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Broken D300 or just bad design?
December 20, 2007 6:26 PM   RSS feed for this thread Subscribe

Should the release mode wheel on a Nikon D300 (or D200) just spin or should there be click stops?

Just got my new D300 a few days ago and I'm loving it. But I wonder if something is broken on my new camera or if this is a design flaw.

The release mode dial (to change between S, CL, CH, LV, and MUP modes) spins freely when the lock button is depressed. I would expect there to be click stops at each position on the dial to provide tactile feedback and ease making setting changes by feel. The D200 has the same control (minus the LV=LiveView, setting) but it's been about a year since I handled a co-worker's D200 for all of 15 minutes and I can't remember how that control felt on his camera.

If this is by design, that's cool, although I think it's a bad design, but I'm afraid something is amiss on my new $1800 camera body.

I've googled every search phrase I can think of and found nothing describing this and the manuals for both cameras don't say one way or another. What say you, MeFi shutterbugs?
posted by AstroGuy to sports, hobbies, & recreation (5 comments total)
On all the Nikon bodies I've owned or used that had a mode selection dial (F5, F100, D1x), the dial spun freely while the lock button was depressed.
posted by Venadium at 6:39 PM on December 20, 2007


Congrats on the new D300 by the way, I'll be picking one within a month or two.
posted by Venadium at 6:46 PM on December 20, 2007


D200 in hand -- it spins freely, but not too freely. It's not detent-stopped like the aperture and shutterspeed wheels.
posted by fake at 7:08 PM on December 20, 2007


Freely when the lock button is depressed, that is.
posted by fake at 7:12 PM on December 20, 2007


Thanks. That settles it. This is my first higher-end DSLR (coming from a D50) and I wasn't sure this was normal. Still seems like a bad design, but from what Venadium says it seems to be a carryover from film bodies. Well, 'nff pixelpeeping. Time to get out and shoot with it more.
posted by AstroGuy at 7:15 PM on December 20, 2007


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