Here’s an interesting tidbit which you’re almost guaranteed to forget the first time you read it. I’ll just be out with it up front: enabling Active D-Lighting on a D300 reduces the number of shots the buffer can hold–even if you’re just shooting raw (recall that a NEF file has a full-size JPG preview in it). With quality/compression settings at NEF, Lossless Compressed, 12-bit the buffer shrinks from 18 to 12 shots.

The reason you’re likely to forget it is this: who ever actually fires off a buffer’s worth of shots in continuous shooting (6fps on CH, Continuous High)?  I’m one of those strange birds that always leaves my camera set to CH. Because the D300 has a hair trigger, that means I take two shots every time I press the shutter button. It also means I have somewhere around 26,000 photos stored and backed up (that’s another somewhat ridiculous topic for a future ridiculous post).

At the airshow Jon and I were shooting away at these F-16s and F-18s screaming overhead and he was consistently getting more shots in a row than me. On the trainride home we compared settings and narrowed it down to the Active D-Lighting. Really?! I have to admit to feeling a little betrayed, but whatever and lesson learned. It’s not like I didn’t take 2,500 photos anyway. And fill up 20gb of CF cards.

Active D-what? Buff-what?