Nikon D90
12 MP DX, 720p/24 Video, 4.5 FPS, 3" LCD
$999 USA (899€), late September 2008
(add $300 for 18-105mm lens) © 2008 KenRockwell.com
Nikon D90 with 18-105mm VR. enlarge. You can order it from Ritz and Amazon right now, and Adorama should be taking orders later today, too. It helps me publish this site when you get yours from these links, thanks! Ken.
27 August 2008
Introduction top
Intro Movies Lens Compatibility Lens Suggestions
Specs Accessories Fluff Features Recommendations
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The Nikon D90 replaces the D80 from 2006 as Nikon's mid-line DSLR.
The Nikon D90 is a D80 with Live View, ADR, an almost 3-D 3" LCD and can shoot movies. Forgive me if I go off on a tangent about movies; feel free to skip ahead to Lens Compatibility if your eyes start to glaze over.
Motion Pictures and HD top
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The D90 shoots 720p/24 for theatrical release! Just call Ascent Media in Burbank to strike your prints. Nikon claims, probably correctly, that you'll be getting much better results than an old-style camcorder because the sensor of the D90 is so much bigger.
What Nikon's still camera division probably doesn't realize yet is that the DX sensor is very close to the size of Hollywood 35mm movie film, which is a half of the frame that still photographers call "full-frame." In the roughest terms, Hollywood shoots 18 x 24mm frames all day.
You Hollywood folks just need to hack your Zeiss and Panavision lenses and go, but if you use Nikon's VR lenses, maybe your Steadicam rig can stay in its case. The flange focal distance is 46.5mm, so I'm unsure if it will be easy to adapt cine lenses to the D90.
In simple English for everyone else, unlike camcorders, you can throw backgrounds way out of focus for movies shot on the D90. The slow zoom kit lenses aren't good for this, but pop on a 135mm f/2 DC or 300mm f/2.8 and see what happens. Heck, you now can steal back your Hollywood neighbor's 300mm f/2 AI-s that he had converted to Arri mount and recombobulate it back to use on your Nikon!
24 FPS means movies will look like movies, presuming you shoot at 1/50 shutter speed. In bright light, shorter exposures will make things look a bit jumpy, and movies at 24 PFS are never as smooth as real video, which is shot at 60 fields per second. The video of the D90 can look like movies, but will never have the smooth fluid motion of regular camcorders.
Believe it or not, the jumpiness of theatrical movies is something for which professional video shooters pay FilmLook in Burbank (Hollywood) a lot of money to add back in!
Unlike a $250,000 Arriflex movie camera, the D90 records sound and has its own microphone. I don't see any particular audio input or output jacks; it's likely that unless the built-in mic does it for you, that you'll have to treat this as MOS. Unlike the Casio EX-V8 which records in glorious stereo sound, the D90 appears to be mono only.
I don't know if the D90 will pull focus automatically while shooting movies, but no big deal since theatrical movies have been shot with manual focus ever since the 1800s. Even today, the "Focus Puller" is the guy whose job it is to change focus as the scene progresses and as the dialog bounces between actors.
The only gotcha about shooting movies with the D90 is that you have no viewfinder. It blacks out! You have to use the rear LCD like a common tourist, or mount a larger video assist with the D90 on your dolly, using the video or HDMI outputs.
If I were Nikon, I'd shoot any TV commercials advertising the D90 on the D90. Hand this to someone in the ASC and he'll get great results.
Lens Compatibility top
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The D90 works perfectly with all traditional AF, AF-I, AF-D and AF-S lenses.
No metering or EXIF data with manual focus lenses, you need at least a D300 to use these well.
The D90 has the same lens compatibility as the D80, D70, D100 and D50, which is better than the D40/D60, but worse than the D300.
Details at Nikon Lens Compatibility.
Lens Suggestions top
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The D90 works with every AF lens made since 1986. The 18-105mm VR is a swell idea, and even the cheapest 18-55mm kit lens is also excellent. The 18-200mm VR does everything; if you get it, you won't need any other lenses unless you're an ultrawide junkie like me.
Nikon Zoom-NIKKOR*ED 50~300mm f/4.5 (discontinued).
For motion picture use, you might want to find one of the discontinued Zoom-NIKKOR*ED 50-300mm f/4.5 lenses, Try Adorama. These lenses were frightfully expensive new, selling for $3,000 at full discount at B&H Photo Video through the 1990s, and today sell used for about $1,000 to $2,000. The advantage of the 50-300 ED for movie work is its long 6x zoom ratio, that zooming all happens internally, it holds focus very tightly as zoomed, and that its zoom ring is extremely smooth and well spaced for smooth zooms, even by hand. The older non-ED lens isn't very sharp and its barrel expands and contracts with zooming, so I'd skip it. Skip either 50-300 for still shots; they don't couple to the meter.
Nikon D90. enlarge.
Specifications top
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Finder: Pentaprism, 96% coverage, 0.94x magnification with 50mm lens, 19.5 mm eyepoint. Settable 16-frame grid. Still a crappy, small finder compared to any film or FX camera: remember, the 96% coverage is of a frame only 0.65x the size of FX.
AF: 11 points. Multi-CAM 1000 AF module. Annoying AF assist illuminator.
Light Meter: 420 segment RGB Color Matrix with face detection. Center-weighted and spot for old-timers, too.
Depth-of-field Preview: Yes.
Shutter: 1/4,000 ~ 30 seconds and Bulb. Full, half and third stops.
Shutter Death: Tested to 100,000 cycles during design, Nikon doesn't share how many of them passed or failed that test. No big deal, Nikon's warrantees have never had a mileage (shutter count) limitation.
Fastest Shutter Speed with Flash (sync speed): 1/200. No mention of the trick FP mode.
