backyard and they looked better than the real flowers. A friend thought the VI+ mode looked even better but I thought it was a bit over. Yes, you can probably do it just as well in Photoshop later but that's no fun.

If you want to try it, find it at: Shooting Menu - Optimize Image - Vivid.

One thing I was struggling with is that of lenses. My 18-200 is still backordered and I have no idea how much longer it will be.

My personal walk around lens is a Nikon 24-120. It has worked well for me for a few years (on my F100). At work, I have access to a Nikon 17-35. The 24-120 is a $450 lens; the 17-35 is a $1900 lens. I have a handful of primes but stopped using them a while ago.

The image quality of the D200 is so darn good that the defects become visible. The more I used the D200, the more disappointed I became in the 24-120.

I then signed out the 17-35 which is professional quality glass. Even with that lens, I could see flaws that I didn't see with the D1X.

I could go on but the point I'm trying to make is that its stupid of me to fret over things like this. No one else seemed to notice or care about the little nitpicky things. Once I realized that I was getting worked up over stupid stuff, it all became fun again.

Another thing that I fretted over but now realize is stupid stuff was whether my compact flash card was fast enough to keep up. The buffer on the D200 is quite generous that I'm able to pretty much shoot as I please without having to wait for it to write to the card. In the view finder, you will see a number inside a bracket in the lower right hand corner. It tells you how many photos you can fit on that card. With my 1 Gb card, it tells me that I can fit 233* photos. As you take photos, it counts down. When you lightly press the shutter button, it switches to the number of shots that you can fit on your buffer. With the Sandisk Ultra II 1 Gb card I have now, I've never used up the entire buffer. When the camera is writing to the card, you will see a green led to the right of the screen marked "CF". It doesn't stay lit for long. I don't think most people will even have to worry about it. I found that even with my slower cards it was never a problem. Don't worry about it, just go out and shoot away.

*I have my camera set to Large Image Size, Normal Quality. My photos are typically 1.9 to 2.3 Mb in size.

I don't recall if I mentioned this earlier but the menu buttons on the D200 are much larger than on the D1X. One complaint I had about the D1X is that the buttons were so small that I kept having "fat finger" problems when trying to change settings in a hurry. No such problems with the D200.

The four layer Histogram is a lot nicer than the single Histogram that the D70 and many other cameras have.

The D200 also has an "Auto Image Rotation" feature in the SET UP Menu. It makes it easier to view images but I'm so used to rotating the camera that I pretty much automatically do it anyway. So I turned this feature back off.

With other digital cameras, downloading files was always quicker with a card reader. Not so with the D200. I don't know if it's faster but if its slower, I sure can't tell the difference. When I demonstrated it to a friend with a D70, he was stunned at how fast it downloaded.

I'm not a professional photographer but just someone who loves taking pictures. With a wife, three daughters and a pet rabbit, I have no shortage of subjects. In my job, I periodically have to do some traveling. Some places are fun and some are not-so-fun but having a reliable, durable camera is a must. I hope it doesn't make me sound lazy but the full Program mode (auto) in this camera works great. That frees me up to think about lighting and composition. I do 99% of my shooting in that mode.

BOTTOM LINE: Does this camera take better pictures than my co-workers D70? No. But I think it's increased durability and weather sealing makes me comfortable about going for the shot. I am clumsy (my wife and daughters tease me all the time!) and I feel more confident with this camera than I do with the plastic bodied ones. I also go out in the rain (I live in Washington State) and to dusty areas. It's not indestructable but I don't worry as much.

Does it take technically better pictures than my $500 Sony V3 "point and shoot"? Not really. But the ability to compose with a SLR versus a point and shoot makes it no contest. Add in the speed and its worth the extra money. I know you can identify with the frustration of waiting for that "point & shoot" to start up, cycle, focus, and then take the photo. Usually the moment is long gone. Even with adequate notice, I've missed so many great photos because the camera was thinking or focusing. I can't tell you how many times I've almost thrown my Sony V3 (and before it, a Canon G5) against the wall in frustration. No such problem with the D200.

So if you're trying to justify spending the money on a D200 by saying you're going to get better image quality - in a pure sense - no. But you will get better composed images and more importantly, you will get the images that you would normally miss with a "point & shoot". That was enough to justify it to me. If you ask me right now (now that my charge card is paid off) if I think it was worth it - Yes!! Once I got over the stupid stuff that I mentioned above, photography has become fun again. This camera is fast enough to keep up and durable enough to survive me. The freedom to be just able to compose and not sweat the small stuff is a joy. I can't ask for more.