DCRP Review: Nikon D90

The last Nikon digital SLR I reviewed was the D60, and to be honest, it didn't do much for me. My impression of the D90 is the total opposite: it blew me away. In terms of photo quality, manual controls, performance, customizability, and yes, its movie mode, the D90 is a home run. There are a few annoyances, such as slow focusing in live view mode and horrible bundled RAW editing software, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. The D90 is a digital SLR that I can highly recommend, without hesitation.

The D90 is a midsize digital SLR, with a magnesium alloy frame and a plastic outer shell. The camera is well put together in almost all respects, with only the plastic memory card door causing me to raise an eyebrow. The camera has a large, comfortable right hand grip, so it's easy to hold onto. The D90 does suffer a bit from button clutter, so it's not for the faint-hearted. The camera supports all Nikon F-mount lenses, with a 1.5x focal length conversion ratio. Unlike its cheaper siblings, there's no need to worry about which lenses will support autofocus. If it's a "CPU" lens, odds are that it'll autofocus just fine. Nikon offers a new 18 - 105 mm kit lens with the D90, and it has good edge-to-edge sharpness and minimal purple fringing. Dust can be a big problem on digital SLRs, and Nikon uses a silent, ultrasonic cleaning system to keep it away from the sensor.

On the back of the camera is a large 3-inch LCD with a stunning resolution of over 920,000 pixels. You'll use the LCD for menus, playing back photos you've taken, and yes, live view. The D90's live view system isn't the best implementation of this feature that I've seen. While viewing images in normal and outdoor lighting is fine, it's nearly impossible to see anything in low light. The camera relies on contrast detect autofocus in live view (which offers such things as face detection), but it's very slow. I found myself using live view to compose a shot, then I'd shut it off and let the camera focus the old-fashioned way (with its AF sensor). If you're manually focusing with live view, you can digitally enlarge the image, though the result never seemed sharp enough to really be useful (the Pentax K20D was the same way). If you want to shoot with the viewfinder, you'll find a large one on the D90, with a magnification of 0.94x and 96% coverage.

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