Built-in flash: 18mm lens coverage, Guide Number 17/56 (ISO 200, m/ft.), 12/40 (ISO 100). i-TTL flash control: works as commander controlling up to two groups of remote flashes.
Flash Compatibility: i-TTL (SB-400, SB-600, SB-800, SB-900 and R1C1).
Sensor: 12.3 MP CMOS DX (15.8 x 23.6 mm). Sensor cleaner.
ISO: 100-6,400. ISO 200 ~ 3,200 come up the usual way, while ISO 100 is 'cyrpted as "Lo 1" and ISO 6,400 as "Hi 1."
Still Image Sizes: 4,288 x 2,848 (L), 3,216 x 2,136 (M) and 2,144 x 1,424 (S).
Still Image Formats: JPG, NEF, or both.
Motion Picture Formats: 1,280x720p/24, motion JPG .AVI for great frame-to-frame editing. Also 640x424 and 320 x 216 pixels. No word yet about variable frame rates, 23.98, genlock or variable shutter angles, probably not.
Longest Movie Scene: Not specified.
Storage: SD and SDHC cards.
Video out: Also HDMI.
LCD: 3," 640 x 480.
Power: Standard EN-EL3e battery (D80, D200, D300, D700, etc.). Rated 850 shots with 50% flash.
Size: 5.2 x 4.1 x 3.0 in. (132 x 103 x 77 mm).
Weight: 1 lb. 6 oz. (620 g), stripped naked like abandoned cars in the Bronx (no battery, no card, no lens, no cap, no strap and no monitor cover).
Included (can vary by area, especially if you order from any store in Brooklyn):
EN-EL3e battery
MH-18a charger
DK-5 eyepiece cap
DK-21 Rubber Eyecup
UC-E4 USB cable,
EG-D2 AV cable,
AN-DC1 Strap
BM-10 LCD Monitor Cover
Body Cap
BS-1 Accessory Shoe Cover (don't you love these Japanese designations; the shoe cover is BS!)
Software CD
Nikon ViewNX browsing and editing software, which also does raw (NEF) image adjustments and conversions. This is good; Nikon View is one of the very few decent pieces of software from Nikon.
Announced: 27 August 2008.
Available: Late September 2008.
Price: $999 USA (€ 899), add $300 for 18-105mm kit lens.
Marketing: 16 page brochure. The photo examples suggest that buying a D90 will earn you a lot of young, colorful, outgoing and active friends. No photos are credited. As usual, most of the example shots are made with lenses like the 85mm f/1.4, 14-24mm f/2.8 and 24-70mm f/2.8 that each cost as least as much as the D90 body alone and weigh several times as much, and would never be carried by someone young and exciting.
Notice that you will never, ever see anyone in a brochure sitting in front of a computer screen dicking with raw images. All you will see is skateboarding and bicycling, and the only time you'll see a person portrayed as cool with any electronic device is if Apple is trying to sell them iPods, or a cell phone company is trying to push wireless devices, which do cause cancer.
Optional Accessories top
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Specs Accessories Fluff Features Recommendations
Kit lens: 18-105mm VR (all lenses work).
D90 with GP-1 GPS.
Nikon GP-1 GPS, sans goofy cord.
GP-1 GPS lets one record 4 dimensions (lat, long, elevation and time) into EXIF data. Available November 2008.
Nikon MC-CD2 Cable Release.
Gag Me: A new optional, dedicated MC-DC2 cable release. The good news is that it looks like it plugs in a lot more easily than the screwy 10-pin jobs, but I'll bet you it costs more than a standard $6 cable release. Forget it, get the $17 ML-L3 wireless pocket remote instead.
Grip: Optional MB-D80, same grip as the D80. Uses one or two EN-EL3e or six AA batteries.
Software: Capture NX 2 software.
Nikon D90 and MB-D80 grip.
Sales (Fluff) Features top
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Active D-Lighting (Adaptive Dynamic Range) for taming highlights and shadows. There's a new “Extra High” mode for really nasty situations, and personally I'd just leave it in the Auto mode. If you're a turkey, you can bracket pictures with and without ADR. Nikon doesn't mention if this works for the video mode; I doubt it does but it would be awesome if it did.
Live View, with face-recognition AF.
Live View Focus Modes: Contrast-detection: Face priority AF automatically detects up to five faces and focuses on the closest, Wide area AF, and normal area AF used on a tripod.
Picture Controls similar to the D3, D700 and D300.
Scene Modes: Portrait, Landscape, Close-up, Sports and Night Portrait. The D90 is smart enough to know if VR is working and adjusts accordingly.
In-Camera Editing: The D90 adds Lens Distortion Correction and the ability to straighten horizons. There's also a goofy Spherize mode to screw up images as if they were shot with a fisheye, but it won't see any wider than the image did in the first place.
Playback Tricks: 72-frame playback, calendar playback and histogram display for a cropped portion of an image.
Gag me: "Pictmotion" menu creates slide shows combining five choices of both background music and image effects.
Recommendations top
Intro Movies Lens Compatibility Lens Suggestions
Specs Accessories Fluff Features Recommendations
Got less than $1,600 for a Nikon DSLR? Here's your camera.
The ADR feature is a huge help in taming wild highlights and shadows, the new LCD ought to be incredible, and the expanded Picture Control options beyond the D40 will let me get wilder colors. If you know how to turn these on and appreciate what they do (or want to make Hollywood movies cheap), get a D90.
I see a dedicated INFO button on the back, so if my hunches are correct and the D90 mirrors the ingenious new INFO modes of the D700, then the D90 will be a world leader in usability.
If not, the $499 D40 (including lens) is still my top pick for most people who don't shoot every single day, and if money's no object, the D700 is 2008's top amateur camera.
PLUG
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Ken