Blog

Using the Nikon D200 Alongside Modern Cameras

Introduction

I’ve continued to use the venerable Nikon D200 camera alongside the latest technology in 2024 and will continue to use it along side other great cameras of yesteryear. I have been using this camera for a few years now, following recommendation from a friend. I wanted to share some pictures from the last few years that inspire me to continue using this CCD colour king. If you read the very first blog post I made on this camera, you will know I value this classic body for it’s CCD sensor alongside it’s strict Colour Filter Array (CFA) which follows strict colour discrimination which produces naturally vibrant and colourful images out of the box, without oversaturating individual colours and hues. This allows for an overall very organic, ‘filmic’ looking output with sublime skin tones that I enjoy to this day. In fact, I’d go as far to say that with the right conditions and lens, I sometimes prefer the initial output from the Nikon D200 to other cameras, and contrary to some opinion, find it difficult to get a D200 ‘look’ from other cameras. Knowing how to use the D200 to get the best out of it is another matter, so we will explore that here along with some other tips and tricks. This will also be a bit of a ramble. Most people do not perceive, or seem to care much about colour in digital photography. As long as the sky is blue and the grass is green (no matter what shade or hue of blue and green that is), most people simply don't care one bit. Nobody cares, because if the camera they grab to shoot with has the sky coming out blue, with the grass remaining green, and caucasian people are not Alien-green, and skin colours somewhat resemble close to real life, they are happy. I think that colour is important in photography and I have noticed a couple of things about cameras that do colour well. Read the first article I wrote about the Nikon D200 here.

Nikon D200 with 18-55 Zoom — The Quiraing in dappled light, Nikon D200 and 18-55 Zoom. A one shot image with careful exposure.

The D200 CCD Sensor

The 10 Megapixel CCD sensor found within the D200 has some interesting characteristics. 10 MP is considered very low by today’s standards - however for most work I have to ask why people think like this. Nine times out of ten, I’d imagine most people buy the marketing koolaid. “You aren’t a man if you don’t shoot 45 megapixels!” However, consider that most do not print now, and most simply display images on tiny phone screens, so I ask again, why do we really need 45-60MP bodies? I say this as a user of such bodies. I have no choice in the matter if I want a modern, high dynamic range camera with all the bells and whistles that provides. I would say 36MP is the limit I would ever require, but hey, what do I know. The D200 sensor is a CCD technology, mostly phased out for the cheaper CMOS design found in most digital cameras these days, which offers better high ISO capability (and it does). The D200 sensor falls apart at high ISO, and I simply wouldn’t use it for such. You should be aware, the D200 sensor has quite a thick anti-aliasing filter. Because of this, it really benefits from using nice and sharp lenses, though as I will show, combined with some lens attributes / optical imperfections, one can use this to their own advantage to create a very specific look to the resulting pictures.

Nikon D200 Colour — D200 with 85/1.4 Sigma Art. Shot in JPG. (A friend’s shot)

The above picture of my friend’s son demonstrates beautifully what I am speaking about when it comes to colour reproduction and skin tones. This is an impromptu picture which was shot in JPG image format, (it probably needs a little cropped off the bottom). Here we can see beautiful colour reproduction out of the box: so many modern cameras fail in this regard and I guess I didn’t notice how bad they do as I tend to shoot RAW nearly all the time for professional work. This shot could easily be further processed and dodged and burned for even more dramatic effect of this little moment captured. And how nice is this portrait too? It is so rich, doesn’t feel digital at all, and has beautiful skin tone reproduction. The subtle changes of red - orange hues in the skin tones are picked up beautifully here. The subtle red hue of the top is picked up beautifully. Some cameras struggle with basic colour reproduction such as this; red tones are pushed to orange, golden colours, skewed to yellows to name a few. Some of my modern CMOS camera’s really have issue with red colours especially in lowered light. My D810 changes red neon signs to orange every time. Even although the high ISO ability of the D200 is much poorer, I found it doesn’t do this sort of colour skewing that my eyes have become accustomed to seeing. As mentioned, this is a straight out of camera shot too! Hold that thought.

