Day 36: Pulling the Trigger

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/60, ISO 200, Flash @ TTL)

It'd been something I've been comtemplating for several weeks now.  Having amassed the necessary funds required, I decided to satisfy my growing urge.  I went and got a D90.  Despite only having played with it for one night, I am already in love.  I thought the D60 was a fair size and that any larger DSLR would certainly feel awkward.  Not true.  The D90 felt so comfortable that after a few hours the D60 now feels a little awkward.

 

(Nikon D60, 35mm DX, f/8, 1/60, ISO 400, Flash @ TTL)

So why grab one you ask?  Well, (Okay, you probably didn't ask) there had been a number of things that I had desired that simply weren't present on my D60:

- Nikon CLS use with the pop-up flash (as commander)

- ISO Sensititivy

- Frame Rate

- Dedicated Buttons (ISO, WB, Second Control Dial)

- Movie Mode

Certainly the biggest one was the ability to use the pop-up flash as a commander.  The feature only just beginning to appear on the Canon SLRs (7D) has been present in most of the mid-range and professional-grade Nikons in the last few years.  Sure, I could've purchased another SB-900 or an SB-600 to solve the problem and use my current SB-900 as a commander, but that wouldn't have satisfied the other four requirements.  A little experimenting tells me I can probably push ISO to 3200 in sticky situations, which would be very much welcome to the 800 that I never dared venture over on the D60.  An extra 1,5 frames (4.5 vs. 3) is also welcome.  It's not a blistering 8 frames, but I'll take any increase I can get.  I can't recall how many times I've missed shots over the past summer shooting softball/ultimate frisbee where I've missed a crucial shot due to the small buffer and slow frame rate on the D60.

Dedicated buttons explain themselves; playing Menuwarrior on my D60 was getting annoying.  Lastly, movie mode is totally for the purposes of experimenting.  I fully support the implementation of video into DSLRs.  They've got bigger sensors for better low-light performance, as well as (for me) a price advantage over camcorders of similar function.  Sure, they're not perfect right now but I'm confident they'll get there - just look at Canon's implementation. 

It's no D3s, D700, or D300s, but it's good enough and by far much cheaper than the other three solutions.  With this in mind, I'm looking forward to experimenting more with the D90 over the next few weeks.