: Candid Color Systems :

A recent shoot with the NEW Nikon D300

Recently, our resident football fanatic, Jack Counts, had the privilege of shooting at the Big 12 Championship game in San Antonio. As it turned out, the Sooners were not the only winners on the field that evening. The new Nikon D300 was a great tool for taking action shots and the group picture of the winning team!

The D300’s ISO goes up to 6400 making it ideal for shooting action shots during the game. The D300 is typically 6 frames per second, but can shoot up to 8 frames per second when the accessory hand grip and extra battery are attached. The D300 is a 12 megapixel camera on it highest resolution setting. This high resolution allows photographers to crop the images to create just the right picture and have plenty of pixels to make good prints. The combination of high ISO, 6 to 8 frames per second, and high resolution make the D300 a great choice for professional sports photographers.

Along with the excitement of shooting action shots during the game comes the job of taking a group picture of the winning football team with their trophy. This year, Jack used the Nikon D300 instead of the D200 it replaced. The D300, which became available in November, paired with the Nikon 12 to 24mm zoom lens and a Nikon SB800 flash handled the group picture job with ease! Shooting on automatic, ISO 800, fine compression and the file size set to large gave Jack the high resolution JPEG and great color he needed to make a great quality team picture. The 12mm setting on the wide angle lens allowed Jack to be in front of all the media there who wanted shots.

The D300 also has a huge 3” LCD on the back. This allowed for great editing during those pesky TV time-outs! The large LCD screen also allows for a “live view” which means that you can shoot using the LCD instead of the viewfinder. This was especially handy when trying to get photos after the game in a crowd of media. Jack was able to hold the camera above his head, see the image in “live view” on the LCD screen, and shoot the group picture to get a little better angle on the players.

The D300 definitely proved to be a camera suited for action sports AND group pictures when coupled with the correct equipment.

*Candid Color Systems offers great tools for pre-paid and the View First™ sports programs. We offer online proofing, online ordering, order envelopes, password cards, mailing direct to your end customer, software to print paper proofs, an amazing array of sports products, photographer order entry and over 30 years of photography experience!