Nikon D90 First Impressions

[beansbaxter]

I was at Glazers yesterday in Seattle, looking at all the camera models by both Nikon and Canon. They had the new Nikon D90 there, which adds the new features of LiveView with AF and HD Video Recording.

I'm not trying to give a full review, just some first impression I had of the camera.

The D90 is bigger than the D40 (obviously), it feels a bit tougher but its the same hardened plastic (not magnesium) case.

What I wanted to see was the features it had that my D300 did not have and the biggest two were LiveView AF and HD Video Recording.

LiveView AF - I'm not a big LV fan but this makes it totally useful. It doesnt have all the focus points that you get shooting through the viewfinder, but it works really good. It's nice not having to manual focus LV mode anymore, which really just made me never use LV one time. I think LV would be great for portraits on a tripod, getting it all dialed in and getting the picture, but it has more applications if it can AF too.

HD Video Recording - I dont know what to think of this. The video quality is "HD" quality but the audio is recorded through this crappy microphone in the camera. I didnt pull the memory card to see playback on a computer, but I dont understand why you would go for HD quality video with Stereo quality audio. The playback on the camera looked awesome, the Nikon VGA screen makes videos look as good as digital pictures. I'd like to see it on a computer to see how good the HD quality is.

A side note - the cool thing about the D90 is the closeout price of the D80 everywhere. I think it makes the D80 a really attractive value, but the D80 is 18+ months old so it sure feels somewhat behind the digital camera curve.

[eric]

hd sample

D90 Nikon Test shot Rolling Shutter on Vimeo




I'm buying that camera