Cannot beat the Meike grip. Got one for my D300 and it was so near the OEM I could hardly tell the difference.

Thanks for posting. I was in the Highty-Tighties, class of '66. Soon to be in the "Old Guard". Being a HT was a life shaping experience.

Also, check out Tunerphotography.com for videos on Lightroom by Winston Hall of Nikonians. Many are free. If not free, they are real cheap.

They are listed under a tab labeled "workshops".

I took their one day course on the D300 and felt it was well worth the money. I learned more about my camera in a short period of time than I would have learned reading the manual. i am considering attending another of their workshops on Lightroom 4.

Thanks for the link. I think the determining factor in my case was the use of high ISO for those shots. I had to use ISO 1600 to get the images I needed. That thread did a good job of explaining what happens.

Today I noticed a red dot appearing on my images. It wasn't there last week and it seems to be intermittent. It is not on all frames, but is on most of them. It is always in the same place in the frame. It is always bright red. The attached image should show the red dot against a dark background. It was enlarged a great deal to show the dot. Is this a sensor problem on my D300? What else could cause such a bright red pixel or pixel group?

Look for red dot in center.

Beautiful work. That's one to be proud of.