Nikon D90 – Now With Video!

The really groundbreaking feature here is the new “D-Movie” Mode. Since the sensor is much larger than that found in most video cameras, you have much shallower depth of field, just like a high-end motion picture camera. The D90′s sensor is actually close to the same size as the recorded area of motion picture film. Add to that the Nikon lens system and you have a truly versatile feature here. The D90 also has a microphone and a powerful speaker for playback.

The D90′s video mode offers up to 1280x720P high definition at 24 frames-per-second, the standard motion picture frame rate. It can also record at a reduced size of 640×424 or 320×216 pixels. It will record for 5 minutes before stopping to cool the sensor. Videos record to motion-jpeg .AVI files that can be imported to most video editing programs like iMovie and the like without any transcoding or conversion. They are rather large files, however, which is to be expected.

What the D90 lacks in video mode is auto focus, Auto White Balance, Aperture adjustment, and stereo audio. There is no support for an external mic and the internal mic is mono only. Exposure can be locked but there may be real-world limitations to the amount of manual control you have over exposure.

Early samples indicate that the D90 may suffer from compression artifacts in the video as well as ‘rolling shutter’ skew when panning, so don’t expect it to replace your video camera outright. The D-Movie Mode is still a cool feature that will undoubtedly be very useful to many D90 owners and will spur the evolution of video in digital SLRs from other camera makers as well as Nikon.

Nikon has announced the expected street price at $999, and the camera has already started shipping. With the new 18-105mm VR kit lens, the price is $1299. All in all, a great price for this groundbreaking offering from Nikon. The D90 will likely go down in camera history as one of the game-changers. Like many other pieces of leading edge technology, it doesn’t necessarily do what it brings to the table for the first time flawlessly. But the ball is rolling and I doubt it will be long before video features in DSLRs take off with dramatic improvements.

Related Content:
Nikon Review Page
Official Nikon D90 Press Release
Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR Lens Press Release
Nikon Digital SLR Reviews
All Nikon Reviews
Nikon Cameras Forum
All Nikon News
Nikon Web Site

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