Colour Filter Array

In digital imaging, a colour filter array (CFA), is a mosaic of tiny colour filters placed over the pixel sensors of an image sensor to capture colour information. Without such a filter in the imaging chain, the sensor is not able to ‘see’ the differing wavelengths of light, and thus would not be able to produce an eventual colour image. The illustration shows a Bayer colour filter array typical in many digital camera sensor designs. Each two-by-two submosaic contains 2 green, 1 blue, and 1 red filter, each filter covering one pixel sensor. (You can see therefore, that natively some sensors capture more green wavelengths of light easier - this sometimes presents itself as a problem when processing deep sky images - there’s more green to deal with). The colour filters filter the light by wavelength range, such that the separate filtered intensities include information about the colour of light. For example, the Bayer filter gives information about the intensity of light in red, green, and blue (RGB) wavelength regions. The raw image data captured by the image sensor is then converted to a full-colour image (with intensities of all three primary colours represented at each pixel) by a demosaicing algorithm which is tailored for each type of colour filter. The old CFA's were clearly built to prioritize colour fidelity at base ISO, whereas, at least in the initial generation of high megapixel sensors, they seem to have been weakened to let more light pass, to allow those sensors to achieve better high iso capability. This I feel may have affected their native colour output, compared to bodies like the D200, D60, D40, which had strict CFAs and CCD sensors which borrowed the kodak colour recipe from the film days. Modern CMOS image sensors tend to have smaller pixels (to increase resolution and reduce optics weight, volume and cost) and thus. less light gathering capability per pixel. A "weaker" CFA is used to partially compensate this. Do the same with a CCD and you will also get "weak colors." So the point is, the CFA is extremely crucial here in the imaging chain. There are plenty of CCD sensors that produce subjectively bad colour. This is where people go wrong with this CCD thing. It’s the CFA that has probably the largest say in the colour discrimination from the sensor and it just so happens to be that CFA’s a the advent of digital technology were more strict then some found in more modern tech. BSI CMOS has basically erased the light gathering advantage CCD sensors enjoyed years ago when FSI CMOS sensor circuitry still blocked part of the pixel. Although the sensor itself is monochromatic, the colour depends on more than just the CFA. There's an interpolation step required to convert the 4 measured RGBG pixels into native colour after which a 3x3 color correction matrix produces sRGB.

A weak CFA over CCD can and will indeed suffer the same color problems as a weak CFA over CMOS.

Sensor Colour Response - SMI

From DXOMark - “The sensitivity metamerism index (SMI) is defined in the ISO standard 17321 and describes the ability of a camera to reproduce accurate colors. Digital processing permits changing color rendering at will, but whether the camera can or cannot exactly and accurately reproduce the scene colors is intrinsic to the sensor response and independent of the raw converter.

The underlying physics is that a sensor can distinguish exactly the same colors as the average human eye, if and only if the spectral responses of the sensor can be obtained by a linear combination of the eye cone responses. These conditions are called Luther-Ives conditions, and in practice, these never occur. There are objects that a sensor sees as having certain colors, while the eye sees the same objects differently, and the reverse is also true.

SMI is an index quantifying this property, and is represented by a number lower than 100 (negative values are possible). A value equal to 100 is perfect color accuracy, and is only attained when Luther-Ives conditions hold (which, as previously stated, never happens in practice). A value of 50 is the difference in color between a daylight illuminant and an illuminant generated by fluorescent tubes, which is considered a moderate error.”

NB: SMI depends more on CFA selectivity and AA strength than other sensor parameters, and since newer cameras with more pixels can do with weaker AAs, they can be a little less precise at handling colour in this regard.

Nikon D200 SMI Colour Response in Daylight. Courtesy of DXOMark.

Sensitivity metamerism index, or SMI, is essentially a measure of how well a specific camera under test lighting can reproduce the colour checker colour set. To give you an idea, under testing many phones sit around 40-50 in their SMI score out of 100, which is pretty low. Larger sensor cameras, aka DSLR’s and mirrorless designs tend to be much better, They start around 75 and go up. Scores in the 80s tend to be very good indicators of ‘good’ colour reproduction. Cameras valued for good color typically have high SMI values, while those known for poor color usually have low numbers. But not always. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some photographers feel that their older cameras deliver better colour than their newer ones (of course, a subjective quality regarding colour). In our colour images, it can be valuable to have a camera that is able to accurately pick up all the subtle tones and hues of individual colours, without oversaturating any of them like some other cameras do (new and old, I might add). This would be like someone noticing their camera did not saturate individual colours well in a scene, and another remarking that they could just turn up the saturation in post processing. However, in doing so, colours over-saturate before the more subtle colours saturate properly. That said, I mostly just go by look though in these matters. This stands to reason, because when I first picked up the D200 to shoot with it I immediately noticed what my buddy was saying. This is despite having a lot of cameras under my belt and using the latest cameras for landscape photography, astrophotography and other genres.

Let’s have a look at the DXOMark data on colour for the D200 camera. What we are looking at here is the daylight response to colour reproduction (CIE-D50) Click to see a larger view, or pinch zoom if on a mobile over the data. The D200 scores very highly, at 84 in this metric. Compare that to another body, not known for it’s colour reproduction quality - the D600. Note that it is scoring notably lower from the testing procedure at 77. Actually, the two Nikon cameras that top DXO's list for highest color SMI are the D40 and D60 which both scored 85 and 84 respectively for CIE-D50 and CIE-A. The only downside is they are very old bodies now and come with a worse autofocus system, and less bells and whistles than the D200 provides. They are definitely not built like the D200 either.

