After running it through its paces, I love this camera. It was definitely worth the investment. Everyone has talked about shooting at high ISOs with the D300 and D700, so I was eager to test out the D300s and wasn't disappointed. It really, really performs, especially when shooting at night. While I normally would not think of shooting at night without a tripod (and I did carry one around for some night shots), I also shot some night scenes of cafes in Paris hand-held at 800 ISO and you can zoom in at 100% and not even tell they were shot hand-held or at such a high ISO! Granted, I did shoot on continuous high mode where I was bursting off 7 or 8 shots at a time within a second or two. It was hand-held after all! But the frames that were sharp, and I only need one from each scene, are really, really sharp and generally noise-free.

I only started shooting HD video later in the trip. Frankly, I haven't gotten in the habit of shooting video yet. I need practice just to remind myself to do it! On our last night in Paris my wife and I walked from Rue Cler over to the Eiffel Tower, and ran into a big college party (so it seemed) of people on Champ de Mars including a very good Michael Jackson impersonator. I shot touristy video of it at 800 ISO, and it's actually very good. Not cinema quality of course, and the audio is poor (you can purchase in a high-end microphone to plug into the camera though) but given that the only lights available were street lights and the light coming from the Eiffel Tower it's pretty impressive that it was able to capture the moment.

Here are my custom menu settings for the Nikon D300s. Please post a comment if you have any questions about them.

Playback Menu

• Basic photo info - Highlighted all of the following: Focus point, Highlights, RGB histogram, Data

Shooting Menu

The D300s has four different banks (i.e. sets of memory settings) of shooting options: A, B, C, and D. The settings below are for the A bank. You can also give each bank a name which is really cool! I've named A "TSI Primay". These are my customizations for that bank:

• File Naming - By default files are saved as "DSC_*" for sRGB and "_DSC*" for Adobe RGB. Part of my workflow is to rename all my files after editing; however, since the D300s gives you the option of imputting your own three letters instead of "DSC" I put in "TSI" anyway. It can't hurt.
• Image Quality - RAW
• NEF (RAW) Bit Depth - Options are 12-bit (defalut) or 14-bit. From the manual:

  NEF (RAW) images are recorded at a bit-depth of 14 bits, producing files roughly 1.3 times larger than 12-bit files but increasing the color data recorded. Maximum frame advance rate falls to 2.5 fps. (emphasis added)

  What's difference in tones? 12-bit produces 4,096 tones and 14-bit produces 16,384 tones. That's a slight difference!

  I've kept my set to 12-bit for now, because I want to burst off frames as fast as possible on a tenth-of-a-second's notice. However, I plan to experiment with the 14-bit option whenever I'm shooting landscapes in the future.

• Color space - Adobe RGB - Always use this. The gamat of colors is much wider than sRGB.
• Movie settings - Quality - 1280x720 - Have have an HD camera if you don't keep it set on HD mode?
• Movie settings - Destination - SD card slot - I put all my movies on an SD card. This keeps 'em separated. Images on CF and movies on SD. This way when I import my pictures with Lightroom I don't have to go manually copy movies off the card.

Custom Setting Menu

• a: Autofocus
  • a9: Built-in AF-assist Illuminator - Off - As a travel photographer I don't want the headlight on the front of the camera to come on when I'm photographing, especially in places like museums or subways. I also keep this off because I've had the light come on in the past when shooting wildlife photography.
• b: Metering/exposure - No changes
• c: Timers/AE lock - No changes
• d: Shooting/display
  • d1: Beep - Off!
  • d2: Viewfinder grid display - On
• e: Bracketing/flash
  • e1: Flash Sync Speed - 1/320s (Auto FP) - There is no reason not to select this as long as you are using Nikon speedlights.
  • e2: Flash Shutter Speed - From the manual:

    This option determines the slowest shutter speed available when using front- or rear-curtain sync or red-eye reduction in programmed auto or aperature-priority auto exposure modes...

