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Nikon D300 User's Guide:
Playback Menu

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Nikon D300

Nikon D300. enlarge

August 2008    Top of D300 Users Guide    D300 Review    More Nikon Reviews

 

NEW: Nikon D300 User's Guide for iPhone and iPod. 12 December 2009

 

Want free live phone support? In the USA, call (800) NIKON-UX, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

How to Get Here

Press MENU, click to the left and then up to select the top "[ > ] " (play) icon. You'll then see PLAYBACK MENU on the top of the color LCD.

What it Does

It sets various playback options, including what data you see on playback.

What I Change

I activate the color histograms, the data, and set the image to show after every shot.


Delete       top

This is helpful if you want to delete all images while saving those for which you pressed the "? / Key" button to lock. I don't use this. I do all my editing and selection in my computer and I do my in-camera deletions one-by-one with the trash can key.


Playback Folder       top

The camera can record and play to and from from different folders.

ND300 plays all the shots made on the D300, but ignores shots made on other cameras. You shouldn't be using cards with data from other cameras since that might lead to errors. Always format a card anytime it's put into a camera.

All shows you everything on the card. I leave my D300 set to ALL.

Current ignores photos in folders other than the one to which you're recording. If you create new folders for different scenes as you shoot, you won't see the other shots on the card!


Hide Image       top

This is used to hide embarrassing photos of your friends from playing back before you get to download them. The images are on the D300, however when marked this way they will be skipped on playback just as if you deleted them.

Move the cursor left and right to select images, press the center to mark as Hide or Unhide, and press ENTER to save. Now the camera won't play these images, even though it still tallies them in it's counter on the top right that reads "34/284." You can detect a hidden image because this counter will skip.


Display Mode       top

This lets you select which data screens come up in rotation when you look at each image. By default, these are all OFF. You can choose or refuse:

Basic Photo Info

Highlights: Relatively useless, this only reads one channel at a time. Unfortunately the "RGB" selection is defective because it's reading only the luma channel, a single channel which is a mixture of some red, a lot of green and almost no blue. It's not reading what it should, which is any peak in any of these three channels independently. That would take more computing power than Nikon chose to devote to it, or possibly Nikon's engineers haven't figured this out yet (I used to earn my living 15 years ago teaching digital imaging gear makers these finer points). You can blow out your reds, blues or anything other than gray or green and never notice. You can select which channel to read while in the RGB histogram page. If you work at Nikon I'd love to help you get this right: just ask me.

Focus Point: This shows which focus areas were active. It shows the area you set, or the area(s) chosen by the D300 in it's clever dynamic modes. It shows them as little red rectangles on the LCD as you play back. It only shows them for some modes, not all of them.

Detailed Photo Info

RGB histogram: Yes, use this! See my Color Histogram page.

Data: this is three pages of f/stop, white balance, etc. I also use this.


Image Review       top

This sets the LCD to show each image after you shot it. Nikon hid this well!

It defaults to OFF to save the battery and annoy people.

I leave mine ON; the whole point of having a digital camera.


After Delete       top

This is an odd one. You may choose to see the next or the previous image after you delete one. The third choice, "continue" keeps going in the same direction as you were going.

I leave this alone, at its Next default.


Rotate Tall       top

Who translates these? I leave this off.

If you set it ON, your vertical shots, if shot with Auto Rotate ON, will playback as tiny little vertical images. Luckily the D300 is smart enough to magnify using the whole screen if you choose this mode.

The D300 is not smart enough to use the rotation sensor during playback. Canon's point-and-shoots are. Many Canon point-and-shoots expand these images to full screen if you rotate the camera during playback! The D300 doesn't.

I don't use Rotate Tall.


Slide Show        top

This must be hot in Japan. It lets you amaze your friends with an exciting slide show on the tiny screen.

I don't bother with this.

The best use of this is with an HDTV and the HDMI outputs. You could plug the D300 into a TV, HDTV or video projector with the conventional video output, but the conventional video resolution output is so bad everything will look awful.


Print Set (DPOF)        top

I never use this.

This lets you mark images for printing if you sorted and then printed directly from your D300, and had a lab which could read this data.

I guess it's popular in Japan.


PLUG

My D300 User's Guide continues below.

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Thanks for reading!

Ken


Back to Top of D300 User's Guide or Top of Nikon D300 Review

KNOBS and BUTTONS

     FRONT

     TOP PANEL

     BACK

MENUS

     PLAYBACK   

     SHOOTING MENU < < NEXT

     CUSTOM SETTING MENU

          a Autofocus

          b Metering/Exposure

          c Timers/AE&AF Lock

          d Shooting/Display

          e Bracketing/Flash

          f Controls

     SET UP MENU

     RETOUCH MENU

     MY MENU MENU

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