Nikon D600 SMI Colour Response in Daylight. Courtesy of DXOmark.

See here to find the full details on the ISO International Standard for Camera Colour ISO 17321-1. Feel free to look up SMI figures for colour for other cameras. Generally, the trend is, the lower that number, the worse it’s out of the box colour tends to be for the particular body under investigation. Curiously though, things have gotten interesting recently. At the advent of modern high megapixel cameras such as the D800, D810 and D850, there was a slight drop in colour performance if we look at this metric. For example the D800 took a notable hit at 78 on the SMI scale. The D850 scored a slightly better 79. The Z7 mirrorless reached 82, and now the Z8 I own got an 83! Only one point less than my beloved D200. However, as I wanted to describe, it is important to not just attribute colour performance to one number. The Z8 colour is very different to the D200 in the way it’s colours present. Different is the best adjective here. Neither is better, it really becomes a personal preference. This is indeed another point that I would make. I have realised that I am someone that loves to shoot different cameras, also for the experience in itself. To me, every sensor ‘draws’ differently. So even cameras that I have stated have ‘poorer’ colour than the D200, such as the D800, I love to use because I still like their output, for other reasons. It becomes a tool to task, or what I want to create type of thing. With regards to the D200, it does feel very film like in it’s reproduction. The colours feel older school, the thick AA filter mutes some detail too, the skin tones are gorgeous. The effect is, the D200 really feels like a digital-film camera hybrid to me in comparison to the modern technology. It is noted that the D200 can individually pickup and discriminate all the subtle hue changes and saturations of individual colours in an image. In trying to emulate what the D200 does natively with other cameras, tends to make particular colours go ‘nuclear’ with oversaturation, whilst trying to properly saturate the weaker colours in the image. I have noticed this over and over.

There are some problems with SMI, and using it in isolation:

As a statistical measure, it only gives us an average and doesn’t tell us about the distribution of errors.
If they only use the ColorChecker 18 color chart, then this is an amazingly poor sample. Really, there should be a better methodology using far more colors. What I find surprising is that manufacturers can’t even get these 18 colors right.
There could be a potential problem of them ‘gaming the system’ where manufacturers only work on getting those 18 colors right, ignoring the others, giving a deceivingly high SMI number. This is a big problem with artificial illuminants such as fluorescent and LED lamps, which are often designed to delver a high Color Rendering Index even though they still have poor spectra — and the CRI test is even worse than SMI, using only 8 sample colors. Lamp manufacturers lately rejected the use of the full ColorChecker chart, which is rather distressing.
I’m not to sure how good CIELab is as a color distance metric, although it is far better than Euclidian RGB distance.
This does not take ease of re-touchability of colors into account, which is related to color depth. High color depth does not mean that the colors are correct, but it does make them more correctable in post processing.

Looking at this in a bit more detail with a test scene, it all looks similar until we take a closer look. It proves the point that this isn’t really about CCD vs CMOS. It is more about, which camera has the stricter CFA with that sensor. Look at the D200 colours, then for example the D300 example below it. Green crayon, third from the left, look at the wrapper. It’s barely saturated compared to the D200 image. Same with the purple crayon wrapper near the centre. The D200 shows the subtle saturation of the hue, whereas the D200 shows a very washed out tone in comparison. This is true of many of the other colours shown here. Note that only the D200 has a CCD sensor here. The Canon 5D does well in this comparison because it appears to have a much stricter CFA than the D2XS or the D300, despite having a CMOS sensor.

Canon 5D - CMOS with strict CFA, D2XS, CMOS weak CFA, D200 CCD, strong CFA, D300, CMOS, weak CFA. Image used with permission courtesy of Imaging Resource.

In the above scene, there is a subtle but noticeable colour difference; a ‘when you see it’ type of thing. The M240 image is on the left side. The Leica M9 CCD sensor with strict CFA is on the right. Here the author can't match the M9's rich rendering of the purple vine because the green foliage of the M240 image would go nuclear if he did. Yet we can see the strong saturation applied to bring the M240 image closer to the M9 has already unnaturally overcooked the weaker colors in the M240 walkway, yet it still doesn’t match it. Only the M9 seems to preserve the full dynamic color range of the scene. Also note that the M9 image shows more shadow detail in the gate than the image from the M240, despite still being a punchier, more contrasty image. You might look at this and think oh I see it but it’s subtle. However I see it across other colours too. Many cameras skew reds to orange, and golds to yellows, as well as undersaturating them, which is even worse.

