Nikon D90

Engineered for artistry

This is the description header you will find at the web site of www.nikonusa.com – D90 page “Fusing 12.3-megapixel image quality and an exceptional 24fps D-Movie Mode, the Nikon D90 exceeds the demands of passionate photographers.”

We recently became a member of the Nikon family when we purchased the Nikon D90, this is my first DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera) so I can’t say I’m an expert but when financial times are hard you need to get your money’s worth, and before you let go of your hard earned cash a little research will go a long way.

This article will cover how and why we decided on getting the Nikon D90 from the vast array of choices of DSLR’s available in the market today.

A serious photo hobbyist and even newbies who graduated from taking artistic photos with a 2-megapixel (or higher) camera phones or the more powerful pocket sized digital cameras will more likely to start with the popular line up, “canon, nikon and olympus”. If you are one of those nodding their heads in agreement but then you came to your senses and realize that it’s still a wide range of selection even if I’m just talking about the top 3 dslr’s but what about their models those “EOS Rebel T1i, EOS 50D or D5000, D3000, Evolt E520″ and so on, don’t panic, here is what we’ve done.

The process and how to narrow down your choices:

Let’s start with popularity, like a good movie you would like to see, you will hear a lot of buzz as to which camera is at the top of everyone’s list, all you have to do is listen and observe.

What we heard is Canon this and Canon that… as most of our friends always have a Canon SLR handy when we have a get together or go on trips we were lucky that we got exposed to it through association we had a few hands-on experience during these times to see the camera’s potential and why it was very popular. But popularity alone is not enough if you’re looking for a long term relationship with your camera. You need to seek out the competition at least, that’s where the Nikon comes in.

What we did was look up the top 10 list of cameras and we found “Top 10 Popular DSLRS” from digital-photography-school.com very helpful for our purpose.

From here we got the top 2 brand names that professionals, enthusiasts and newbies look for and at this point comes the interesting part of your search when you pit them against each other to see which one will remain on top of your list.

Know their strengths and their weaknesses by using google to find forums, websites or articles that knows what they’re talking about like dpreview.com. It’s also a good idea to visit the camera manufacturers respective home sites to get the camera specs (forget about their marketing spiels they were made to make you buy their products). View them side by side and take your time to get to know the meaning behind the terms of the key features and the technical specifications from the ISO to the AF system and so on, don’t be scared they just sound like big words but they’re not. Wikipedia can give you the meaning of all these things and if that is still not enough then google-lize it.

Next step is to go in deeper when you have all the technical info try comparing outputs this is the final image captured, you may think this is a bit going overboard but we did find out through this process that even with the same settings and features these two cameras output comes out very different.

From this exercise we have already leaned on the Nikon, output wise we like it’s color composition and clarity, but which one? So to narrow this further the last thing to consider and probably the overall deciding factor would be the budget, the features of the D3 looks promising and a dream come true, but it doesn’t feel right to pay more than 7,000 dollars when you are just starting out. On the other hand the D3000 comes to a comfortable price of less than 1000 dollars, if you are willing to own a high end version of your handy old digital pocket camera then this model is for you. But for us the D90 feels just right, (like Goldilocks). All the power you need at the price that is still affordable for us and would not make Grace cringe when she pay’s the cashier.

So before you check out do the previous process but this time just for camera brand you have set your eyes on and pit each model against each other, try to be realistic and stick to your price range that way you can minimize your options.

That’s all there is to it! Now that your all set up take your new camera for a break-in and go out into the world to capture your master pieces and don’t forget to share what you learn along the way.