Digital Home Thoughts: Nikon D90 Officially Released Today

As was suspected, the Nikon D90 went public this week - this morning actually. All the specs and details are up on Nikon USA's site, but let me give you the breakdown on what's interesting. First, I was wrong about it being a CCD sensor: it has the same size DX-format sensor (15.8 x 23.6mm) as the Nikon D300, with the same number of effective pixels. So that right there is a bit shocking: you can get the same sensor in a camera that's basically half as much. Same ISO as well: 3200, or 6400 ISO in "high" mode. So from the sensor point of view, the D90 matches the D300, and it should produce fantastic photos, even in low light. I've been blown away by how great my D300 is in low light. The D90 also has the same amazing three-inch LCD screen as the D300, which I've found to be incredibly useful for seeing which photos really turned out.

Now for the main differences: the D90 uses SD cards (SDHC supported), has a bit less battery life than the D300, and managed 4.5 frames per second in high-speed burst mode. It has 11 point AF rather than the 51 point AF on the D300. It also brings to the table something very interesting though: 720p (1280 x 720) video, captured in MJPEG. MJPEG? Really? I keep hoping MJPEG format for videos was dead, but they keep bringing it back. I don't understand the details about it as a format, so maybe there's a great reason why they keep using it for videos; but what I do know is that it tends to create really large video files. That pretty much guarantees you'll need to process your videos, even if you're not editing them, in order to cut down on the storage size.

At $999 USD MSRP for the body, the D90 represents amazing value for the dollar - and, frankly, leaves me a touch jealous that a camera body 50% less expensive than my D300 has 720p video capture! I bought a Panasonic Lumix a few months ago just to get 720p video capture, so having it in a DSLR body would save me having to carry another camera. So who's going to buy a D90?