Have a look at this image from dpreview.com : https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/53185762?image=0

Here we can see four CMOS cameras. The D700 by far pulls out the gold tones the best. The D800 really skews this hue to yellow. The D700 has a much stricter CFA than the D800 does.

How To Get the Best from the D200

To get the best from the D200, and considering that it is an older body and sensor in terms of digital tech, we need to understand the nature of light is noisy. The inherent nature of light is such that in anything but the brightest sunlight, light comes bundled along with ample amounts of noise. Most of that noise is located within the shadow regions of course, but not all of it resides there, depending on the conditions. We don’t see any of this however, as our visual system is not evolved to require to see or care about this, however it is the reality. (Consider that the noise present along with light is different from shot noise, which is the noise generated in capturing and processing the signal within the sensor and associated tech, essentially the noise generated from the electronics within the camera). Why am I labouring so much on the basic physics of light here? Because it is crucial to understand this, and to realise that the best way to deal with the D200, or any camera is to properly expose to the right. Ensure that everything is pushed as far to the right wall of the histogram before overexposure occurs, for the best overall fidelity. (This is tricky in some ways, and sometimes you might have to bracket exposures). In addition, the second layer of complexity comes about when we realise that the histogram on the back of the camera is built from a jpg preview - meaning it is a rough guess of the actual RAW data at best. It is however, all we have got, and with experience, it is a useful tool. Just know that sometimes it will say you have clipped, when you have not. (So never delete a shot because of this, at the scene). The D200 files cannot be pulled as easily as files from class leading full frame image quality camera’s such as the D850, Z7ii, Z8. Also, since the D200 is a smaller sensor camera than the full frame cameras I use alongside it; I also have less latitude in terms of dynamic range, over 3.5 stops less at base ISO:

7.79 Stops of Dynamic Range for the D200 vs 11.32 for the Z8, another camera I also use (at base ISO).

Because of the reduced malleability of the RAW files coming from the D200 camera, and it’s lowered dynamic range as shown above - it is important to maximise each and every exposure. I do this by using good shot discipline. I suggest clicking the link to learn more, however one should understand that using base ISO is absolutely crucial to this concept.

Consider Processing in NX Studio

NB: Note that I use Lightroom most of the time for Raw conversion and processing, along with Photoshop. Despite this, Nikon’s free to download NX Studio software really allows the D200 to sing, and display colour the way Nikon intended it. It is important to note that adobe won’t be doing this accurately with their simulated picture controls. NX Studio really does create some magic with the D200 and some other cameras. Whilst it is much less polished than Lightroom, I still often start conversions here, and export them to Lightroom as a Tiff to maintain accurate colour as Nikon intended when I really want critical colours. As much of a hassle as that may sound, for special pictures it is best to take time with them to get them just right. Nikon’s NX Studio is as I said, a little clunky, however you will find it will match the reproduction you are seeing on the monitor on your camera better than adobe or any other software will display. Have you ever noticed that Lightroom’s rendition of your image looks miles away from the back of the camera? This is why (it would also occur if you had different picture controls on camera vs the software, of course). I highly recommend using NX Studio, especially for a colour king such as the D200. So often in lightroom I find things like the vibrant red colours appear as orangey hues in LR, however in the Nikon software they are spot on. Easy solution…open those Raw files in NX, give them a very basic minimal process, and export them as a TIF and continue in Lightroom / Photoshop. Below is a very quick and dirty test. I’ve shot at ISO 400 (not an ideal test but demonstrates my point here fine - this is the highest I would ever push this sensor - I have plenty of cameras that do high ISO well) and shown that the LR conversion (right) skews all the red and orange hues to pinks which are not accurate to my desktop editing PC lighting). Notice also, that on the right side, (LR conversion) much less detail is seen in the glass reflection than on the NX conversion on the left side. There are other differences other than just colour when we use different software to process - notice the severe blooming around the ram sticks on the LR conversion, not present on the NX picture? This lens will do this, but not to the amount that the LR edit suggests. I will add more here in daylight at base ISO when I get the chance, however it is important to stress that software plays a part in this also.

Why Shoot with a D200?

