The Nikon D90 and A long time Canon user’s experimentation with Nikon.

The headline makes this story almost sounds like some kind of disturbing nerd personal ad…“Long time Canon user seeks youthful new Nikon for fun and experimentation”… but that pretty much sums it up. For some time now I have been contemplating the future of my photographic life in terms of what gear to use. Long time readers of this blog will know that my current camera of choice is a Canon Eos 5D, with which I have gotten some great photographs, yet aspects of which have also driven me to distraction. When Nikon came out with the D700 I began to seriously considering switching wholesale over to Nikon. Then Canon announced the 5DII and I was unsure again. I have reservations about the 5DII because some of the aspects that drive me mad about the camera have not been changed, and I didn’t want to shell out another truck load of money for a Camera that would still frustrate me. Then again, I would have to spend even more switching over to Nikon, so I didn’t really want to do that either. In the end I came up with a compromise. I had been planning to get a second, smaller DSLR to have with me when I didn’t want to lug my big camera around, so I figured, why not get a lower-end Nikon, and that way, I would have my lighter camera and I could try out the Nikon system without heavily investing in new lenses and an expensive body. So in the end I decided to go with a Nikon D90.

Before I get into my first impressions, from the perspective of someone who is used to Canon DSLRs let me just fill you in on my camera history to give this whole story a bit of perspective. My first camera was a manual film SLR, a Yashika FXD. It was a great camera. It came with a great 50mm lens and was entirely mechanical apart from the light meter. It was with this I learned photography, and I loved that camera. There’s still something about old manual cameras that I find appealing. I think with todays digital cameras, and even the last generation of film cameras, the level of automation and electronics became a lair of abstraction between you and the art, where as with the old mechanical cameras there was a sort of synergy between you and the image. Not that id give up the technology in today’s cameras by an means. From there I briefly used my dad’s Nikon f50. That was a piece of crap. The ergonomics were so bad it was unbelievable. Everything required button pushing and looking at the lcd. It was not good. That was the camera that made me decide to go with Canon when I bought my own SLR. And so I ended up with a Canon Eos 5. Now that was a great camera. It was perfectly balanced, had a great viewfinder, and had a cool eye controlled focus system, that selected the focus point that you were looking at. Many reviews at the time dismissed this as a gimmick, but I loved the feature. to this day, the Eos 5 was the best camera I ever used. It had great ergonomics, it felt balanced in your hands, even with a large lens on the front. It never lent me down. I took some great pictures with that camera and I never tired of picking it up to head out to shoot something. I was reluctant to go digital for quite some time but I eventually got a 300D or Digital Rebel. At first I hated it but eventually it grew on me, although I was still shooting film as well. When Canon released the first 5D some years ago it seemed like a no brainer. I loved my film Eos 5 and figured the 5D would be the digital equivalent. I was wrong.

I don’t hate the 5d. It really does take great pictures. Most of the time. But it’s no Eos 5. Its a heavy camera, but the weight doesn’t seem well balanced. The grip is slightly shorter than the Eos 5 and digs into your hands, which gets sore after extended use. I got the vertical grip for it but that is an ergonomic train wreck, being boxy and harsh. The autofocus seems worse than on my old Eos 5 and the metering seems to have a min of it’s own. Despite that though I have taken some fantastic shots with it. Equally though I have missed some great shots. It can be hard to get it to focus on a specific point. The metering will frequently decide to use it’s own interpretation of the amount of light hitting the sensor, and half the time you have no idea what settings you’re on when you go to press the shutter because you can’t read the display in the viewfinder because it’s so dim. I have found that lately I just wasn’t motivated to take pictures because the thought of doing battle with the camera was just too much effort. Of course all this is a personal thing. I know some people love their 5d and I respect that. Perhaps I have a slightly dodgy model, I don’t know but I’ve never really been happy with it as a camera, certainly not as much as my Eos 5

It was watching Joe McNally’s training sessions on kelbytraining.com that got me thinking about switching to Nikon. Nikon’s creative lighting system for off camera flashes is light years ahead of Canons. What’s more, reading other articles and blogs I became more and more interested. Nikon have certainly come a long way from the horrendous f50 from years ago. So now that I have taken the plunge what do I think I hear you ask?

