Crazzy88ss' Nikon D90 18-105mm VR Kit Review

[crazzy88ss]

Ok, so here's my Nikon D90 with the kit lens review. I've had it for 3 days now.

http://flickr.com/photos/xissey/2806040824/sizes/o/
http://a.img-dpreview.com/previews/N...lroundview.jpg
From DP review.

Ok, so some quick specs for those that don't already know.

Kit Price: $1300 USD
Body Price: $1000 USD
DX (1.5x crop factor) body.
12.2 effective MP (same as D300)
11 point AF set up, similar to the D80/D200's set up.
ISO 200-3200 or as low as 100 as LOW 1.0 or as high as 6400 as HIGH 1.0.
720p HD Video Recording with mono sound.
Shutter speeds from 1/4000th to 30 seconds.
Built in flash has wireless commander mode.
3" LCD 920,000 pixels
View Finder with frame coverage of approx. 96% horizontal and 96% vertical.
Live View
4.5 FPS
HDMI Out
Optional GPS input

All pictures that I've uploaded to flickr that are from my D90 are here: http://flickr.com/photos/stephenkirsh/tags/d90/

ISO and Noise
Ok, so first off I'll start with ISO comparison, as that was one of my main reasons for upgrading from my D50.

These shots were taken with the kit lens at 105mm @ f5.6 with VR on.

http://flickr.com/photos/stephenkirsh/2869...in/photostream/
ISO 200 2/5 sec

http://flickr.com/photos/stephenkirsh/2868...in/photostream/
ISO 400 1/4 sec

http://flickr.com/photos/stephenkirsh/2869...in/photostream/
ISO 800 1/8 sec

http://flickr.com/photos/stephenkirsh/2869...in/photostream/
ISO 1600 1/15 sec

http://flickr.com/photos/stephenkirsh/2868...in/photostream/
ISO 3200 1/30 sec

http://flickr.com/photos/stephenkirsh/2869...in/photostream/
ISO 6400 1/60 sec

Notice the colors start to change a little bit at ISO 3200 and 6400. There was no post processing done with these. I did have High ISO NR turned to HIGH in the camera settings. I think it performs really well. It's basically a D300, as they share the same sensor.

Top and Rear LCD Screens
The top LCD is your standard LCD. It has a back light which can be activated by sliding the on/off switch to the illumination position, after which it springs back to the "on" position. I'm so glad to finally have this feature. With my D50 I would be using things like my cell phone to light up the top LCD.

Another bonus is the ability to have the ISO displayed on the LCD and in the view finder. In A, S, and P modes, the ISO can be toggled by rotating either the front or back command dial. This is quite helpful and keeps the user from having to hold the ISO button while rotating the command dial.

The rear LCD is incredible. Again, coming from the D50, this is a huge upgrade. It's gorgeous, and the camera comes with the BM-10 screen protector to keep it new.

Pushing the INFO button, located at the bottom right corner of the screen, brings up all the info from the top LCD in a big, easy to read, and bright screen. See above image from DP review.

View Finder
The view finder isn't SUPER great, but it's a lot larger than my D50's.

Ergonomics
The camera feels great in my hands. The main grip is PERFECT for my hand size. It has a little indent on the inside part where your finger tips rest; this helps give it a more secure feel.

The buttons are all really nice. They're all raised above the camera molding and are easy to push. Most buttons are multifunction, and Nikon did a good job of making them all easy to use. The 4 way selector/OK button is much better than Nikon's older models. It's easy to push and the placement of the OK button is finally on par with modern day electronics. However, I have one gripe with the buttons, and that's the location of the delete button. On my D50, it was located about were the INFO button on the D90 is. Nikon moved it way to the top left corner of the camera. It's way out of the way and requires me to use two hands to view/delete images.

It is "only" a D90, so the body's mostly plastic, but that helps keep down on the weight. I'm not too clumsy with my electronics, so hopefully there won't be any problems.

The 18-105mm f3.5-5.6 VR Kit Lens
The kit lens is actually better than I expected. I haven't test its sharpness, but I can't imagine it's going to be all that great. The VR works pretty well, much better than I had expected. This is my first VR lens, so it was kinda interesting to play around with it.

The lens uses the SWM motor, another first in a lens for me. It's almost completely silent, which is kinda neat, but totally useless to me. Auto focus is pretty fast for a kit lens.

The zoom ring is huge; it's about 1.75 inches or so. The focus ring is TINY and it has a huge travel path; it rotates about 120 degrees which is too far for me.

The kit lens does come with a hood and uses 67mm filters.

It's also super light. It's probably 33% lighter than my tamron 17-50mm f2.8.

Live View
Another new feature for me, at least on a DSLR, was live view. It's not so great, and I believe it'd be better on the D300.

