Nikon D90 DSLR Camera Review

The D90 offers control over ISO, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, exposure adjustment, focus, zoom, and a variety of picture controls. Everything the camera can do with video it can do with stills (only with stills there is far more freedom and control).

Stills can be taken in seven different quality settings—NEF (RAW) + JPEG fine, NEF (RAW) + JPEG normal, NEF (RAW) + JPEG basic, NEF (RAW), JPEG fine, JPEG normal, and JPEG basic. Stills can also be captured in three sizes—Large (4288 x 2848; 12.2 megapixels), Medium (3216 x 2136; 6.9 megapixels), and Small (2144 x 1424; 3.1 megapixels).

An internal flash pops up out of the top of the D90 if you press the flash button (on the left side of the camera at the very top) or if you are in an automatic mode and the camera detects a flash is required.

The D90 also has an extensive Retouch Menu (accessible by pressing the menu button on the left side of the LCD screen, then selecting the Retouch Menu tab). The Menu has many options for giving your photographs a desired look after you've already taken the picture. Retouch options include: D-Lighting effects, red-eye correction, trim, monochrome, filter effects, small picture, image overlay, NEF (RAW) processing, quick retouch, straighten, distortion control, and fisheye. While these adjustments and effects are readily available with any decent photo editing software, it's a useful addition if you want to quickly retouch images without a computer. The Retouch Menu features are not available for videos.

The built-in flash of the D90

Still Performance (8.89)
We tested the still performance of the Nikon D90 by photographing an X-Rite Color Checker chart in our labs under bright, even light. We then run these stills through Imatest imaging software to analyze color accuracy, noise levels, and saturation. We photographed the chart under a number of different exposure settings and picked the best results.

The D90 produced a color error of 6.75, which is comparable to some of the top scores achieved by HD camcorders (Sony does particularly well with color accuracy in still mode). The D90 earned a saturation of 102.2%, which is also comparable to many HD camcorders we've tested (again, very close to Sony). This is quite an interesting result, suggesting many camcorders and digital cameras reproduce colors in a similar manner.

The Nikon D90 did fairly well with noise, tallying an approximate measurement of 0.75%. All these tests were performed with the camera in auto mode, and under our lights the camera went with a 200 ISO setting.

Note: Because Camcorderinfo.com utilizes different testing setups than our sister site, the results of the Still Performance may show slight variations from those found on Digitalcamerainfo.com.

Still Resolution (56.61)
We tested the still resolution of the Nikon D90 by photographing an ISO 12233 resolution chart under a consistent, bright light. We then send these images through Imatest imaging software and analyze the results. The D90 measured a horizontal resolution of approximately 1939 line widths per picture height (lw/ph) with a -0.8 undersharpening and a vertical resolution of 1872 lw/ph with a -12.5 undersharpening. These results are far better than every consumer camcorder on the market, which makes sense. Digital SLRs are designed to take photographs at very high resolutions, whereas camcorders are not.