Colour and Skin Tones. As stated, this body has a very unique approach to colour reproduction, and in my opinion produces just sublime skintones. It’s Colour Filter Array (CFA) is extremely strict relative to most modern CMOS style sensors, built to be able to deal with high ISO better; (they let more light pass to be able to do this). In doing so, many argue that it affected colour, which was better on the old bodies such as the D200. Better is of course a subjective term. I have heard many explain that they can make any RAW file look like it came from a D200. I have yet to see it. I tend to still shoot in RAW format on the D200; however there is a strong case, depending on your shooting style, to use JPG with this body. This is because the JPG ‘recipe’ is naturally very strong with this body. It produces fantastic JPG files in fact. The colours that this body produces may or may not be technically accurate to your eyes, and if you don’t see what is special; move along. I have always felt this body had something great to offer and I continue to use it. The other reasons I use it - I like to take a lightweight backup camera and zoom out with me. This body is lightweight; yet extremely well built. Carrying it with an 18-55 feels like barely any additional weight to me.

What Lenses to use with the D200?

I will go through in turn my most used lenses with the D200 body. There is a bit of a mixture in there, which for my preferences works well. First up is the must have 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 VR DX Zoom Nikkor

18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 VR DX Zoom Nikkor

Glen Tilt: The Autumn Scene, Autumn, Nikon D200 Camera — Glen Tilt: The Autumn Scene, 18-55mm Zoom.

The Wave: St Monan’s Scotland. Nikon D200 with 18-55 Zoom

Rainbow at Pine Cone Point, Nikon D200 with 18-55 Zoom

This is a must have all rounder which is surprisingly sharp considering it being a very cheap DX zoom lens. As you can see, it also produces beautifully pointed sunstars, a feature that I find lacking in so many modern lenses. Above all, this lens is lightweight, has fast and accurate autofocus and is small in stature, making it perfect for use with the Nikon D200 body.

Nikon 50mm f/1.4D

The next up is the Nikon 50mm f/1.4D prime lens. For me, it is important that it is the D variant, because the G lenses are much larger and don’t have the attributes that I use the D200 for. On a DX body such as the D200, bear in mind that a 50mm lens acts like an 85mm in terms of field of view one would experience with a full frame body, because of the smaller sensor size. This allows the 50/1.4D lens to be a lens to isolate a subject. The 1.4D lens produces a truly painterly image, in part due to massively under-corrected spherical aberration, which gives images shot near wide open a glow as we can see in the following frames:

As we can see here, the greatest effect comes at the widest aperture of f/1.4. The lens has tons of spherical aberration here, and with dappled light as seen here in this close up scene, is akin to a painting. The light is soft here. If the light was more contrasty or direct, you would see some chromatic aberration. We can see the sharpness is overall lower than most modern lenses.

Light really affects the perception of sharpness, so hold that thought, however we can see that by stopping down to f2 the lens is sharper and whilst the effect remains (good), it is not as prominent now. Below is another shot at f/2:

It is important to note, that all of these images are shot at base ISO to get the best from the sensor. I very rarely deviate from this as previously mentioned. The 50mm f/1.4D is a dual personality lens. Stopped down it is bitingly sharp as shown in the final autumnal scene vs these wide open characteristics of the close-range flower shots above. I’d give a special mention to the 50mm 1.8D lens also. It is much cheaper and still and extremely good choice for a camera like the D200. Whilst not achieving a f/1.4 aperture, it actually has basically zero distortion. Very useful to have in a 50mm lens. Straight lines stay perfectly straight.

Let’s draw our eyes to another sharp prime lens, the 20mm 1.8G Nikkor in this summer waterfall long exposure picture that I made with my son:

Nikon 20mm f/1.8G

The 20mm 1.8G gives a 28mm equivalent field of view on the D200’s Dx CCD sensor. I have grown to like this focal length quite a lot, as 24mm can be too wide and too ‘foreground orientated,’ pushing details in the background too far away. I have the 20mm 1.8G for my full frame DSLRs so it was a natural progression to test it out with the D200. I found that it was extremely sharp. This above picture is a x2 frame bracket which has been exposure blended using luminosity masking to balance the bright sky to the ground. I love the layers of focus in this shot in the foreground. Sometimes I look back on this one and wished that I’d move the camera ever so slightly left to prevent the blurred edge reflection in the foreground tree. Another part of me likes that it produces a slightly unsettling feeling to the picture overall. I also have very little room to maneuver before falling into fast moving water! (Always an important consideration when framing up, I find).

Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art

I used a sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens for the above shot. I found the focus a little erratic when using this lens. This may just be unique to the Sigma as I have heard some reports of this on other bodies. If you are buying a 35mm prime specifically for the D200 I would look at Nikon’s Dx 35mm 1.8 lens. It’s small, lightweight and sharp, acting as a 50mm field of view compared to full frame cameras.

Nikon 24mm f/1.4G

I absolutely love using the 24/1.4G lens on all bodies. The subtle but beautiful background blur produces a great cinematic feel to images when close enough (as we should be) to our subject. This image here is a good example of this in practice on the D200.

