D90 full version here -- http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d90.htm 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. Silly Preset Scene Modes, like most less expensive cameras. What's Better (lots of new stuff!) What's better on the D90 than the D3, better than the D700 and better than the D300: Easier selection of advance modes, frame rates, remote control and self timer, especially in the dark. Works with the superior $17 ML-L3 wireless remote release. ADR is on by default. Adds the AF-A AF mode. Easier Live View mode with dedicated button! The other cameras use the rotary top switch, which sucks! Makes movies with sound. The D3 at least records sound alone, which the D90 can't. The AF Selector Lock is better designed so it won't get knocked by accident. The Self Timer can make multiple exposures, helping ensure everyone's eyes are open in at least one of the shots. Nikon finally fixed the design flaw where by default the Modeling Flash fired if you hit the Depth-of-Field preview button. Thank you Nikon! The dials work during playback by default. In the other cameras, I have to look for a few minutes to find this option hiding in the Custom Settings > Controls > Customize Command Dials option. By default, the D90 won't shoot without a card. The D3, D300 and D70 default to the very dangerous DEMO setting which lets you happily shoot an entire wedding, look at each shot on the LCD in every display mode and zoom setting, and not realizing until the end of the day that you had no card in the camera! Better than the D3 and Better than the D300: Can call up the top item in My Menu with the FUNC button. This makes the D90 much faster to use, because I now can get into the menus and set everything with just one hand! Dedicated rear INFO button. ADR modes include AUTO. The rear LCD Monitor-on times are selectable separately for Playback, Menus, the INFO panel and Image Review. The D90 has both the My Menu menu and Recent Items Menus. (D3 and D300 lack the Recent Items menu) Better than the D300 Far nicer rear multi selector. The D300 has a mushy single piece of crap, while the D3, D700 and D90 have much better two-piece controls with a separate center OK button. What's Missing What's missing compared to the D300, D700 and D3 (not much!) No ability to program the center OK button to zoom-in full-size in playback. No options for JPG optimization. No selection of NEF/raw characteristics. No Shooting and Custom Setting Banks. 11 versus 51 AF points. I didn't miss the extra 40, which are just in-between points. No AF Area Mode switch; need to call this up in a menu (easy if you use the FUNC button to get to My Menu, and put this selection in My Menu. No PC connector for studio flash. No big deal, I use the pop-up flash to trigger my studio strobes, or you can buy a hot-shoe to PC adapter. Can't program the Preview button to do tricks. No ability to use a custom prefix, like KEN_0123.JPG, for the file names. No Mirror-up mode. This mode sucks in the D3, D700 and D300 anyway. WB/ISO/QUAL buttons shared with other functions, but still easier to use than the hidden ones on the D3, whose locations date from the F5. No option for seeing the Focus Point Selection in playback, but who cares? No Intervalometer (automatic timed shooting). Can't set ISO or exposure in full stops: ISO sets only in third stops, and exposure only in third or half stops. No ability to change the focus and release priorities in the AF-S and AF-C modes. No metering, finder read-out or EXIF data with manual-focus lenses. (buy a small light meter and a hot-shoe adapter if you can't use the LCD to guess exposure.) No macho-man metal body, so the D90 weighs much less. The D90 has a metal lens mount. Maximum sync speed fixed at 1/250. (The D3, D700 and D300 can be set from 1/60 ~ 1/320 FP.) All these camera allow setting the slowest sync in P and A modes to any speed as slow as 30 seconds. No compatibility with Nikon's 1970s-inspired wireless transmitter. No compatibility with Nikon's expensive (like $500) Image Authentication software. No ability to Save/Load camera settings and Picture Controls to an SD card. No AF fine tuning, which I never use, and for most people, just lets then screw up a good thing. No RESET option in Easy Exposure Compensation. Only uses SD, not professional CF cards. This matters because SD cards don't come in professional speed grades, like Lexar 300x and 233x and SanDisk Extreme IV, and because SD card readers aren't available in Firewire to support those speeds. This means that it takes too long to download photos in the large quantities shot by pros. This is too bad, because the D90 is up to pro needs in every other way. No 4:5 professional aspect ratio, but only the D3 does this. What's Weird Compared to the D3, D700 and D300, the D90: The FUNC button and Depth-of-Field Preview buttons are reversed. When playing images with the ALL FOLDERS playback mode selected, instead of counting the images per folder (top right display might say 5/21), it counts as if all images on the card are in the same folder (top display might say 56/342). This gets confusing when images are in multiple folders. The D90 has the option of five alphanumeric places for file names (better than the older D3, D700 and D300 which only have three digits and no letters), but there isn't an easy option to create new folders incremented by one digit. Nice for naming files! The D90 defaults to the wrong file-numbering convention. You need to remember to set Custom Setting d7 to ON to prevent starting file numbers from DSC_0001.JPG every time you format a card. (All other recent cameras do this by default.) Camera Suggestions Got less than $1,600 but more than $500 for a Nikon DSLR? Here's your camera. The ADR feature is a huge help in taming wild highlights and shadows, the new LCD, identical to the one on Nikon's $5,000 D3, is incredible, and the expanded Picture Control options let me get state-of-the art image performance in a $999 camera. If you know how to turn these on and appreciate what they do (or want to make Hollywood movies cheap), get a D90. The dedicated INFO button mirrors the ingenious new INFO modes of the D700, making the D90 a world leader in usability. What about the D40? If money makes any difference, forget the D90. Digital cameras are a rich man's game. You don't need to spend $999 every other year just because Nikon or some web site says so. If I was on a budget and didn't shoot these cameras all day, every day, I'd never want anything other than the D40 for $499, complete with a great lens. I have no problem making great 20x30" prints from my D40 and its dinky kit lens. The reason to buy a D90 is for the many subtle extra features, like a depth-of-field preview button, and for the better pictures in most picture-taking situations afforded by the Auto ADR feature, which is always on by default. If you know how to turn on all the hot stuff in the D90, like ADR and adjust the Picture Controls which are newer and more flexible than the D40, D60 and D80, by all means, get a D90. I hope to have a plain-English user's guide to the D90 which will show you how to use all these great features, in which case, the D90 will be able to crank out more vivid colors and smoother skin tones than the D40. What About the D80? History! Forget it. Get a D40 instead of a D80 if money is an issue. The D40 is 95% the same as the D80, except for a few minor features. What about the D300 and D700? Each of these is much tougher (and heavier) than the D90 if you're going to bang it around. Each is also much faster if you're shooting a lot of sports. The funny reality of the world today is that the newer D90 has identical technical image quality to the older D300 and $5,000 D3 in good light. Paying more gets you more durability and faster focus and frame rates, but that's about it. All these have the same superb LCD and image quality. If you shoot in the dark, pro photographers first improve the light. If you can't improve the lighting and need to shoot at high ISOs, the D700 and D3 are vastly superior to an DX camera. Lens Suggestions top 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.
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