I Love This Camera!

Let me start by saying one thing - I am not a "measurebator." I don't look at noise charts, resolution charts, blah blah when I make a camera purchasing decision. I look at the images the camera produces and decide if they are pleasing to my eye. Then I show them to my wife and family. Thats it. If we like 'em, I buy.

I have been a D100 owner for a year now and have been extremely pleased with it. The only drawback with it too me was speed - focusing speed and the 3fps shooting speed. I considered purchasing a D1H for my sports work and was elated when I heard about the D2H.

Consumers will say "but it's only 4 megapixels - my $300 HP I bought at Sams Club has more pixels than that!" AAARRRGGHHH!! Nothing sticks in my craw worse than idiotic statements like that. If you are making statements like that you should not be reading this review. Megapixels are not the be-all end-all of digital photography.

With the D100 I do 85% of my shooting with the camera set to 3MP mode. This gives me great 8x10's. I even have 12x18's on my wall from this resolution. So, when I heard that the D2H was going to be 4MP I knew it was going to fit my needs perfectly.

Coming from the D100 I was able to figure out the menu system and control scheme on the back of the camera fairly easily. Ergonomically it is great for my hands. Every button is within perfect reach (I would guess I am average sized.) The controls seem very intuitive to me and are definitely better than the D100. I love being able to hit the trash button twice to delete a photo - no more having to hit two separate buttons!

I will not go into a detailed description of controls, menus etc. You can get better versions of that from people who do it for a living.

The most important thing to me as I stated earlier is image quality. Again, I am not going by charts, I am going by my eyes. To my eyes, my D2H images have more resolution than my D100 images, they have more fine detail. I also find the color more pleasing (I use the III setting on both the D100 and the D2H.)

A lot of people are complaining about noise. I just don't see it. It is not an issue for me. Make sure you use the optimum settings for controlling noise and you should be fine (sharpening low or off, turn off auto tone.) Noise at high ISO's (1600 and up) cleans up very well with the appropriate software. I prefer however to just convert the files to B&W - I love the grainy look the files get!

As for speed, the first time you hold down the shutter and hear that machine gun noise - heaven!! I have relatively cheap CF cards - Simpletech - and have not filled the buffer and had to stop shooting yet. I can't imagine how fast this baby must write files with the WA cards on the market. I will probably stick with the standard cards as they seem to be fast enough for my shooting style. Focus speed is great. Autofocus is noticeably faster than with my D100. My slowest lens (85 1.4) has become more useable (? grammar) with the D2H. I don't mess with the focus points. I use the center point and recompose 100% of the time.

iTTL flash is wonderful with the SB-800. My flash exposures are a lot better than they were with my D100/SB-80 combo. I had a tendency to overexpose with the 80 and that problem is gone. I also like being able to sync the flash all the way up to 1/4000th. You can't sync with strobes past 1/250 without work-arounds, but I rarely have need to anyway.

Battery life rocks! Just as good as my D100. I use the LCD quite a bit and I have gotten 1000 images out of a charge. You can even check the battery life remaining down to the percentage (not just in quarters). I have two batteries and don't ever anticipate needing more, even for all day wedding shoots.

Now to the one drawback. The LCD. Its big, but its not all that great. Some people are saying it is way too bright. I have mine set to -2 and the images are matching up pretty well on my monitor. I guess I should say I am also not an exposurbator. I am not constantly in search of the "perfect exposure." I do not look at photos and say "that hack underexposed that shot by 1/3." If it looks good to me and my clients I'm a happy camper. Anyway, the biggest downfall of the LCD to me is that its a little soft. I love the LCD on my D100 and wish the D2H version looked the same.

To conclude, this is a wonderful camera; however, it is not for everyone. It truly is a professional machine. Why throw down $3200 for a camera to take snapshots of your kids and pets?

Very Highly Recommended