Final Thoughts

Colour is something that is intrinsic to many great photographs and in my opinion should be valued and considered more than “the sky is blue=check, and the grass is green=check,” which is how a huge swathe of photographers consider colour in digital photography. I have placed into this article a lot of anecdotal and other evidence to try to show that there are differences between CMOS designed cameras with weak CFAs, and CCD cameras with strong CCDs. This obviously applies to CMOS sensors with strong CCDs, admittedly a seemingly rarer thing to come across; despite that the older Canon 5D achieves this accolade. I will attempt to do some of my own tests of the D200 vs the D810. When I get round to this I will add them to this article. So if you are after accurate colour in Nikon land, you can buy a D200, D40, D40x, D60 - they are all up there with an SMI of 85 (from DxO's Color Response tab) vs current cameras at less than 80 (D600, D800 and D4 all having the exact same score). The big win is how cheap these bodies are; they can be mostly found for peanuts, even in great condition. I highly recommend the D200, to experience that old school colour, accurate and beautiful skin tone reproduction and an overall ‘film-like’ look out of the box. You might even on occasion, find that the colour the D200 produces is better than that fancy-pants modern camera you spent thousands on!

Have a look here, when a youtuber did a comparison of the venerable D200 vs the modern Z7 camera and found with hilarious results, that most people by far preferred the images coming off the D200. New isn’t always better.

Steve

The Nikon D200 - Colour King

The Daisy in Summer shot with the CCD Colour Legend that is the Nikon D200 — The Daisy. This was shot by my at the time, 8 year old son. I love this picture - Nikon D200, 24/2.8D prime. Notice the almost painterly appearance it has, helped by the slightly rougher bokeh of the 24/2.8D lens and the beautiful colours of the D200.

NEW - Updated D200 Article here.

The History

I always like to have a camera with me these days. For a while, I stopped unless I was in “Serious Landscape or Astro-Photography Mode,” and I just used my phone - which I was never really that happy with except in a pinch - like maybe at a theme park or something where I absolutely felt I could not bring a camera in with me, or if I did it would be a real annoyance all day. I used to lug the big cameras everywhere, for every occasion - I am speaking about FX Nikon DSLR or mirrorless bodies like the D810, D850, Z 8. I love using them, however they aren't lightweight systems, so in recent times I've made a much more concious effort to free myself from that weight and use a Nikon D200 with an 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6. Such a brilliant combo, and sometimes I pack a tiny 50/1.8 prime too. With regards to weight; it feels like I don’t even have a camera with me at all. The CCD colours are just sublime. I love the way this sensor draws. The D200 gives me a different look to the other cameras, and I really like using it. I know many would be screaming at their screens reading this, telling me “oh buy a Z 7, it’s lighter, that will work,” or something along those lines. However a long time a go a friend of mine from overseas who used to shoot the same body I did at the time - the D800, was experimenting with CCD bodies from the classic era of digital tech. At first, I thought he might have been crazy to ditch something as technically proficient as a D800 for this, however over time I began to see what he was speaking about. (And no, I didn’t ditch the high resolution cameras).

Horse Portrait D200 — Nikon D200 with 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6

The Tech

The D200 has a special mix of a 10MP Dx CCD sensor and a strict colour filter array (CFA). A CCD sensor stands for a charge-coupled device, which is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. The CCD sensor was indeed very common at the onset of digital camera tech - with many companies using them in their cameras. What tended to happen over time, was that as the demand for cleaner high ISO increased, cameras with these sensors tended to fall apart in terms of their noise performance, so demand for different tech came about. Along came CMOS sensors, which filled this need, and they slowly became in vogue, whilst also becoming cheaper to produce. With regards to CCD sensors, the specific part that makes or breaks them with regards to colour, is called a Colour Filter Array. A colour filter array (CFA) is a mosaic of colour filters (generally red, green and blue) that overlays the pixels comprising the sensor. The colour filters limit the intensity of light being recorded at the pixel to be associated with the wavelengths transmitted by that colour. Some people make the mistake of thinking all CCD sensors have ‘good’ colour. Whilst there might be some secret sauce in these sensors (which is beyond the scope of this blog post), it is the CFA that differentiates said colours, allowing punchy and subtle saturated colour. More CCDs in the early days had stricter CFAs, thus they became associated with the trait of having good colour, which is of course a subjective quality. The CFA then, in a very real sense, differentiates and separates each colour so that if done optimally / correctly, subtle colour gradiations can be recorded and made vibrant and punchy. The general trend over the years, was to achieve cleaner higher ISOs, that manufacturers’ weakened the CFA properties in cameras generally compared to early digital cameras that had CCD sensors. This allowed more light to pass and be recorded by the sensor, (thus helped with noise performance) however it also muddied colours and individual graduations don’t tend to show as well, or as punchy. Some colours even skew a little, yellows might slip to green tinged etc, other colours might contaminant others. Some people will tell us that they can get any file to look like a D200 RAW file, or any other camera. I’ve yet to see proof of that yet, but I suppose if it is possible, it would be a lot of work, so why not just use the camera that does it off the bat? The power of the CCD and a strong CFA is easy to see in the D200 - colour separation makes the different colours pop like with Kodak Ektar film or Kodachromes. To reproduce the same color micro contrast tones on Sony CMOS files, you’ll need to fine tune every different colour separately and fabricate presets depending on the lighting too - that is a huge task. Further to this, you will have to be very careful during RAW development that you don’t cause the already saturated colours to go ‘nuclear’ when dealing with the subtle tones. That isn’t a workable solution in my mind…I’ll just use a D200, rather than trying to pretend I own one.

