Having gotten used to using a battery grip with my old D80 and very quickly finding that I much preferred the feel of having that extra grip on the bottom, as well as loving the vertical grip controls and extra battery capacity (which meant I could easily load up a pair of batteries and shoot all day long without ever having to worry about running out of juice), when I upgraded to the D300 there was no debate that I had to get the battery grip for it.

While I love the feel of my camera with this thing attached and as with my D80 love having that vertical grip, extra battery capacity and just generally that bit of extra bult making the camera feel more substantial, I do begrudge the price Nikon put on this thing, over £100 more than my D80 battery grip was and even that was overpriced compared to the competition, plus I also feel it has a slightly odd design choice

Some people prefer camera’s that are light and feel compact, however I prefer something with a chunky grip and the MB-D10 really gives the D300 the extra bulk that I like. Don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with the D300′s grip as it is, but I find that on it’s own I can’t quite get all 4 fingers on the grip, my little finger can’t quite fit (and I don’t have massive hands by any stretch of the imagination), so it just doesn’t feel like a totally solid grip to me. With the MB-D10 attached it gives me that bit more room to comfortably get my whole hand around the grip so to me feels safer and steadier, the build quality of the thing being rock solid and easily on par with the D300/D700 body build.

The other major advantage to any vertical grip, is that with the additional shutter button, you can rotate the camera to take portrait shots with your hands and arms still in a ‘standard’ photography position, rather than having to contort your arms to rotate the camera, a technique that has been used for as long as cameras have been hand holdable, but I think any photographer would agree is nowhere near as comfortable and steady a position to shoot in as landscape.

With the MB-D10 you also get a small joystick like control to replicate the main control dial on the back of the camera, the main use of this being to move the AF point. This is an extremely helpful addition, as while most of my camera adjustments happen with it away from my eye, moving the AF point is one of the things that inevitable happens while you’re looking through the viewfinder. The only in any way problem with this joystick is that almost inevitably, it is not in the same relative position to the vertical shutter button as the command dial is to the main shutter, so it takes a little while to instinctively learn where to put your thumb to make the required adjustments, but this is something you easily get used to. There is also a replica of the ‘AF-On’ button on the grip, but I have never used this so it is inconsequential to me

Whereas with the D80′s battery grip, you removed the flap on the camer’s battery compartment and the grip had a post shaped to fit snugly inside the compartment so the batteries both went intide the grip, with the MB-D10, one battery stays in the camera and the other slots in the grip which is bolted onto the bottom of the camera. This is fine in principle, but in practice is a bit of a pain when you need to replace the battery in the camera, as you have to remove the grip to get at it, which means whereas with my D80 I would tend to wait until both batteries were practically dead, with this battery grip I tend towards letting the grip’s battery run out and then only running on the battery in the camera until I find a suitable opportunity to change the one in the grip, so the internal one doesn’t get power cycled as often as would be ideal

Speaking of batteries, one further advantage of the MB-D10 is it’s ability to ramp up the D300′s FPS rate. By either utilising the included adapter to fill it with AAs or by purchasing an additional adapter and some of the batteries used in Nikon’s Pro cameras like the D3s, you can up the speed to 8FPS, which is a nice bonus, but the default 6FPS (or 7 if you have the D300s) is far from slow and is more than adequate for me 99% of the time

The one thing that I do think is a major downfall of the MB-D10 is the price, it seems heavily over-priced at £260 (at time of writing) compared to similar products from Canon and even grips for Nikon’s other models like the D80/90, which are over £100 cheaper!

Even with the minor gripes and my qualms about the price though, I still wouldn’t go without the MB-D10 on my D300, I just so much prefer the feel of the camera and the convenience of the extra battery capacity and vertical grip controls. Plus while I may rarely use it, the option of being able to load it with rechargable AAs and wind my D300 up to 8fps is always a nice to have available