Nikon D90

Two years after Nikon launched the D80, the D90 arrives, with some significant advances. But are they for the better?

Nikon’s DSLR boffins have been busy over the last year, introducing a range of new cameras, including the top-end D3 and the D300 last August; the D60 arrived in January this year, and then the FX D700 in July.

Enter the D90; this new DSLR is a DX camera (APS-C-sized sensor model) designed to fill the niche currently occupied by the D80, a superb camera in its own right. Interestingly, the D80 remains on sale, so watch out for some big price drops on the D80 as the D90 rolls out.

Nikon has, it says, designed the new camera for those trading up to a DSLR from a compact, and, significantly, to provide the more advanced photographer enough camera control and quality to satisfy the more serious snappers.

At first glance, however, the D90 looks so similar to the D80, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was a relatively minor upgrade from that predecessor, but you’d be wrong, because just about everything that can be changed on the D80 has been improved or enhanced on the D90.

The most obvious change is a new CMOS, 12.3MP sensor, piggy-backed by the most recent iteration of Nikon’s EXPEED image engine, a combination that Nikon claims will provide image quality akin to the superb D300 and it can shoot up to ISO 6400.

Another key change is the large, 640 x 480 pixel three-inch colour screen, a feature that’s been filtered down from higher end, just like it’s higher specified brethren, it’s a cracker of an LCD to use.

Another bonus is the changes made to the menu system, in fact the entire user interface has been given the friendlier approach christened within the consumer oriented D60 DSLR, and this makes the whole package very nice to use indeed.

The screen has an excellent ‘Info’ mode, invoked via a button below, and to the right side of the screen, which, with another press, activates a Settings menu (in Info mode, always shown) across the bottom that allows you to quickly adjust items not already catered to by the hard buttons on the body.

These include Noise Reduction settings, Active D-lighting, the Picture Control settings, such as Standard, Vivid and Portrait optimisations, for example. You can assign (or reassign) the function button that sits snuggled tightly against the right side of the Nikon F lens mount.

The Function button and its invocation via the Info mode is excellent, since it quickly allows you to use oft-needed features, but you can assign the AF Area mode, switch quickly to a central AF zone, you lock the flash value or activate the framing grid.

Going over a list of specifications for both the D80 and D90, just about every feature has had some form of tweak or major change, the only things not to have changed (there’s not room to go over everything that has been adjusted here) are the Nikon Multi-CAM1000 11-Area AF setup, the camera’s slightly heavier than the D80 703g the D80’s 668g, the physical dimensions are unchanged, however.

One of the interesting features of the D90 is the way the sensitivity settings have been sorted. The standard range provides ISO 200 to 3200, but a boosted range allows you to choose from ISO 100 to 6400. The D80 had an ISO range of 100 to 1600 and the boost there was to get it to ISO 3200 at the top end.

But, despite the boosted settings present in the D90, the combination of that new sensor and the excellent EXPEED processor means noise is impressively controlled.

The sensitivity settings provides small steps between ISO 200 and 3200, so you get ISO 200, 250, 400, 500, 640, 800, 1000, 1250, 1600, 2000, 2500 and 3200. Then you get jump to IS0 4000 and 6400.

It’s not until you get to ISO 1600 that noise becomes evident (though colour leaches very slightly) but only just. At ISO 2000, it’s still well controlled and better than a typical digital compact at ISO 800. It’s not until you get to ISO 4000 you could say noise is getting obviously intrusive, and at the boosted ISO 6400 setting, detail suffers and noise is very plain in the shots.

Nevertheless, this is a superb performance for such a camera and one that means shooting at ISO 1000 and higher holds no image noise disadvantages whatsoever, and so Nikon’s claim it’s a sensitivity performance akin to that of the D300 holds true.

Another change over the D80, and one that makes it a world first is that this is the first D-SLR with a HD Movie mode at 1,280 x 720 pixels, 24fps movies with mono sound. Intriguingly, the movie mode is only accessible/active using the cameras other must have feature, Live View, so you cannot accidentally shoot video when you wanted to shoot stills, for example.

Manual focusing is required, and, of course, you can zoom the lens you have fitted throughout, although in the top quality Movie mode, video sequences are limited to five minutes, lower the resolution of the movie shooting (to 640 x 480, for example) and the video clip length stretches out to 20 minutes.

In terms of handling, the D90’s almost the same as the D80, but with slightly smoother lines. The main shooting controls are the top plate Shutter release and On/off lever, the accompanying Metering and Exposure buttons sit just behind, as does the large, backlit data LCD.

Over the hump of the pentaprism viewfinder, itself as bright and clear as that on the D80, you find the large Mode dial that provides the route into all the manual shooting options and six subject programs, including Portrait, Landscape and Macro. An all Auto mode brings up the rear and when used, the camera becomes a veritable point and shoot DSLR; even the flash automatically pops up when needed.