NB: Despite these being my thoughts, I still recommend setting up appropriate picture controls in camera and in your software as your best starting point for your edit style and goals.

Learning

I read all about this stuff that my buddy was showing me, however I mostly continued ‘business as usual’ shooting with bodies like the D800, D810, D850, bringing out the D200 I eventually bought for my son only occasionally. I will be honest, I still use these a huge amount, they have bags of dynamic range, and they are obviously no doubt better at night. I am not for a minute advocating everyone pick up old bodies and just use them - unless of course you feel this fits for you. However, in buying a D200 for my son several years ago to get him along on trips with me, I have found myself using it more and more. I managed to find this copy on ebay with only a couple of hundred shots on it and in absolute mint condition, for next to nothing. I unfortunately blew the highlights a little on his knee at the bottom left, in the pure excitement of him opening the D200 box. This was not a staged photograph!

Birthday Boy Present — D810 capturing the D200 as unboxed for his birthday with a 50/1.8 prime

Since that day, we have both used this body a great deal. For what I call reportage landscape photography, it is excellent, and works well. We have even used it for long exposure photography, despite it’s lack of liveview functionality. I am using it a great deal whlist I wait on long exposures completing on my Z 8 camera.

What the D200 is for

I am sure many people reading this are still extremely fixated on megapixels. Some of this might come from pressure from other shooters, or a preconceieved idea that more is better. I used to be a little bit like this, however not nearly as extreme as some of the pixel peeping crazies we see in forums. I am very used to shooting high megapixel bodies and have good technique because of this. I am no stranger to 36 - 60 megapixel files, and I make panoramic pictures regularly. I am a technical shooter through and through. I maximse data collection at the scene. I use good technique, solid equipment and expose in order that I can get the most out of each file as possible, most of the time for daylight work that involves exposing to the right (ETTR) and if dynamic range exceeds the sensor capture range, bracketing shots. All that said however, I am not beholden to this megapixel thing so many seem to be, and I am so glad I freed myself of it. The Nikon D200 has 10 Megapixels across it’s large Dx sensor. I find them absolutely plenty and I use a 4K proart monitor to edit on. The D200 should be clamped to base ISO, or as near as it as possible at all times. Give it light. Expose as far to the right as possible so you will be able to bring up some shadow detail later in the RAW, bracket if required. RAW convertors have given a new life to early digital tech. We can do a great deal more with these files than we could in 2005. The D200 has a maximum native ISO of 1600, however as I point out - there are better tools for that task if needed. I do like using primes on the D200 - one of my favourite is the nikkor 24/1.4G, giving a nice 35mm equivalent view to full frame on this dx body. If I am hiking / walking / taking the D200 out for serious landscape work, I pop the 18-55 lens on it. I may seek to add a wider dx lens for this purpose, at some point in the future. I do love my foregrounds…

Chlid using big boy camera — D200 shooting with a 24/2.8D prime - taken with D810 and 50/1.8D

Legacy

The Nikon D200 has a big legacy for me. This is the sad part of the whole story. My buddy, Brandon, passed away in 2022, suddenly. He was a young man with a wife and two young children. We spoke every day without fail usually, even if it was just about something we’d read or something about a camera or work. When the news came in that he was gone, this led to the longest period of me not shooting since I started. It lasted a couple of months until I started picking up the cameras again. This might seem like a short period of time, but you have to remember - for someone that had a camera in their hands almost daily, that is a long time in the grand scheme of things. We couldn’t offer much. What can anybody do in a situation like this, except to affirm that if they need anything, they are here? It led my son and I to express it the only way we knew how to properly justify what we felt. We made a picture. That picture is below, shot with the Nikon D200 and a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art prime lens. The concept of this picture is obvious, however the technical side was to ensure a natural shadow pallate with a smooth and controlled highlight rolloff, without it feeling like it has had the HDR treatment. This picture was shared online and has been viewed many times - it is very touching to me. I have had many people contact me to say that it inspired them to pick up a D200 which is really nice to hear. And some it just made them pick up and use the camera that they have - which of course is also lovely to hear that someone has been inspired to get out and use their gear.

