Well the D200 I have been craving finally landed on my doorstep yesterday. Love the feel of the camera in my hand with and without the MB D200 attached. Can't wait to give it a real test. Just thought I ask you other D200 users what you thought of yours and what differences or quirks you might have encountered.

Congrats on the new camera. I got mine back in December and am enjoying it as well. I came from the Canon side of things as I used several of their semi and pro bodies over the previous decade. I have found the Nikon has superior metering, flash functionality as well as all around superior ergonomics. Everything is a button push or twist away, unlike some that require you enter and mess with a menu. The build indeed is superb....like a rock. The LCD they use is simply the BEST! It is a serious pro tool make no mistake about it. Read the book but do get out and USE it in all ways possible. I highly recommend their 70-300vr lens....it is a STEAL. Great optically and build wise. I chose a Tamron 17-50 f2.8 XR DI instead of the Nikon equivalent as it performed every bit as well without the price (about $435 vs. $1200). Just enjoy.....I know you will

I absolutely adore mine. Both of them (soon to be three, actually). I've been adoring them since launch, and I have never hesitated to recommend it.

When I do critical tripod work (macro or night shots) with the body as the tripod mount point, I remove the MB-D200 for stability reasons, but otherwise it is a great addition.

If you're going to have a set of AA batteries for the MS-D200 battery tray for backup (which I whole-heartedly sugggest) make sure you set the right type for MB-D200 battery type in the menus. It automatically detects EN-EL3E versus the tray so you don't have to set it every time. I would suggest that if you do keep it around for backup (the D200 is a bit of a battery hog compared to the D70/50 and the like) that you use NiMH AA rechargeables, 2300MAH or higher.

The autofocus sections of the menus are complex, but since you have the D2H many of the options should be more or less the same.

I generally shoot color mode III (sRGB) to eliminate some post processing especially for web. You might want to shoot with sharpening at Normal or +1 to compensate for the stronger anti-aliasing filter versus the D70/50 and company.

Another difference is the higher pixel density means that you might need a slightly higher shutter speed to hold off camera shake than you're used to at the moment, plus the base ISO of 100 might mess with your mental calculations since you're used to 200 on digital... but that should go away very quickly. Just something to try and watch out for.

The best thing you've got coming IMHO is the updated Auto ISO feature- it's way better than anything before it. You can set a maximum ISO of 200, 400, 800, or 1600, and a minimum shutter speed (for P and A modes), while in S mode the minimum speed will be your shutter speed and it will increase ISO once the aperture is wide open, and in M mode you pick your shutter and aperture, and the ISO will vary as necessary (within limits obviously, if it'd be overexposed at ISO 100 you need to change one of them).

Enjoy it!

Thanks Harrison and dcisive. I appreciate your taking the time to respond and to be so thorough with you responses. I was wondering about the battery life. The D70 is great as far as power consumption is concerned so I'll need to be careful. The auto focus menus don't worry me much, I've had a couple of years to get use to that kind of thing with the D2H. Thanks again for the tips.

Congratulations on the new D200. Like Harrison, I absolutely love mine. I just keep rotating batteries between shoots and make sure they are kept recharged. Seems to work so far. Harrison's advice is always easier to take while reading. He normally speaks at warp factor 12 and has your camera adjusted for you before you can even fingure out what part of your glasses to look through, so you can see what he is talking about. A colleague of mine and I always have to be ready with duct tape when we ask him for help,

Enjoy the new toy.

Thanks Michael. I am concerned about battery life and that has not be a concern in the past. However I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I agree Harrison does have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Nikon. I could read the manual till my head hurt and not get as much as he told me in a couple of paragraphs.

Boy Larry, I am guessing you have probably owned at one time or another 80% of Nikon's line up.
Can't wait to see a pic of you with that bad boy and the photographs you'll take with it.
Brian
:thumbsup:

Congratulation, Larry. I was saving up for a d200 when the d80 came out and I went for it and love it but once in a while wish I'd just saved up a bit longer for d200 mostly for the time lapse capability.
Happy shooting!

Well the D200 I have been craving finally landed on my doorstep yesterday. Love the feel of the camera in my hand with and without the MB D200 attached. Can't wait to give it a real test. Just thought I ask you other D200 users what you thought of yours and what differences or quirks you might have encountered.

I've had my D200 for a year now. It marked the end of film for me. The D70 was nice but it just couldn't handle some lighting situations. The D200 is almost perfect.

About battery life - check out the item in the menu which tells you what % of the battery you've used and in how many shots. It's very reassuring, especially with the MB200 where you can see the status of both batteries.

Do check out the custom menu settings. You can have (and name) 4 presets with all of your personal parameters set up for different situations and you just switch from one to another without having to change the ISO, light balance, etc.

The JPG's from the D200 are actually pretty good but I always shoot RAW and process it in Nikon Capture. The results are amazing. Last weekend I shot an event at 1600 ISO converted to black and white and on an A3 print it looks like FP4 24x36 film. Don't put your RAW files through a 3rd party RAW converter like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro which just don't do it justice.

Charles

Thanks more great advice and ideas. I got a chance to release the shutter about 400 times this weekend and I am very pleased at this point. I am as happy with this camera as any Nikon I have ever owned at the point in our relationship. Can't wait to post a few and get some reactions.

It's an invasion!
I ordered mine last Thursday and it got Monday. I also bought the tamron 17-50 lens.
The reason I got a new camera is because the D70 meter bit the dust. I hope nikon will fix it for free. Anyway I almost settled on the D80 (camera + lens for the price of D200 body) and even considered the D 50. But you know I just hate pressing the shutter and nothing happens, Or the shutter goes off and I get a bad exposure. So i bit the bullet and got a camera thats "fast" and "accurate".
So OT Id like to know how it handles compared to the d2hs.
About the lens choice I love my 18-70 nikon, But several times in low light it failed to focus fast enough to catch the action. So I've been waiting for an excuse to buy the tamron 17-50.:p
From what I've seen so far it may not be a good lens for nature/landscapes due to fringing and soft focus at the edges of the image, but I haven't done any diffinitive tests.
I do think that it is going to be a great lens for indoor low light event photos.
Heres a shot That shows the center sharpness. Its a little less than 100 % crop and sharpened a little, I was trying to reproduce it here as I see it.
The soft edges and fringing are not deal breakers for me.
Larry, I've been waiting a long time to see some images posted so c'mon man!:D
Mark.
OOPS. the first image is the orig shot, 2nd is cropped and sharpened.