Nikon D90 Review

[Kaneman]

I know there are quite a few photo buffs here so I figured I'd write up a quick, general users review of the D90.

I picked up the D90 yesterday to work along side my D70s. I was not expecting a significant improvement in image quality or to actually get use of the video camera function...so I was pleasantly surprised with both. Its worth noting that I once left my D70 in an overnight thunderstorm with an attached SB800 flash. Water was literally pouring out of the camera and flash. I dried them out and have been using them ever since, that was 2 years ago. So I stick with Nikon for now.

First thing I noticed was the dramatically improved display screen. It is like having a mini-HD monitor on the back of your camera. You can get a true feel for exposure and color balance now before your images go to the computer.

Noise reduction is significantly better as well. This photo is a 15" exposure with ISO 1600 on a very dark night. Nikkor 50mm 1.8 lens (the Nifty fifty).

This is straight off the camera, notice the lack of noise despite the long exposure and high ISO.


The auto focus is so accurate and fast now that it makes my D70 feel like a manual focus camera. Many of these shots would not have focused fast enough to come out on the D70, especially not the ones of the dogs running straight toward me. I took 109 shots at the dog park this morning and all but 4 of them were in focus. None of them were over exposed (I did shoot manual on about half, but the P function works quite well).

These shots are straight from the camera. I shot in vivid mode, +2 sharpening, ISO 800, WB was set to auto, sunlight/cloudy would've prob given more color depth, but you can change that in Nikon NX if wanted. Lens is a Nikkor 70-300 ED.










The video obviously has limitations as there is no auto focus feature. Basically the camera is making a recording of the live view option (which allows you to take pictures without holding the camera to your face). It is capable of 720p. This video is medium quality on my first try. Once you get the hang of (or back into the groove) the manual focus it produces some nice video. You control the color, exposure and zoom so there is a lot of possibility here.


All in all I'm very impressed with the improvements made to the newer line of Nikon DSLRs which seem a leap above the previous models.