First Impressions

taubkin

taubkin

Veteran
I'm finally holding mine on my hand right now. The first thing I noticed about it, besides it being much heavier than my D40 (but still not even close to the D300), is that it's a stills camera. A dang good one. Seriously, awesome. But with that came a very simple conclusion, it's not meant to make video.

-But, we always try to find a way.

Hand holding the thing is hard. Impossible to avoid skew whit the camera on my hand, at least with my 50mm 1.4. Maybe I'll get the hang of it, though.

This week I'll try to do some testing, Maybe I'll get lucky. If something turns out any decent, I'll upload it to vimeo...

But I'm very happy so far...

PS: What a shame, it still doesn't meter with manual lenses... I guess it's hard to put the same functionality on these digital cameras as the cameras that the same makers sold 40 years ago, like -you know- metering. Great thing that we have live view...

Well, wish me luck! :thumbup:
 
taubkin said:
I'm finally holding mine on my hand right now. The first thing I noticed about it, besides it being much heavier than my D40 (but still not even close to the D300), is that it's a stills camera. A dang good one. Seriously, awesome. But with that came a very simple conclusion, it's not meant to make video.

-But, we always try to find a way.

Hand holding the thing is hard. Impossible to avoid skew whit the camera on my hand, at least with my 50mm 1.4. Maybe I'll get the hang of it, though.

This week I'll try to do some testing, Maybe I'll get lucky. If something turns out any decent, I'll upload it to vimeo...

But I'm very happy so far...

PS: What a shame, it still doesn't meter with manual lenses... I guess it's hard to put the same functionality on these digital cameras as the cameras that the same makers sold 40 years ago, like -you know- metering. Great thing that we have live view...

Well, wish me luck! :thumbup:
Click to expand...
mount it to a cheap lightweight collapsed tripod and hold the centre shaft of the tripod, works really well no rolling shutter or jello.
 
Car3o said:
how many of these type of statements are we gonna see when it's been proven otherwise?
Click to expand...

I agree, It seems to have a video function on it too me.

I think people mean to say something else, like: "It was initially designed for taking stills and they added an extra function which is not the main feature of the camera. Maybe in the future they will improve this feature, but right now even with it's limitations is pretty amazing. Got to love the potential." Or something like that.

I think the reason why the D90 does not meter with older lenses is just so Nikon can make a buck or two on newer ones. I could be wrong. But it's something they could change with a firmware update if they wanted to, IMO.
 
First impressions don't always tell the whole story.

First impressions don't always tell the whole story.

I have searched the web for d90 footage. Some people have some nice footage going on. The camera is pretty impressive for what it brings to the plate for the price. No doubt next years release will blow this one away but for now this camera is capable of good things.:thumbup:
 
artforme said:
I think the reason why the D90 does not meter with older lenses is just so Nikon can make a buck or two on newer ones. I could be wrong. But it's something they could change with a firmware update if they wanted to, IMO.
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stop down metering for sure, especially in live view, but i think it's the mount that doesn't tell the camera what range the lens has so "normal" metering is probably impossible.

/matt
 
Car3o said:
how many of these type of statements are we gonna see when it's been proven otherwise?
Click to expand...

Don't take me wrong, I bought it mainly for the video capability. The images look awesome. I WILL make video with it. But it wasn't MEANT to do that. You have to fight it ergonomically and logistically to make it happen. The results are worth the hassle, especially with personal projects.

What I mean is that when we analise it, we have to be aware of that simple fact in order to align our expectations. It's not meant to do video, it just does. So maybe we should stop hoping for firmware upgrades, or for a next model that is a killer video camera, because that's not what nikon meant at all, when they gave us video mode (live view recording).

I believe it was an almost like an "accident" when the video mode on this and on the 5D turned out so good.

Hopefully the makers will realize the amount of potential this new technology has and will spend some more R&D on new and better implementations of the feature, hopefully soon.

That's all... I'm not bashing any camera. I'm a huge defender of the new breed of DSLR video.

Cheers
 
I think with good practice and shooting on RAW you wont really miss the metering on manual, especially when the price for the manual lenses are so much cheaper than the AFs and offer more video function. It only slows me down in that the flash has to be manually synced and TTL doesnt work with those lenses though. Keep meaning to buy myself some more AFs for that reason.

I like the 'lomographic' style on the d90, and the muffly mono sound gives it that warmth of foreign films of the early 90s... like Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express. Scrumptious.

Aaah I remember the good old days, funnily enough years back I did my A-Level Photography course and I mostly did all my photos on really rubbish equipment like self made pin-hole cameras and 320x240 vga camera phone photos.

How times have changed.
 
When I first got mine I too trashed the video feature, however, after a week of learning the camera, especially, locking exposure, pulling manual focus and shooting from a tripod & shoulder brace, I have to say the bokeh alone is worth all of these limitations. Come to think of it I'm starting to use it more and more instead of my DOF adaptor/camcorder combo.

Like anything, once you learn it's quirks you can really do some amazing stuff with it. Imagine in years from now we'll be telling the young ones getting into motion picture production about the obstacles we had to overcome just to have the privilege of shooting with shallow depth!
 
Just an update. Every time I pick it up, I like it more. Maybe my next post will be worshiping the little bastard...

There's a place for those cameras today, still not sure how large it is...
 
Just got mine in also.. It's charging as I type and I can not wait..haha First impressions so far that it's tons lighter then my D2Xs and D3 which is a plus for me. This is my first consumer digital cam and it's feels great. Just have to be careful and not to be to rough with it as I am with my other cams.
 
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