I will answer the hat question first. In Bolivia it is the Borsalino, an italian well known hat brand --I have the male equivalent legitimate fake Borsalino-- and the idea is, according to my informal poll among aymara women, to look smart and denote economic well being. There is a theory that the name Borsalino comes from Bolsa that in latin means purse,--like the term bursatil -- because it was the stock brocker's hat of choice. This is a very informal society and contraband is a big part of it, so, even if there is much poverty, there is also a lot of money to be made and in the annual hollyday parade of El Gran Poder, or the Christ of The Grate Power, aymara women were extremely expensive (scarfs of $2k) costumes an julery.
Men use two hats I guess, to cover from cold --and because it is the Inca tradition-- and for the very strong sun...
Now, regarding the D52. The camera is about same as D300 superficiality and I would risk to say that a bit inferior in terms of finish and in arrangement of controls from the Nikon. I will give you some examples.
-No plastic cover for the LCD. /LCD is generous, but very prone to getting full of oil from face and when the camera has a heavy lens like the 70-200 f/4 L, and one is walking around Inca ruins, there is the fear of hitting the front of it against a pointy rock. Nikon D300 felt much better with the plastic protector. At Adorama they told me there is no cover offered by Canon... : ( --I did put in a sticky hard solution that will protect somehow the LCD--
-- Annoying despondence of images when I want to review images.
Suppose you want to check on an image, you push the No4 button on the left (the one on top of trash) and an image appears then you want to move back to see other, or zoom and the LCD goes black.
-- Zoom scroll "mouse" is very slow and difficult to use
-- P/TV/AV/M/B etc dial move by itself ! This cannot happen on a D300 since you need to push a dial and move a lever to set it something that takes a bit more effort, but is more secure.
-- Compensating -,+ for AE is also a bit more complicated on the 5D2 than D300 and I think that the D300 is a better system
--- Switching the camera ON/OFF is better on the Nikon. The good thing is that the Canon seams ok if left permanetly ON
--- Deleting images is much easier on the Nikon since you only have to push the same button twice and in Canon you have to go from one to another. (it may be safer that way, but I prefer speed)
--- Much better on the CANON is the way bayonet system with the easier-to-see red dot exactly on top and the way the entire mechanism seams to work.
--- Shooting tethered is a fantastic feature of the 5D2 and I don't think Nikon has something like it but I may be wrong since I did not owned the D300s..
All of this is anecdotal information and does not refer to IQ or AF etc.
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