slr digital camera I went from a N70 SLR film camera to an F100 SLR film camera to a D70 digital SLR to now a D200 digital SLR. The F100 was perhaps the best film camera Nikon ever made, in my opinion. The D200 is the closest Nikon digital SLR to the F100 with a reasonable price.
What I like about the D200:
Fantastic build quality - magnesium alloy body with weather seals. It's not waterproof but I can expose it to the elements with little worry.
Very fast autofocusing. It's much faster and more accurate than the D70.
Beautiful LCD screen. No comparison to the D70's tiny screen.
Big and bright viewfinder. Not quite as good at my trusty old F100 but close.
In conjunction with an SB600/800, flash performance is top notch.
Built-in flash is very handy, especially when you don't want to carry around an external flash. Great for the snapshots or when you need subtle fill-flash during the day.
10.2 megapixel is nice, especially when you need to crop in post processing.
5 frames per/sec is sweet when shooting sports. I shot a series of shots of some of my students (I'm a teacher) riding a swing and jumping off towards me. Every shot was spot on focus on about 10 frame sequences.
What I don't like about the D200:
Low light/high ISO performance is not that good, especially when compared to Canon SLRs.
Can get heavy when carried for long periods of time.
The battery doesn't last as long as the D70s but that's to be expected considering the larger LCD screen.
However, with the new D80 coming out, it's hard to recommend a D200 to anyone but a serious, experienced amatuer or professional as the great majority of the useful features of the D200 will be on the D80 for a much lower price. It's won a few prestigious awards and it's considered good value for money. I've had mine since april and I love it.
In all fairness though, if you don't need the rugged build quality and the more advanced features (like the faster AF and 5 FPS vs. 3), the new Nikon D80 packs a lot of punch for $700 less. It has the same 10 mega-pixels and the same large viewfinder for example, which were two big reasons why I passed on the D70s. since im a nikon user, d200 is my 2nd dream camera (d2xs being the 1st). it'd be so cool to have it alongside my f100. they're like a pair in the same level. I have had my D200 for about five months. I have to say that it is one of the best digital camera out there. | 