Nikon D200 Digital Camera Review

The D200 features a large number of weather proof gasket seals around compartment doors and control buttons. Although this doesn’t necessarily mean that the camera is waterproof as only a few Nikkor lenses have rubber sealed mount rings, but will certainly stop some of the elements from reaching the insides of the camera.

Nikon D200 and D2X feature the same sharp 2.5 inch and 230,000 pixel LCD. Since the D2X Nikon has made some changes to the properties of this display such as anti-aliased high resolution icons and fonts as well as the usage of better colors. The result is probably the best LCD on any digital camera. The display is not anti-reflective coated and might be a little harder to read in bright conditions. The camera comes with a clip-on protective screen that doesn’t affect the image brightness or contrast. The optical viewfinder is bright and quite large with no image distortion. It also features a dioptre adjustment for those wearing glasses.
The camera features two autofocus modes: one is Normal Zone with 11 AF points intended for static subject while the other is the Wide Zone with 7 AF points for moving subjects. 
Although the D200 doesn’t feature the 12.4 megapixel sensor of the D2X, the results are above the expectations and definitely above those of its predecessor, the 6 megapixel D100. The noise reduction feature of the D200 works surprisingly even at ISO levels as high as 3200. Although the EOS 5D from Canon features a slightly better noise reduction at very high ISO levels, Nikon D200 performs as well as the professional D2X when talking about noise reduction. The performance achieved by this camera at high ISO levels as well as the vibration-reduction system allows the use of the tele end of most lenses, meaning apertures of around f/5.6 in low light conditions.

Although the camera only features four exposure modes, thus being clearly designed for power users, these modes allow for great shots, both indoors and outdoors. The camera handles perfectly almost any kind of color and lightning situations. The skin tones and saturated colors are always reproduced correctly and naturally.

Aside slight artifacts due to JPEG compression, the images yielded by the D200 have good dynamic range and exposure as well as neutral and accurate colors.

One of the most interesting and useful innovations for the professional photographers is the ability of the D200 to wirelessly control external flash units using the built-in flash, feature that can make the difference in studio photography.