Here is a comparison for a landscape image, shot earlier in 2008 in Yosemite National Park.

NX camera standard

LR Camera Standard

NX Neutral

LR Neutral

NX Vivid

LR Vivid

NX D2X Mode1

LR D2x Mode 1

NX D2X Mode 2

LR D2x Mode 2

NX D2x Mode 3

LR D2x Mode 3

LR Landscape

My verdict. It is very close again. I really do not see much difference in using either LR and NX now.

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I have uploaded photos to my blog and gallery.

Gallery:

- Juneau
- Whale watching
- Sitka Ferry
- Sitka

Panoramas:

- Whale flip 1
- Whale flip 2
- Whale flip 3
- Juneau ferries and mountains
- Mountains of Juneau

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Yes, it makes a huge difference.

First, the photo edited through LR with the default settings:

Edited through lightroom:

The same photo edited through Capture NX with default settings:

Edited through Capture NX.

Capture NX and D300 handle high contrast scenes very very well with Active D-Lighting set to on.

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Check out the following posts.

http://blog.anands.net/index.php?showimage=565
http://blog.anands.net/index.php?showimage=564
http://blog.anands.net/index.php?showimage=563
http://blog.anands.net/index.php?showimage=562
http://blog.anands.net/index.php?showimage=561

I used AF-C and dynamic area AF / Auto Area AF for these shots with a 70-200 VR and 1.7 TC. I had great light, but that lens + TC combination is not the fastest focusing kit.

I shot about 600 exposures at 6-8 fps over a 20 min period. I was stunned to find 500+ in focus exposures.

I touched upon this a little bit in the d80 comparison post, but I had the most luck when I left the camera handle all the decisions for itself.

D300 totally rocks!

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Here is the same ISO 800 image edited in NX and LR adjusted only for contrast. Click on the images for bigger sized photos.

1. Default noise reduction

Edited in Adobe LightRoom without additional noise reduction

Edited in Capture NX without additional noise reduction

Adobe LightRoom 100% crop

Nikon Capture NX 100% crop

IMO, Capture NX is way better out of the box.

2. Increasing Noise Reduction in Adobe Lightroom

Adobe LightRoom edited photo after adjusting Luminance NR and sharpening

LightRoom 100% crop after tweaking Noise Reduction in LightRoom

3. Images edited with no sharpening and no noise reduction

Adobe Lightroom, no sharpening, no noise reduction

Capture NX, no sharpening, no noise reduction

Adobe Lightroom, no noise reduction, no sharpening, 100% crop

Capture NX, no sharpening, no noise reduction, 100% crop

4. Photos edited with just Sharpening turned off

Adobe lightroom, no sharpening, extra noise reduction

Capture NX, no sharpening, default noise reduction

Adobe Lightroom no sharpening, extra NR, 100% crop

Capture NX, no sharpening, default NR, 100% crop

IMO, Capture NX delivers much better image quality in every possible setting.

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These are 3 examples of how the auto-AF nails off center subjects without a single problem at all.

Absolutely no problems whatsoever. Thom says D300 uses the skin tones to figure out where humans are, in my case using Auto-area AF and Single Servo so I know which sensors it is picking, I was stunned to see it picked the right sensors based on skin and eye location EACH time.

I have examples of 2 off-center subjects [don't have model releases ], but they were at the edge of the screen. Auto-area AF nails the focus plane between them, not the center wall through them.

I can’t stop going gaga over this. With the D80, I was either using focus recompose [kid moves] or outer sensor [focus hunts], so I would miss a lot of these shots. Not anymore. Not anymore.

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