I’m going to leave you with my buddy’s best D200 process settings to get the most out of the camera that I still use to this day. Feel free to give them a go. Make sure you tweak your picture control settings. In camera matching ‘Neutral’ for Adobe Lightroom works well. Adobe Colour also works, but is much more contrasty so you may have to make allowances for this. The settings are listed below:

WITHIN ADOBE LIGHTROOM

These are my optimal RAW default settings for Nikon D200 files in Lightroom:

Under the "CALIBRATION" adjustments group:

o Set Red Primary channel to Hue -15 and Saturation +15. (This corrects for Adobe's orange skin tone bias with Nikon cameras)

Under the “LENS CORRECTIONS” adjustments group:

o Set “Remove Chromatic Aberration” is checked under the Color Tab.

o Leave Vignetting and Distortion sliders set to off.

Under the “DETAIL” adjustments group:

o Leave Sharpening at its default settings (40, 1.0, 25) with a masking of 50.

o Set the Color noise slider to 0 and the Luminance noise slider to 0.

Under the “TONE CURVE” adjustments group:

o Select “Linear Contrast” as the baseline tone curve.

Under the “BASIC” adjustments group

o Set "Adobe Color" as the default camera profile.

o Set 5650K +10T as the WB default (as most pictures are daylight).

o Set Shadows to +25 as default. (Look for a natural setting that simulates the eye).

o Set Vibrance to +25 as default.

o All other slider settings at 0.

Save all of these as our D200 default settings on import. When you open files for editing in Lightroom:

o Verify that the white balance is accurate and adjust it if not. Cloudy looks good around 6650K +10T and artificial lighting requires dialing in like usual.

o Now shift-double-click the Highlights label to auto-set clipping protection for your WB. Don’t be worried about big numbers like -71, etc. You want the color clipping protection it affords. If you change your WB later, re-do this step.

o Fine tune your mid-tones with the Exposure slider. I use my Lightroom exposure preset tree (shared earlier) to quickly preview the optimal mid-tone point. Often I’m backing the exposure down -.33 or -.67 in order to get the highlights safely to the left of the “Whites” range. This will leave the image a bit under-exposed and dull but I use Nik’s Pro Contrast filter to brighten the image back up in Photoshop later. That boosts both highlights and shadow areas with the added benefit of boosting local contrast (which adds to the 3D Pop).

o Push up the black point so that it just barely clips. When processing portraits I make sure no blacks are clipped in eyes/hair. I don't touch the White Point slider anymore these days.

o If skin tones look way too strong bring Vibrance down to taste. +25 is good as a default but occasionally I have to use -10 simply because the lighting saturates the colors more than usual.

o Adjust noise reduction to taste. If I’m a little above base ISO or pushing up exposure by +.67 then I’ll use Color NR +15. If I’m above ISO 400 or pushing up exposure +1 or more I’ll use Color NR +25. Otherwise I’m at 0 for both Luma and Color NR.

IN ADOBE PHOTOSHOP

o Open Nik Color Efex Pro 4 and choose “Pro Contrast” from the left panel. Leaving the Color Cast and Correct Contrast sliders at 0%, push up only the Dynamic Contrast slider until the image feels right. This will raise the brightness of your highlights back to normal while still generally protecting your colors from clipping. 20% to 30% is safe for almost any image including those with people. Some images without people in the frame can take 50% or even 70%. I have Photoshop actions setup to automate this function at 10% increments from 10% to 100%.

o Add saturation. I use Photo Wiz’s ContrastMaster filter to boost saturation as it automatically figures out a natural looking result for the ambient surroundings. Sometimes it over-boosts skin tones, however, so I leave them as is and reign skin back in with Viveza2 as described below. If you need a copy of ContrastMaster let me know.

o Fix local exposure issues or local over-saturation issues with Viveza 2. I find that mildly oversaturated skin falls back into place with Saturation of -15, strongly oversaturated skin falls into place with Saturation of -25.

St Monans Scotland — Nikon D200 with 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 at St Monan’s Scotland

Nikon D200 CCD Sensor — The Nikon D200 Body

So what is next? Well, I would like to pickup some other bodies from this era, such as a D60. For now I will continue with the D200 to see what I can produce over the coming months into the summer and perhaps another blog post will come about from that. You can now enjoy that post here.

Steve