Nikon D90 review

The much-rumoured and even more longed-for update to the Nikon D80 has done its predecessor proud. The 12.3-megapixel Nikon D90 doesn't replace the popular 10-megapixel D80, which moves down Nikon's dSLR product line, and unsurprisingly, provides some significant enhancements over that two-year-old model. Most notably, the roughly £750 D90 is the first digital SLR to support movie capture.

The D90's main competitors are Canon's older 10-megapixel 40D, the 12.2-megapixel Sony Alpha DSLR-A700 and the 14.6-megapixel Pentax K20D.

Design
At 737 grams, the body is considerably heavier than most similar models, but it also feels sturdier and more substantial. The slightly more expensive A700 and K20D have more advanced dust and weather sealing, however. It's about the same size as the D80 and takes the same battery and vertical grip. It also has the same wireless flash controls and high-speed flash sync features. Nikon improved the shutter durability and integrated the same dust-prevention system as that of the D300. And while it uses the same LCD as that camera, it's covered by a polymer rather than glass.

The function button is in a good location from a shooting perspective, but is easy to overlook if you don't know it's there

Features
We really enjoyed shooting with the camera -- it's comfortable to hold and the control layout and navigation should be immediately recognisable to anyone who's shot with a Nikon dSLR recently. If you're making the switch from another brand, there might be a learning curve, though. For example, Nikon puts the white balance, ISO and quality buttons to the left of the LCD on its cameras, while other manufacturers tend to place them under the control of your right hand. As we complained about with the D80, we wish these were more easily identifiable by touch and the labelling a bit less cluttered.

To the right of the LCD you'll find the dedicated Live View button, a four-way navigation switch plus OK button, a switch to lock the navigation from moving the selected AF point, and a context-sensitive information button. In Live View mode, it cycles through a grid and two information displays and in standard shooting mode it displays the now-common settings summary and lets you change a limited number of parameters.

The parameter selections are a bit odd, though. You can only adjust settings you don't normally change that frequently -- such as Assign AE-L/AF-L button behaviour, Assign Fn button and Long exposure noise reduction -- while options you'll need more often, such as the AF mode choices or self-timer delay, remain buried in the custom settings. True, you can assign at least the AF mode choices to the Fn button, but there's a lot of other stuff you might want to assign to that as well, most notably the one-touch raw-format toggle.

While the camera's movie mode certainly ranks as the D90's most novel capability compared with its peers, the implementation leaves quite a bit to be desired. Its movie-capture specifications aren't too shabby: 24 frames per second 1,280x720-pixel motion JPEG and support for VR optical image-stabilisation if the lens has it. But it seems like Nikon faced some technical limitations that impair the capture experience, as well as makes some rookie mistakes with both its video and HDMI output.

For instance, exposure is fixed for the length of the clip, it has monaural sound, and you can only focus manually while shooting. HD clips are capped at 5 minutes because of file-system limitations. Plus, Nikon doesn't seem to have put sufficient video processing smarts into the camera to properly render video or stills.