Nikon D200

Early speculation regarding the D200 indicated that the presence of a pop-up flash, and the relatively small size of the viewfinder hump, would signify a small optical system using a pentamirror instead of the superior pentaprism technology. Fortunately, this was not the case; the D200 sports a pentaprism, and a bright, large viewfinder.

 

As with many features of the D200, the viewfinder is an improvement over previous prosumer models, and an improvement made by borrowing a characteristic from the pro D2H/D2X cameras. Unfortunately, the D200 doesn't borrow every helpful characteristic: the Nikon D200 viewfinder shows only 95 percent of the final image instead of the 100 percent that the top cameras do, and though the viewing window is larger and much more comfortable than the D70’s window for users who wear glasses, it is still smaller than the viewing window on the big cameras. Further, the crop is imbalanced, primarily affecting the bottom of the composition instead of all edges of the frame evenly.

The viewfinder shows Focus, metering AF/FV lock, flash sync mode, shutter speed, aperture, exposure, exposure compensation, ISO, Exposure mode, flash exposure, frames remaining, and active autofocus area.

 

The D200's diopter ranges from -2.0 to +1.0, and its eyepoint is 19.5 mm. It shows the world at a .94x magnification (50mm lens at infinity).

LCD Screen (8.25)

Up from the 1.8-inch 118,000 pixel LCD on the D100 and 2.0-inch 130,000 pixel display on the D70s, Nikon has equipped the prosumer-oriented D200 with a 2.5-inch, 230,000 pixel low-temperature polysilicon TFT LCD screen, more like those found on their professional D2-series cameras. Colors displayed on the screen are reasonably saturated with a good deal of contrast and the size and detail of the screen make it easy to check focus.

 

Users can adjust the brightness of the display +/-2 within the Setup menu. A grayscale appears horizontally across the top of the menu to help gauge the appearance of the tonal scale in the selected illumination.  

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The rear LCD has a wide angle of view that remains visible at nearly 170 degrees to either side. The angle of view is not quite as expansive vertically, but still a strong improvement over the D70 screen.

 

Flash (9.25)
The D200's built-in flash has a guide number of 39 (in feet) at ISO 100. (For those who never had to calculate flash exposure in their heads, that's about f/4 at 10 feet.) We found its coverage to be fairly even, but our exposures as a whole at f/4 at 10 feet were a bit underexposed. The built-in flash is capable of balanced fill flash, and we expect it will see more use providing fills and acting as a trigger than as a main light source.

The D200 syncs to 1/250 – a big plus for location shooting, though we're sure that some D70 users wish it had that camera's 1/500 sync speed. The D200 offers the typical range of sync settings: front-curtain, rear-curtain, red-eye reduction, red-eye reduction with slow sync and slow sync only. In a feature our staff wedding shooter is delighted with, the D200 offers two custom settings for sync speed – first, the default sync speed can be set, so the camera defaults to 1/250, or whatever speed the user sets below that; and second, the user can set the slowest shutter speed the camera will use in aperture priority or program mode when the camera has a flash connected in slow sync mode.

The D200 offers flash exposure compensation from 3 stops below the metered exposure to 1 above in 1/3 or 1/2-stop intervals. Flash bracketing can be manually set from 2-9 EV in increments of 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, or 1 stop.

The D200 also offers iTTL control with SB-800, SB-600 or SB-R200 dedicated flashes (which can attach via the 4-pin hot shoe) as well as multi-flash control with the pop-up unit when set in Commander mode. In commander mode users can control up to 3 groups of SB-800, 600, or 200 flashes with the in-camera unit. Each group can have any number of flashes, and a 200, 600 or 800 attached directly to the camera can also act as the commander. Balanced fill flash iTTL will produce a good ambient exposure for the background and a good flash exposure for the subject with the pop-up or the 800, 600, or 200. Balanced fill activates a pre-flash for exposure measurement. It's notable that flashes older than the 800 are not invited to the party – only these three offer TTL (Through The Lens) exposure automation. This appears to be one of the major distinctions between the two leading camera manufacturers: Canon’s recent EOS models were all designed for compatibility with all EX-Speedlites.

The D200 also has a PC sync terminal, for use with non-dedicated flashes.

Lens Mount (9.0)

The D200 is fitted with Nikon’s F-mount and accepts all current Nikon lenses. The current AF G and D lenses and the AF I and S lenses allow 3D metering and autofocus. The D200 even offers manual and aperture priority exposure metering with most of Nikon's decades-old manual focus AI Nikkor lenses. Users can enter maximum aperture and focal length data for AI lenses via the D200 menus, allowing the camera to display the selected aperture.

 

The D200 will not accept most pre-AI lenses, unless they have been converted for AI. There are some unusual pre-AI lenses that the D200 will take – the Medical Nikkor, the PC Nikkor, and some reflexes.

 

Because the D200 uses an APS-format sensor, its field of view is cropped relative to 35mm form. The D200, like other Nikon DSLRs, gives a roughly 1.5x magnification over full-frame 35mm format.