Nikon D200

 

There is a lot written about this wonderful camera. Its easier for me to list what I don’t like – a much shorter list.

 

The complexity

I really like this camera, but its not perfect. It is quite complex and can be a real challenge to operate. Let me give you some perspective.

 

My Leica IIIc has 8 controls with no automation of any kind. Focus, aperture, 2 shutter dials (slow, fast), shutter release, wind, rewind release and knob – all have to be set by the user. My fully automatic Nikon F4 has 17 controls on the camera and 2 on the lens. That’s about twice as many controls for a lot of added automation. The Nikon D200 has 33 controls. That’s 30 controls on the camera body and 3 on the lens. One of my lens has 6 controls. Neither lens has an aperture ring because Nikon wants to make things “simpler”. Hmmm….

 

Some of those controls are used together – press a button and rotate the front control wheel for one thing, and the back control wheel for another. Some buttons have functions that can be changed depending on other control settings. So those 30 controls perform a lot more than 30 functions.

 

There’s also a menu system, and that where things really get complex. It has 88 menu items and I’ve lost interest in counting how many total options each of those items contains. So, 33 camera controls plus 88 menu items means you have 121 settings to keep track of. Suddenly the Nikon F4 seems like an awfully simple camera to operate.  You can see why I think the F4 is one of the best cameras of all time.

 

Since the D200 has no film, it doesn’t need film advance and rewind controls. On the Leica, 3 controls are for film advance/rewind, and today you only need one speed control knob rather than 2. That leave 4 controls on the Leica that are also on the D200. The F4 also has 3 advance/rewind controls, leaving 14 that perform non-film functions. So the score is:

 

Camera	Shooting	Film	Menus	Total
Leica IIIf	5	3	0	8
Nikon F4	16	3	0	19
Nikon D200	33	0	88	121

 

 

WOW! That a huge increase in the number of controls. Worse, I have to squint at tiny text on a LCD screen to read the settings. But that’s not the really bad part.

 

The Nikon D200 has so many settings that I simply cannot keep track of what I changed since the last shooting session. How you deal with that is a big part of how happy you’ll be with the camera. A great feature is the two-button quick reset feature. Press and hold “QUAL” and “+/-“ buttons on the top surface of the camera. They put a green dot next to each to make it easer to remember. This will reset certain common settings back to default. This insures you’ll start with a common setup, and make your changes from there.

 

The one serious flaw…

The Nikon D200 has a system for storing different setups. It’s called the “Shooting Menu Bank”. You can set it for Banks A, B, C or D. You make your changes and the camera will save those settings. If it worked well, you’d be able to switch to one of the four settings and you’d know what the camera was set for.  I tried setting A for Sports, B for still subjects, C for Macro and D for snapshots.   It turned into a big mess due to a simple, but awful flaw:

 

Any change you make while shooting is saved to that bank automatically and you can’t prevent it from doing so.

 

Worse, if you think you’re set on bank A and are actually on bank B, any changes are saved to bank B, not A. This quickly makes a big mess of the banks and they become useless. The fix is really simple and can be included on the next software update.  All Nikon need so do is put a “lock” feature on the bank menu. While they are at it, it would be nice if they would let me assign it to a button so I could quickly select it, rather than force me to go to the menu. Hey Nikon, how about selecting it with the front control wheel when I press the “Mode” button?

 

Firmware Suggestions to Nikon …

One really nice thing about electronic cameras is the ability to add feature by updating the software (called "firmware").  In fact, the latest "firmware" upgrade to Nikon D200 added two feature that I read about, but had no need for. Here's a list of feature that I believe would be easy to add, if anyone from Nikon is listening...

Timer Mirror Lock Up - When I use long lenses at long exposures, it is important to reduce vibration to prevent blur.  On my F4, I have a switch that locks the mirror in the "up" position, so I don't get mirror slap.  I use the self timer give the camera a few seconds to settle down after I take my hands off it.  But I can't do this on the D200.

The D200 uses a shooting selector switch for single shot, continuous shooting, self timer or mirror up.  In mirror-up mode, pressing the shutter release button will flip the mirror into the up position.  A second press fires the shutter and drops the mirror back down.  The problem is that my hand is on the camera when I fire the shutter, which can shake the camera.  I can't use the self timer to fire it because it is set by the same knob that sets the mirror up mode.  So I can _EITHER_ use the mirror up position _OR_ use the self timer, but not both.  I suggest Nikon solve this by adding a menu option to allow me to select "mirror up" at the beginning or end of the self timer period.  Setting it at the beginning would allow me to press the shutter button, trigger the mirror up, wait for a few seconds, then fire the shutter.  This would solve the problem for everyone.

 

More to come...