Updated: Oct. 5, 2010 — The Nikon D90 is still a great cam­era but with time and new tech­nol­ogy it will soon be replaced by Nikon’s new D7000 which has not yet been released. I would rec­om­mend the D5000 or D3100 or even the D3000 at the low end, as entry level cam­eras for those new to DSLR’s and D7000 or D300s for the Advanced Pho­tog­ra­pher.  Look for deep dis­counts for the Nikon D90 in the near future.

Post Update: Oct. 12, 2010 — New arti­cle — Com­pare the Nikon D300s, D3100 and D7000 the replace­ment for D90.

 

Nikon D90 Review

Nikon D90 is the new replace­ment for the D80. Some of the high-end Nikons are sta­ples of qual­ity dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy. One model in par­tic­u­lar, though a lit­tle pricey for casual picture-takers, is a favorite among advanced ama­teurs and indus­try insid­ers: the Nikon D90.

The Nikon D90 is a 12.3 mega pixel dig­i­tal cam­era with con­tin­u­ous shoot­ing up to 4.5 frames per sec­ond. Pic­tures are taken in JPEG or 12-bit NEF (RAW) for­mat. The cam­era has a low noise ISO sen­si­tiv­ity range from 200 to 3200. It has 5 scene modes, pro­grammed, man­ual, aper­ture pri­or­ity, shut­ter pri­or­ity and auto­matic expo­sure mode set­tings.  It has man­ual and auto focus modes to ensure the full con­trol of the pho­to­graph regard­less of dis­tance or light­ing. There is a 3 inch LCD mon­i­tor, one but­ton live view, image edit­ing, and an auto­matic image sen­sor cleaner.   The hot new fea­ture on this cam­era is that it shoots 720p HD movies at 24fps in motion JPEG for­mat (first of its kind).

The Lenses

The Nikon D90 uses the full line of Nikon DX lenses along with many other Nikon and after­mar­ket lenses. I rec­om­mend you buy the best lenses you can afford. The lens is one the most impor­tant fac­tors when it comes to image qual­ity. Lenses have a life cycle of 10 years or more. Cam­eras have a shorter life cycle of between 3 to 5 years because of the fast mov­ing tech­nol­ogy. Because the lens life is so much longer than the cam­era, I rec­om­mend you put more empha­sis on the lens qual­ity than the cam­era. One more thing this is a very hi-tech cam­era and you should have the lat­est hi-tech lenses. The DX (APS-C) for­mat sen­sor used on this cam­era, and most other D-SLR cam­eras, is smaller than the 35mm film or full frame FX sen­sor used on the Nikon D700, D3s and D3X. There­fore, qual­ity ED (Extra Low Dis­tor­tion) glass and VR (image sta­bi­liza­tion) is very impor­tant to get the best images from D-SLR cam­eras with DX (APS-C) for­mat sen­sor. There is one great advan­tage of the DX for­mat. You can mul­ti­ply the focal length by 1.5x mak­ing a 200mm lens equiv­a­lent to a 300mm lens in full frame 35mm or FX format.

The lenses I use and rec­om­mend for out­door photography:

Nikon 12-24mm f/4G ED IF Aut­o­fo­cus DX Nikkor Zoom Lens

Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5–5.6G AF-S DX ED VR Nikkor Wide Angle Tele­photo Zoom Lens for Nikon DSLR Cameras

AF-S Zoom-NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED VR II telephoto

Nikon AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 55-200mm f/4–5.6G IF-ED Lens

And one on my wish list:

Nikon AF VR Zoom-NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5–5.6D ED Lens

The Nikon D90 uses SDHC SecureDig­i­tal High Capac­ity and SecureDig­i­tal (SD) mem­ory cards not included. I rec­om­mend 2GB to 8GB class 6, high speed cards. The cam­era comes with A/V and USB cables, as well as an EN-EL3e Lithium-ion recharge­able bat­tery, bat­tery charger, strap, eye­piece cap, dust cap, body cap, LCD cover, CD-ROMs with Nikon soft­ware suite and man­ual. All of this hard­ware makes the cam­era sound like seri­ous busi­ness, and it is. This is no child’s toy. The Nikon D90 stands at the point where dig­i­tal cam­eras start to get expen­sive. Its users would pay a higher price still for such crisp, clear pho­tographs and easy-to-use extra fea­tures. This is one cam­era that’s worth the cost.

 

The Bat­tery

The recharge­able bat­tery used in this cam­era is the EN-EL3e Lithium-ion pro­pri­etary bat­tery, which for travel I rec­om­mend you buy 1 or 2 spares. The good news is the bat­tery life is great with as many as 800 shots per charge. The price for the Nikon brand is about $50.00 US. The other option is after mar­ket bat­ter­ies at a price of around $20.00 US at Batteries.com And B&H Photo video. I per­son­ally have used these bat­ters and they work very well. For about $20.00 US they also have com­pact charger with flip out plug and auto­mo­bile cig­a­rette lighter adapter that is per­fect for travel. See right side bar to link to these adver­tis­ers.

I rec­om­mend DVD video train­ing for the Nikon D90 to get you up to speed fast with the oper­a­tion of the cam­era. You can watch the video all the way through and then go back to view the areas where you need addi­tional assis­tance. The train­ing I rec­om­mend is Blue Crane Dig­i­tal Nikon D90 Vol 1 & 2 .

A sturdy cam­era, the Nikon D90 weighs in at approx. 22oz. Its phys­i­cal dimen­sions are 4.1in. x 5.2in. x 3in. (HxWxD), Users like the Nikon D90’s nat­ural feel. It fits right into the photographer’s hands and doesn’t feel clumsy or bulky.

Other Optional Accessories:

MB-D80 multi power bat­tery pack: Holds 2 EN-EL3e or 6 AA Batteries

MC-DC2 remote cord: Shut­ter Release

GP-1 GPS unit: for live geo­t­ag­ing to image files

SB-600 AF speed­light unit: Flash Replaced with SB-700 Speed­light Shoe Mount Flash

Or

Nikon SB-900 AF Speed­light i-TTL Shoe Mount Flash

Nikon EN-EL3e Recharge­able Lithium-Ion Battery

After Mar­ket Accessories:

Hood­man H-EyeN22S Hood­eye for Nikon square 22nn SLR Line

Hood­man H-LPP3 Hood­loupe 3.0 Pro­fes­sional 3 inch screen loupe

EN-EL3e AC/DC Com­pact Dig­i­tal Cam­era Bat­tery Charger

Nikon EN-EL3e Li-Ion Replace­ment Dig­i­tal Cam­era Battery

SDHC Mem­ory Cards

User sen­ti­ments are over­whelm­ingly pos­i­tive. This cam­era is touted as the next step to the advance to pro pho­tog­ra­pher. When the seri­ous advance Pho­tog­ra­pher sets out to take great pic­tures the Nikon D90 will be wait­ing for them. Cus­tomers insist that the cam­era is easy to use, even with all the extra fea­tures. You cer­tainly don’t have to be a pro­fes­sional to take professional-quality pho­tographs with the Nikon D90 dig­i­tal camera.

The Nikon D90 sells for about $869US for the body only. It can be found online at B&H Photo Video Dig­i­tal Cam­era and retail­ers or any­where dig­i­tal cam­eras are sold.

Nikon D90 12.3MP Dig­i­tal SLR Cam­era (Body Only)

Other Nikon D-SLRs Cam­eras: D40 ‚  D60 ‚  D70 , D3000 ‚D3100 , D5000 , D7000 D80 ‚  D90 ‚  D300 , D300s ‚  D700 , D3 ‚  D3s ‚  D3X, D4