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Nikon D200 Specifications
© 2006 KenRockwell.com

I bought mine from Ritz here. I bought another D200 from Adorama here. Also try Amazon here. Adorama usually has D200/18-70 kits in stock here. It helps me keep adding to this site when you click these links to get yours.

Standard DX size sensor. (23.6 x 15.8 mm).

10.2 Megapixels: 3,872 x 2,592 pixel images. Also 2,896 x 1,944 (M) and 1,936 x 1,296 (S) pixels.

File Formats: JPG, also compressed and uncompressed 12-bit raw (NEF). Raw + JPG has the ability to store a raw and a JPG of your choosing. The D70 only stored a basic JPG in the raw + JPG setting. Large Normal JPGs are about 2.5 MB. The raw compression seems lossless however Nikon warns that there is "little drop in quality" (page 31 in manual) which suggests there is a loss in quality. I suspect this is response to the weiners who whined when the D70 only had compressed raw. I suspect the D200 uses the same raw compression they've always used, which is lossless save for a 10 to 8 bit log curve shaping which is invisible to me anyway. I'd rather save about 10 MB per file! Of course the weiners who shoot raw worry about this stuff.

Color Spaces: sRGB and Adobe RGB. Now both of these spaces have the option of a vivid mode III. There's also adds a black-and-white setting.

ISO: 100 to 1,600, also pushes to 2,000, 2,500 and 3,200 and has an AUTO setting. ISOs are settable in full, 1/2 and 1/3 stops.

Frame Rate: 5 FPS. Power-up rated at 150 ms, shutter release lag 50 ms and viewfinder mirror blackout 105 ms. A millisecond (ms) is a thousandth of a second. See my page on D200 High Speed Performance.

Burst Depth: 37 JPEG (Fine Large) or 22 NEF (RAW). Nikon specs this using a SanDisk SDCFH (Ultra II) or SDCFX (Extreme III) 1GB CF card.

Shutter: 1/8,000 to 30 seconds. Nikon says the shutter is "tested to" 100,000 cycles. This isn't a guarantee from Nikon, just their observation.

10-pin Remote connecter. No IR release like the D70 and no conventional cable release socket. Requires $55 MC-30 or MC-36 cords, the $165 wireless ML-3 or $50 MC-22 mad-scientist cord. Also can be controlled through the optional Nikon Capture 4 software and the WiFi WT-3 at even greater expense.

Mirror Lock-Up: Selected on the top left shooting mode dial. Can't be used at same time as self timer.

Nikon D200 pop up flash

Nikon D200 with pop-up flash

Flash Sync: Only 1/250. Poo. I'll cover this on my D200 performance page.

Built-In Flash: Works with SB-600 and SB-800 for free remote flash control as I explain here. ISO 100 Guide Number: 40 (feet), 12 (meters).

Flash Control: i-TTL flash control, the same excellent system as the rest of the current Nikon DSLRs and F6. It's excellent because it gets the correct exposure; people and pet photographers hate it because the preflashes almost guarantee some subjects will have closed eyes in every shot. I'll let you know if this is improved over the D70s. For people photos I use manual or "A" flash mode. PC Sync terminal. FV Lock to lock-in the value of flash exposure from one shot to the next. Auto FP High-Speed Sync is a trick mode to get sync above 1/250. Flash exposure compensation from -3 to +1 stops.

AF Zones: 11. Similar to D2X. Multi-CAM 1000 AF Sensor Module. It has a complex switch on the rear to allow you to select any of one area or multiple sensors to enable Dynamic AF, Closest Subject Priority Dynamic AF and Group Dynamic AF. The Group Dynamic AF uses a subset of the sensors in one area.

AF Mode Selector: the button on the front of the camera lets you select Manual, Single or Continuous directly. The D70 required a menu to get between Single and Continuous.

7-Wide vs. 11-Normal AF areas: You can select to run all the sensors by themselves, in which case you have 11 sensors. You also can set them to look around the image a little more, in which case some of the closer-together sensors' areas overlap, effectively creating the "7-wide" areas to which the Nikon literature refers.

AF Assist Light. The SB-600 and SB-800 also already have illuminators optimized to the 11 AF sensors of the D200.

Viewfinder: Huge 0.94x magnification with a 50 mm lens, bigger than just about anything out there. 95% coverage. Glass pentaprism. -2 to +1 diopter adjustment. No built-in blind as the pro cameras have.

Gridlines: These are great for keeping horizons horizontal. I always use them, and you can turn them off if they're in your way.

White Balance: Auto, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Daylight, Flash, Cloudy, Shade, White-Card (gray-card) manual and new 2,500º to 10,000º Kelvin preset manual. It may have four memories for four gray-card settings, which would be very helpful. White balance bracketing of 2 to 9 frames in increments of 1, 2 or 3 of arbitrary Nikon WB tweak units. One NWBTU equals about 10 mireds.

Storage: Compact Flash Type I and II and Microdrives

LCD monitor: 2.5," 230,00 pixels. 170 degree viewing angle in all directions, meaning it won't get darker or lighter as you look from below or above like most other LCDs. Magnification only up to 4x, which seems a bit weak considering my Casio EX-Z750 credit-card camera has the same sized LCD and offers up to 8x magnification.

Playback includes 4 or 9 image displays and blinking highlights. I never use these, although the new RGB blinking highlights may be useful.

Useful Histogram: A true RGB histogram allows us to make real exposure judgments. THe single-channel histograms of the D70, D1X, D100 and D50 are useless, since their one channel completely ignores when you clip the red channel, which is what usually overexposes first.

Big Top-LCD for reading operating parameters. It seems as huge as the pro cameras. Illumination is easy: just like the pro cameras, flip the power switch to the side against a detent.

Metering: 1,005-pixel 3-D RGB Matrix Metering II. Also variable size center-weighted metering and spot metering at each AF sensor. Personally I always use Matrix.

Exposure Modes: Program, Shutter priority, Aperture priority and Manual.

USB 2.0. Mini-B connector.

Battery: EN-EL3e, rated 1,800 shots. The MH-18a charger is a little bit smaller than the slightly older MH-18 charger of the D70.

Mechanical: Magnesium body and weather seals.

Size: 5.9 x 4.4 x 2.9 inches (147 x 113 x 74 mm)

Weight: 29 oz. (830g) stripped: without battery, memory card, body cap, or monitor cover.

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