Thom Hogan's D90 Review is Available

I don't think anyone has mentioned that Thom Hogan's D90 review is out.

 

http://www.bythom.com/nikond90review.htm

 

He finds image quality much like that of the D300, metering less good.

I'm glad to read he points out the biggest flaw of the D80, the matrix metering. Going from a D70s, which had a nearly fool-proof meter, to the D80, which had to be babysat for more than half the photos I took with it, was quite a shock. I could never trust the D80 in tricky lighting, I always had to spin the rear EV adjustment dial. Not so with the D70s, the D300, or my new D700.

To me it seems like D80 at $600 is a great bargain, if one needs a backup body or if one wants to make a

beginning. Nothing from this report makes me jump on to my feet, and run for D90. Even ISO performance is nothing

spectacular.

 

Not so surprisingly the review is pretty close to the one on DPREVIEW.com

 

Thanks for letting the forum know about this.

 

:-)

even though TH and KR have re-assessed the d80 since the d90 release, the fact remains that the d80 was spot-on for its price point/market segment. its success, which apparently continues with the d90, helps nikon make higher-end, lower-volume cameras. for me the d80 was a good learning camera which prepared me for the d300 -- which meters better, but still requires a lot of tweaking as far as continually making adjustments. with the d80, i set EV -0.7, auto-ISO, Program and fired away. with the d300 i'm much more hands-on, maybe because i'm shooting in Manual most of the time, and have learned how to "read" a potential shot to determine what ISO is necessary.

 

i agree with arun that the d80 is a really good value right now. whatever else you can say about it, it produces good images. i still use mine from time to time as a second body or with a prime mounted, and i havent been tempted by the d90 to sell mine just for the better ISO (which appears to rival the d300, so it's maybe a little bit spectacular in that regard). the d90 and d300 are both second-gen DSLRs, so i'd expect them to be better than they cameras they replaced.

Going from the D70s to the D80 was like night to day, in terms of the viewfinder! The D70s viewfinder was simply horrible. I did enjoy the D80 while I had it, and I agree with Eric, it was a good practice camera for the D300, and now the D700.

Thankfully I'm not alone in noticing the metering issue. It has been a pretty noticeable one, at least to me. Not as bad as the D80 but still not as good as desired.

 

Side note: The camera blows me away. I bought it just for one trip into questionable weather and environmental conditions--not intending to keep it--but thew IQ is so good I can't bring myself to sell it as planned. IMHO the sharpness/detail are noticeably better than the Canon 5D FF. I have never seen sharper images from any camera, at least that I have personally used. I was using only L lenses on the 5D, incidentally.

 

At ISO 200 the noise levels are roughly the same but at ISO 400 and up the 5D reigns supreme as expected. If you are like me and shoot mostly at ISO 200 and below then this won't be much of an issue. The 5D doesn't have the metering issues of the D90, either, but this camera costs 2/3 what the 5D does. D90 also blows the 5D away in ergonomics (most any DSLR does) and has slightly better battery life. Anyway, I digress. It's a great camera and I am pleasantly surprised with it.