[Extremely inflammable] The Nikon D2H

Some things I want to mention to avoid anyone repeating them for me:

1. My lack of experience with pro-bodies.
2. My lack of experience with Nikon bodies.
3. My lack of time spent with the current set up.

I have currently obtained a Nikon D2H, and two lenses - Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 APO HSM, Tamron 28-75 f/2.8. It's not mine and I have received it only to shoot a Basketball game tomorrow.

I had the choice of going for the 70-200 f/2.8L on my XTi or a 30D, but I chose the Nikon combo out of sheer curiosity and excitement.

Needless to say, as soon as I handled the camera, my XTi nurtured senses were blown away by every single thing about the camera. The quick AF/ the sheer number of options for everything/the solid feel/the direct access buttons and knobs all over the body etc.

But it all died when I shot a few pictures. I know there are a lot of controls and lot of settings to be tweaked, and I shot only high ISO 800/1600 since I'm gonna be shooting ISO 1600 tomorrow, but I still was a little underwhelmed with the results.

Conclusions:
1. I have some way to go before I can extract decent results from a pro cam. (Like driving an F1 car when you're used to your m3, you'll just stall it).
2. Maybe the high ISO performance on the D2H is worse than my 400D ?
3. A pro cam spoils you with so many features and crisp AF that I can't imagine the AF on my XTi + 18-55 IS

Before you guys start flaming me or asking the point of this thread, I just want to know if I'm missing something here? Are the high IO images supposed to be like that? I know it gives the camera character, but its kind of hard to accept that this was Nikon's flagship till the D3 generation came along.

I'm not Nikon bashing, I'm not calling the camera bad, because I know I fall short on so many levels, but I just get so much better images out of my XTi.

I'll post my updated view on this tomorrow when I come back from the basketball game.


Oh and before anyone calls me names, I'm a jackass, there ha-ha I took your pleasure away :p

Well, I don't know how to respond, because I've never shot Nikons. However, the lore goes that until this year Nikon bodies weren't very good at higher ISOs.

That being said, the challenge of shooting in higher ISOs is to nail a good exposure. If you can't do that, you'll tend to be a bit hosed with any camera, it's just that until recently Canon cameras had better high ISO performance than Nikons.

Realistically, the D2H is more than just 1 generation behind the D3, and it certainly wasn't the flagship until the D3 came along. Our main body where I work is a D2X, and although I feel that both my 1D MkIIN and 5D beat it in high-ISO noise performance, it's still far beyond what the D2H was capable of. To respond to your conclusions:

1. Using a pro-level body might have a little bit steeper of a learning curve, but unless you're consistently underexposing your photos, your disappointment with the camera's high-ISO noise is a result of the shortcomings of that camera, not your ability.

2. This is very possible, and I think it's likely. The D2H has several factors working against it:
-It's older technology than your XTi
-up until the most recent generation of cameras, Canon has had the edge in low noise
-digital camera technology has been increasing rapidly

It's not unreasonable to expect that the newer entry/mid level cameras will outperform the older pro level cameras in some ways, and in this case, I really would not doubt that your XTi has less noise at high ISO than the D2H. Granted, the D2H will probably blow away the Xti in most everything else, especially autofocus and build quality

3. See above.

I'd say that if you were shooting in good lighting conditions (and the D2H's relatively low resolution was sufficient for you), you'd be much happier with the D2H. Unfortunately for you, the fact that you're shooting in low light is going to expose the camera's biggest shortcoming. I wouldn't let this ruin your expectations about pro-level bodies, though; everything Canon and Nikon have come out with in their pro range since then has been much better in low light. You could even go back a generation from the current cameras to the 1D MkII or the D2X and you'd see a pretty significant improvement over the D2H.

Are you saying the camera caught on fire? That would be a problem.

Kidding aside, there are probably two issues:
1. The D2H is a CCD camera and the Nikon CCD cameras were not well respected for handling high ISO. I would not pick a CCD Nikon to shoot indoor sports.
2. It is possible that your skill set wasn't good enough to get great results from the camera. You really cannot afford to underexpose at all with a CCD Nikon. Were you tweaking the exposures in post at all?

You might try going here and see if someone there can give you some help.

Thanks for the opinions guys.

Its not mine and I do not plan to buy a pro body in the immediately near future.

The thing is that the images I'm getting aren't underexposed, they're exposed right, its just that they're not "good quality" images.

I'll post up some sample pics along with the game pics when I'm back from the Basketball shoot today.

But yes, your replies indicate that I'm mostly correct in my assessment and indeed wasn't missing anything.

DChemist: You want me to go to an airport terminal and shout it's not a 70-200, its a bomb?! LOL!

I'm in love. Pics coming soon.