The D90 only has "tripod mode" for focusing, which I'm not too sure what that means, but it's not all that great. It takes longer to focus than point and shoot cameras that use the same type of technology. But this isn't something you'll be using too often. I've already found it advantageous a few times shooting odd angles, so it's a nice bonus to have. You can zoom in and focus EXACTLY on the spot you want, which is pretty neat if you're using lenses with huge apertures.

D-Movie Mode
Sigh. Unfortunately, this kinda bombed. I was hopping for better quality but it's just not there. Maybe the next nikon camera to have it will do better. Here's something I did on the first night with the 50mm f1.8 @ 1.8.
http://flickr.com/photos/stephenkirsh/2867492728/

At 500x281 it looks pretty decent, but at 720 it looks pretty bad. I don't have any where to upload the 720 file to. If somebody would host it for me, please PM me and I'll email you a few videos.

Here's something I did in the first few hours of shooting. It was taken at 480p with a nikon 80-200mm f2.8.
http://flickr.com/photos/stephenkirsh/2869...b=1221801087216

I'm not sure what the term is, but it looks... wavy?

As a side note, Flickr fails about 30% of the time when uploading videos... it's kinda odd. Maybe I'm just having bad luck.

I honestly give the video part a 5 out of 10 points. It is disappointing.

Sports Shooting
Again, much better than my D50, but not as good as the D300. If you're gunna be doing tons of sports, go for the D300 for sure. With that said, I'm very happy with the D90's performance. 4.5 FPS @ 12mp with 25 jpgs filling up the buffer (~8 if you do RAW).

I was using a nikon 80-200mm f2.8 to shoot, and at f2.8 and iso 200 the camera's shutter speed wouldn't go high enough. The D90 goes to 1/4000 while the D200/D300 go to 1/8000. I can always push the ISO to 100, and I'm sure that'll help.

I'm not too experienced with sports shooting, so I guess I'll leave it at that.

Menus and UI Ease of Use
The menus are pretty easy to learn. They're set up better than the D40, which requires a lot of hunting. With only 3 days of use, I pretty much know where everything is.

One Problem
Maybe this is isolated to just my unit, but the camera doesn't rotate images while viewing when they were shot vertically. Obviously I enabled it in the menu, but it isn't happening. Broken accelerometer? Glitchy firmware? I dunno. It's not that big of a deal.

On Camera Flash
I was surprised by this little guy! It's stronger than I expected. It also has a custom strobe mode, which is awesome. Too bad the flash wasn't stronger to make the strobe highly effective. My SB-600 doesn't even have that!

It also has wireless commander mode with TTL support for off camera flash.

Pros
Coming from a D50, pretty much everything is perfect.
-Insanely great ISO control and low noise
-Much better FPS burst rate
-Wireless commander mode for strobist flash
-Everything else!
Cons
Again, nothing really big, and nothing that would keep me buying this camera.
-Live view is slow in focusing but still highly functional.
-Buffer doesn't hold too many pictures.
-Video sucks. But who buys a DSLR for video recording? It's just a nice extra to have. I don't want to hear any "video doesn't belong on a DSLR," especially considering canon just put it on the 5DII. So it looks like video is going to start being a DSLR standard. And with live view, why not?

Overall Score
9.5/10

The small buffer and live view/movie mode kept it from getting a perfect score.

I love this camera and I'm glad I made the purchase.

Currently, Nikon is shipping only kit units; body only units will be shipping in Late October as far as I know.

If you guys have any questions/request, let me know!

[WooD]

Congrats on your new gear.

You need to be updating your signature now.

[crazzy88ss]

Originally Posted by WooD

Congrats on your new gear.

You need to be updating your signature now.

haha good point!

[dannyrich]

Great review Crazy.

Now i really cant wait to get it!

One more sleep lol

[dannyrich]

Got it.

Its fab.

Makes any picture look great, the screen is that good!

I just deleted tonnes on the laptop that i thought were 5* on that screen!!!

[crazzy88ss]

Just an interesting tidbit I learned last night: The D90 will not use live view with a teleconverter + a slow lens. Live view worked with my TC + any f2.8 or faster lens, but not my slower lenses.

As soon as you hit the live view button, the screen flickers and it goes back to "normal" mode with out a warning message or anything.

[Chip]

Thanks very much for taking the time to post such a thorough review.

The ISO pics were helpful. Noise at 3200 didn't seem bad at all.

Have fun experimenting.

[Sime]

Well done on the new kit and thanks for posting the review - very cool.

Sime

[Chip]

One question, crazzy88ss: where are you seeing the late Ocotber delivery date for the body only? Thanks again.

[crazzy88ss]

Uhhh amazon.com, and a wolf camera store employee told me that.