D300 does 4K display

I was a bit surprised, and this renews my interest in the D300 as a useful camera in my arsenal.

Here's the scenario. I mounted my old Nikon AF-S VR NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G on a tripod and tested my D850, D500, and D300 with the FX camera set to 160mm and f/8 and the DX cameras set to 105mm and f/5.6, all three at base ISO and the same shutter speed. After converting the NEF files to TIFF with NX-D and opening them in Adobe Photoshop I then applied Smart Sharpening to all of them (same amount for all three) and resized them to 2160 pixels (vertical) to see how they would display on my 4K monitor. Note that Picture Controls using NX-D have changed from the days of the D300 to the D500/D850, so I used the same Picture Control on the latter two and an older D2X emulation Picture Control on the former.

Anyway, here's what I see, and it should be self-evident looking at the 100% size crops at the bottom which camera was used in the re-sized to 4K crops directly above them:

This doesn't discount the usefulness of the D500 and D850, both faster and with more features than the D300 (or my D800 for that matter), and if one wants to start cropping away then the 100% sized views become more relevant. That said, IMO there will be a lot of times when the old D300 can hold its own.

Do you use a Canon EOS? I thought your camera might be because of the D bit. I have been given a Canon EOS 1100D

San x

No, sorry, I've always used Nikon DSLRs and F-mount lenses. Canon puts the D after the number and Nikon puts the D before the number (presumably the D stands for "digital"). Still, as Thom Hogan has written innumerable times (and I'm paraphrasing a little here), if you aren't getting good results with a 10-12 MP DSLR than it's not the camera's fault.

I've always been told a bad workman (or work person, woman) always blames the tools 😀

Tools can have their limitations. My inclination is to push every photographic tool I have to its breaking point, which is how I ended up with some rather pricey tools (which I still manage to "break").

That is my worry. Not that I'm any good, more that I'm clumsy and break anything I touch. Don't ever let me touch any of your expensive photography equipment 😂

One nice thing about pro-level gear is that it's built to take a beating.

[deleted]

Good answer JACS 😂

It shouldn't be a surprise that downsampling 45MP, 21MP, and 12MP to 7MP loses much of any difference, but there are still subtle differences like potential color resolution, and the severity of aliasing. Look at the middle row, at the insulator at the top of the pole. Even though all three are resampled to the same pixel resolution, the D850 has the most natural-looking insulator, the way the repeating rib lines are portrayed. The insulator is slightly tilted, and you can see that in the D850 version, but less so in the D500 version. In the D300 version, though, the rib lines of the insulator render as perfectly horizontal, because it is highly aliased, rather than as they really are (tilted).

I'm not seeing that John. Here's those three renditions upsized to 400% (after being downsized to 4K):

I'm afraid that in my haste I showed crops from the another pole in the 100% views than what I showed in the 4K views.