Upgrading from D200 to D300 inevitably means that the first thing you'd look for is where the £500 has gone...Few more pixels - great; sensor cleaning - great; D-lightning - great; higher ISO - great.
Then you'd stumble to LV (LiveView) function on your dial and, if you used to viewfinder, probably would start wondering why... The screen does not swivel so pretty much useless at the time you cannot see through the viewfinder. In Olympus you can make a use of LV as the screen flips and swivels - so when low or high it makes your life just a wee easier.
Unless you a big fan of compacts I could not really find any value for that.
I fired it up numerous times whilst having the camera on tripod - but then got quickly annoyed with it and always ended up looking through the viewfinder to check the composition, settings, sharpness.
so what's the point of having it? so far I found it useless...
Until the D300 ended up attached to a massive Nikon 2000mm f11 reflex lens pointed at a couple of nesting Peregrine Falcons(see previous posts). Looking through the viewfinder and trying to focus makes you dizzy as every slightest move of the lens is magnified to 7 in Richter scale - your subject jumps up and down every time you touch the focus dial.
If your subject is not that big it becomes nearly mission impossible. And this is when LV comes handy for the first time: switch to LV, zoom on (yes, you can actually zoom in LV mode) onto your subject and voilà - you can actually see if your subject is sharp.
It gets better though... you got your subject sharp but now comes the wait. wildlife is not easy or quick: it can take hours (that's as far as I ever went!) to get your little friend to appear or do something worth shooting.
After 3 hours of looking through your viewfinder you'd probably get a job in Notre Dame (nice, round hutch, one eye bigger from the constant staring into the tiny light-hole and twisted fingers from pressing the remote).
Now imagine that instead of all that you are sitting on a nice, comfy chair watching TV with a beer in one hand and a remote in the other. Which one sounds like more fun? well, they the same! with LV and remote (preferably wireless) release you can put up a chair behind your camera, get a beer in one hand, remote in the other and just wait watching 3" screen with life NG channel on... could it be better?
This is where LV seems the best inventions since beer!