    It defaults to 1/60s! I set this to the max, 30 seconds. If I want to use a really long exposure and then let rear-curtain sync freeze the action, then I don't want this setting slowing me down. Note that when you're in shutter-priority this setting is by-passed anyway; however, I usually shoot in aperture-priority and I don't want to have to think about switching modes when doing a blurred motion shot.
  • e3: Flash Cntrl for Built-in Flash - I normally keep this in TTL mode; however to setup the camera I put it in Commander mode and set it to channel 3 and then set it back to TTL. I often using an SB-600 as one of my off-camera flashes, and the camera must be on channel 3 in order to fire the SB-600 remotely. Also, while I'm in there I change the built-in flash from "TTL" to "---". This turns it off so that it is acting only as a commander and not as a flash.
  • e7: Bracketing order - I change this "Under > MTR > over". It's more logical to me than "MTR > under > over" and also when editing the shots in Lightroom I want to see the exposures in natural, progressive exposure compensation order.
• f: Controls
  • f1: (Light bulb icon) Switch - This setting is new to me. By default with any Nikon DSLR when you rotate the power switch to the light bulb position it illuminates the control panel. This setting allows you to also have it display shooting information on the monitor. It sounds cool for photographing at night. I also often find myself with the camera raised on a tripod so high that I can't see the control panel. This should help resolve that problem as well.
  • f2: Multi-selector Center Button - Playback Mode: View histograms - GREAT SETTING! - By default when you're in playback mode viewing your images, if you press the center button on the multi-selector it puts you in thumbnail mode. This is stupid because you could just press the Thumbnail button on the other side of the LCD to achieve the same effect. However, what is COOL is that you can set it to display a very large histogram overlaid on top of your image instead! Press to display histogram to check your exposure. Release to have it go away!
  • f5: Assign Fn button - FV lock - You should set this to something! Because by default it is set to do nothing. I set it to "FV lock" which locks the last recorded flash value until the button is pressed again. I've taken this tip from Joe McNally's The Hot Shoe Diaries, page 23, where is says:

    But, if you wanna get brass tacks about your flash output, and you make a frame you really like, and the value is dead bang on, a good move is to program the function button so that with a middle finger tap, you enable flash value (FV) lock. Tap the button, and the flash will no longer shift in output. It will stay locked, right there, until you tap the button again. ... FV lock quenches the pre-flash. With FV lock enabled, you get one flash--the exposure-making flash--and that's it.

    The advantage of shutting-out the pre-flash is that some people's eyelids will shut in between the milliseconds of the pre-flash firing and the flash going off.
  • f7: Assign AE-AF-L button - I change this setting from "AE/AF lock" to "AE lock only". I want the button to do one thing only. I can lock the focus when I want by keeping the shutter button half-pressed. I don't need the button to do that for me. If I meter a scene and then recompose, especially when spot metering, I want to be able to press this button to lock only the exposure and then recompose, refocus if needed, and then take the shot. As soon as I let up off the button, the locked-in exposure goes away and the meter is re-exposing again. This setting is very important for how I work with the camera.
  • f10: No memory card? - CHANGE THIS SETTING!!! It defaults to "OK: Enable release" which allows you to fire the shutter with no memory card in the camera! I've tested it, and it at least shows the image on LCD after every shot with "DEMO" in red in the upper left corner. Even still, I don't want to take the chance. Plus, if a family member picks up your camera to photograph the dog are they going to know it's not really taking pictures? Set it to "LOCK: Release locked".

Setup Menu

• Time zone and date - Obviously, set this.
• Image comment - I used to put my copyright information in this field automatically on every shot, but now that be set with a separate setting, see below. In the comment field I put my domain name and Google Voice phone number. (I'm now using a Google Voice number as my business number. In theory, it will act similar to a domain name in that I can redirect it in the future to different cell and office numbers as those numbers change in the future.) Be sure to check mark "Attach comment" and then select Done in order for the comment to be written to every image.
• Battery info - Nothing to change here, but view this screen as it's really neat and useful.
• Copyright Information - SET THIS ON YOUR CAMERA!!!! - There are separate text fields for Artist and Copyright. I set artist to "Terry Smith Images" and copyright to "Copyright Terry Smith". Be sure to check mark "Attach copyright information" and then select Done and press OK.
• Virtual horizon - A built-in level! There's nothing to change here, but look at the screen and get familiar with it because it's neat.

Retouch Menu

• Cameras are optimized for taking pictures. Image processing software is optimized for editing software. Don't modify your pictures in the camera.

My Menu

This is worth doing. Customize your own menu by adding in the things you change the most. Here's what is in my My Menu:

• e3 Flash cntrl for built-in flash - Allows me to quickly change the built-in between TTL and Commander modes (or Manual or Repeating flash).
• Commander mode - This is neat. You can add the submenu of the above setting to your My Menu as well. This allows me to go straight into the Commander menu and set the exposure compensation for Group A and Group B when working with off-camera flashes, something I do VERY FREQUENTLY. It's great to have a short-cut for it.
• c3 Self-timer - Shortcut for changing the length of the timer: 2s, 5s, 10s, or 20s.
• Multiple exposure - Shortcut to multiple exposure mode.