Full Review

I purchased the D200 with the 18-200 combo in October of 2006. I started shooting with the enthusiasm that comes with new equipment however I was feeling disappointed with the results. It seemed that even in daylight conditions I was getting soft images regardless of distance. I was told by my full time photographer at work that it was probably just me and that I wasn't used to a camera that wasn't doing the work for me. For the longest time and I read the manuals and tried many combinations of settings in camera. I am used to working in raw and tried both Nikon's raw editor and Adobes in CS2 Pro. The best I could get was taking an OK image and making it good. I was getting better end results from my Nikon Coolpix 5400 and Olympus c8080w and even after processing the d200's images I could not match the quality of the lower end cameras. I love the feel of the D200 but the quality has been killing me and I kept thinking it was something I was doing. I just went on a trip to Texas and my friend from Eureka who is also an avid photographer told me he was having identical issues with his D20 till he sent it to Nikon and had it fixed and it came back giving tack sharp images. During the trip I took a shot outside a hotel of a classic 1960's motorcycle from 4ft in daylight at 250 and f11 and at about 28mm. The result was a soft focus image. I didn't take the camera out of the bag again on the trip. I brought it to my photographer at work and asked him to take this camera and shoot with it like it was your camera. We work for the design group of a major Car manufacturer and his job is to shoot the prototypes and products. He tried my camera in his studio under pristine conditions using flash, soft boxes mounted flat work and tripod mounted camera and he came back to me and said send it to Nikon. I have read so many forums regarding the soft focus. In most of these the comments are that the poster does not understand raw or does not use tripod mounting or maybe is shooting at 200m handheld or that maybe they are just not used to a real digital SLR. The problem is that this soft focus issue is real with the D200 and I am sure not with all D200's but none the less real, I have one. I hope that Nikon is able to correct this. I bought my first Nikon at 13 with hard earned lawn money and a 300m lens and have been a Nikon fan since. This camera problem is unacceptable though for the $2500.00 it cost to get into it.

I have owned Nikon and Canon SLR's and also own a coolpix 5400 and Olympus c8080w Digital (non slr).

The pros of the Nikon are:
*Great battery life (same with my 5400)
*Good feel and solidly built
*Very fast startup makes missing shots hard
*Quiet zoom and operation
*very nice large rear display
*custom menus are easily set and used

Cons are few:
*price is a bit high for quality increase over lower models
*Definitely check for soft focus before buying
*Manual does not talk about mirror lockup for long exposures. Manual only shows mirror lock function for cleaning even though it offers it for the long exposures also.
*remote cable feels like you are forcing it to get it in or out.
*cable caps on front and side of camera are too small and hard to manipulate.