On the back, the large screen is accompanied by what at first seems to be a rather vast array of buttons. However, there’s logic to them. Down the left are the main controls for Playback, Menu activation and a White Balance control. This doubles as a neat Help system button, so when you see a question mark icon on, say, a menu, pressing it activates the Help screen, explaining what the mode or adjustment does. The same button trebles as the Lock Image button when in Playback mode.

ISO and image quality hard buttons come next, both dealing with magnification chores in playback or provide a grid thumbnail view for faster image scrolling. The LV (Live View), four-way jog and OK buttons are on the right of the screen where you also find the four-way jog lock and the very helpful Info button, mentioned earlier.

In short, if you’ve used a Nikon DSLR before, or one of their more advanced bridge models, such as the P80 or the P5100, you’ll be quickly at home, since controls, menus and the layout are very similar.

If you’re new to a Nikon DSLR then there’s enough automation to get you going, and, overall, you can quickly get to grips with the control layout with a certain amount of customisation available, as well to set the controls up how you like them.

In short, the camera can be tailored to you easily and quickly, and so makes it an even more appealing proposition for the novice user, and therefore, the broader target market Nikon hopes to reach with this camera.

So there’s plenty of mouth-watering kit to tinker with, the camera is built and handles extremely well, but what of the image quality? First impressions didn’t bode well. Image noise may be almost nonexistent in all but the highest ISO shots, but where was the shadow detail?

The camera’s dynamic range appeared a little stunted; D-Lighting helps dig out detail, for sure, but shadows appear quickly while highlights lose detail very quickly, too. Colour performance is stunning and the metering seems slightly biased to underexposure, something that compounds the shadow issues.

Like most of the recent DSLRs tested recently, WB control is sublime, even shooting complex, mixed lighting sources; they were handled well in Auto mode, but the quality shines through when the correct WB setting was selected for the conditions. Customising the WB to the conditions is a breeze, as you can preview any changes in Live View.

The camera’s AF system is pretty much faultless, from the dynamic area AF to the tracking AF; both are superb. The Face Detection AF helps optimise skin tones, and colour information is incorporated in the calculations to help keep things pinsharp.

However, disappointingly, the AF performance in Live View, particularly in comparison to “normal” AF shooting, is incredibly slow, so studied compositions or tripod-mounted work are the order of the day here.

You can take control and manually focus of course, but this is a rare occasion of the camera being even remotely sluggish performance-wise.

For example, the camera has lightning-fast start-up (0.15 seconds, according to Nikon), great for quickly getting into action whenever needed. This is backed up by 4.5fps continuous drive, so, combined with the AF focus tracking, capturing fleeting action is not a problem. The sequence during the test of a small dog running past proved it perfectly; speedy performance is excellent.

The iTTL flash set-up is superb, with modelling flash thrown in for good measure so you can quickly avoid unwanted shadows in, say, portraits. The D90 is also equipped with a 420-pixel RGB sensor that analyses scene and colour information of the subject.

This system, first introduced on Nikon’s D3 and D300, uses a Scene Recognition System, which, based on its readings, optimises the focus, exposure and white balance prior to the shutter firing.

Picture controls can be quickly adjusted to your liking, if default values don’t suit the subject, but the system works well enough, the default setting ideal for most general shooting tasks.

In terms of captured detail, the new CMOS sensor is very capable indeed, and the VR kit lens used for this test is sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel and able to get the most from the pixels on offer.

But there are disappointing downsides with the 18-105mm f3.5-5.6G ED VR kit lens. The apertures are fairly restricting if controlling depth of field is important, and it is for shooting portraits, for example; but more worrying when shooting scenic images is noticeable barrel distortion at the wide end, combined with distinct pincushion distortion at the telephoto end of the zoom.

Another initially very minor quibble is with the SD external storage and the port cover. First, the cover is uncharacteristically flimsy given the build of the rest of the camera, but more worrying, when you want to remove the card, the sprung system that grips it in place holds on rather too tightly for convenience.

However, other features you get to tinker with are reserved for playback and retouching. The extensive retouch menu, for example, provides a range of photo effects that include a clever fisheye and distortion control, plus a straightening system; we were able to mitigate the barrel distortion issues to a degree. Happily, your original image remains untouched; the camera creates a duplicate image with your edits onboard the camera.

There is also a good range of playback functions; Nikon’s Pictmotion system is a built-in slideshow creator, there’s a 72-frame thumbnail display, a very funky calendar playback and a histogram display that even provides histograms of magnified sections of an image, this allows fine control and assessment of exposure if needed.

As mentioned at the start of this review, the D90 is stuffed full of new kit and clever tweaks; the major ones have been covered here, but there’s simply not space to cover it all. And so, in the final analysis, the D90 represents is a brilliant upgrade on the D80, worries over dynamic range need addressing but this is a new Nikon certainly capable of stunning results and, when looking at the body-only price, it represents stunning value for money, too

Final Verdict The D90 offers superb kit for the price; it also ably deals with high ISO image noise and is capable of stunning results. OVERALL

Doug Harman has over 19 year's experience as a journalist, writer, photographer, and digital camera and technology tester. He has written extensively for a multitude of digital photography magazines and websites, and he's also the author of two books.