Nikon D90 - Lights, Camera, Action!
27 August 2008

In an unprecedented move by Nikon, movie recording is now made a reality for DSLRs. Introducing the all new Nikon D90, Nikon is adding one to the history books with its revolutionary D-movie mode, a function that shoots movies in 3 different motion JPEG formats. Aside from movie-recording, the D90 is a giant stride ahead of the 2-year old Nikon D80 and outshines the older sibling with a number of revamps and newer technologies. Whether you're a current D80 user or simply curious on just how phenomenal this camera is, here are some of the key features that'll be grabbing people's attention.

Sensor
As with most DSLR upgrades, it's not surprising that the D90 offers more megapixels than the Nikon D80, 12.3 megapixels compared to 10.2 to be exact. The D90 also adopts a Nikon DX CMOS sensor instead of the previous DX CCD on the D80. While CCDs are known to be more light-sensitive than CMOS, the D90 goes the contrary and delivers a much wider ISO sensitivity range, maxing out at ISO 6400 whereas the D80 only managed up to ISO 3200. Among the good news is also the Image Sensor Cleaning function which is just about mandatory nowadays.

LCD Screen
The old D80 sports a 2.5-inch LCD with a 230k dot resolution, which in our opinion is clear enough but with the D90, it takes the meaning of 'clear' to a whole new plateau by flaunting an LCD that's 3.0-inch large and flooded with a 920k dot resolution. This LCD we see here is the same that's been used on Nikon's D3, D300 and the more recent D700, that shows tact-sharp images and menus as if they were printed on paper.

Live-View Mode
The D90 milks the most out of its brilliant LCD with a fantastic Live-View mode, which the D80 is without. Giving you the complete feel of a point and shoot camera, there's three contrast detect AF modes available that handles the focusing duties; a wide-area AF for a larger AF area during handheld shots, normal area AF for pin-point accuracy on a tripod and more excitingly, a Face priority AF that delivers face detection of up to five faces.

Nikon EXPEED Processor
Nikon's EXPEED image processor runs within the D90 and besides bringing you features like Live-View, the high-speed image processing gives the D90 a quicker 4.5fps continuous shooting, slightly faster than the 3fps of the D80. There's also a new Scene Recognition System that helps you nail the perfect shot each time by automatically finding the ideal focus, exposure and white balance for your shots. Face Detection is also available to assist you for portrait shooting should you need it.

D-Movie Function
Hate it or love it, the Nikon D90 is the world's first DSLR to shoot movies and this can be an incredible advantage. Besides enjoying your love of photography, you can spice up your photoshoots with the movie recording function. Given this unique pairing, you are able to get creative perspectives in your movies by using the lenses available to the D90. You might also wonder how this movie-recording function became possible as well, and Nikon was able to do this by using a faster frame rate and by processing still JPEGs into one fluid movie.

Final Words
Made available near the end of September, the Nikon D90 is unlike anything we've seen before and marks a new era in DSLR photography, and there's good reason why many are excited to see this camera. While photographers generally shoot in still images, the addition of movie-recording might be a puzzling addition to DSLRs but it's a feature that photographers will appreciate and may actually demand today, like the photojournalists and paparazzi's.

While its movie-recording functionality will be the camera's main claim to fame, we shouldn't forget about the actual camera here. With the hoard of new features from Nikon's EXPEED processor plus an interesting Live-View that offers face detection, the Nikon D90 serves you with ease but yet remains a camera capable of many things.