First off, let me make it clear that I doI have releastic expectations of what this experience is going to be like. I don’t expect the D90 to be a better camera over all to the 5D. I know they’re in a completely different class. Still, as a canon user using a Nikon DSLR for the first time, I am obviously going to compare it to my canon experience. First off the good, and there is a lot of good. I am impressed with the build quality of the D90. Considering it is one of Nikons consumer cameras it is very well built. The viewfinder is superb too. Going from the viewfinder of a full frame camera to a cropped sensor took a bit of getting used to but it certainly wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. More importantly you can actually see the information on the viewfinder display. The actual overlay on the viewfinder is interesting too. As well as the focus points you can have it show a grid too which helps in composing your shot. The kit lens is surprisingly good too. I was expecting it to be crap but it’s quite useable. The controls and layout of the menus are not as daunting as I was expecting either, although it took me a while to figure out where some things are. I’ve only been using it for a few days but already it feels very natural. I don’t think I ever fully became fully instinctive with the 5D’s button and dial combination for changing things like drive mode etc. I don’t think I ever went to change the white balance without first changing the drive mode and visa versa. I think it is a good testament to Nikons thoughtful control layout that I already feel very comfortable with the controls after only a few days using the camera.

I am very impressed too with the degree of customizability. You seem to be able to customize just about anything on this camera. It’s very impressive, although at first a little overwhelming with the plethora of options in the menus. From my limited testing so far the auto focus is worthy of the hype. The d90 doesn’t even have the advanced 51 point system of Nikons higher end cameras, but already it’s doing things that I know my 5d would have trouble with. I am really impressed with that aspect of it. The metering too seems to give different results. I haven’t done enough testing yet to come to a firm conclusion, but I know that the type of stuff I was taking would have resulted in far more inconsistency if I had been using my 5D. If your Image is primarily solid areas of blue or green (eg sky or grass), it under exposes by about a stop. If you have the Active D lighting turned on it generally corrects images so they look like they’re well exposed, but it doesn’t affect RAW. I had been hoping it would be more accurate but unfortunately the metering isn’t without its issues, just like my 5d. It’s funny though. I’ve found that the Canon has a tendency to over expose where as the Nikon tends to under expose.

The one thing I’m not that impressed with is the Image quality at ISO ratings at 400 and above. In good light at low ISO’s the quality is superb. However the level of noise in other situations is a little more than I was expecting. In fairness I am used to the very good 5D, and I know cropped sensor cameras are subject to more noise, but I’ve found that images are quite noisy even at iso 400. Perhaps I’m being too critical. Perhaps all similar cameras are like this, but I just think it seems worse than the samples of the Canon 40d and 50d that i’ve seen. If you’re printing or viewing on the web then it’s not really an issue, but I contribute to iStockphoto and I know that at 400 I would never be able to get an image accepted, even treating it with software like noise ninja or dfine. Perhaps I’m being overly critical. Perhaps I’m expecting too much from such a low-end camera. Again, it’s early days yet, and I haven’t really given it enough time. Despite my concerns about noise, at low iso and especially in good light, the images straight out of the camera are superb. The vibrancy of the pictures are amazing. With the 5D you almost always have to crank up the contrast and saturation when you shoot RAW, but the RAW files from the D90 ore bright and vivid straight out of the camera, which is pretty impressive. Color accuracy is interesting. I often found that on the 5D (and my D300 before it) it would make greens look wrong and almost fluorescent. The D90 renders greens fine but occasionally the blues come out a little off.

As for the video mode, that’s a whole other blog post. The short version – If you want to seriously shoot video get a video camera. The lack of control is maddening and the quality is just not great. Sure you get lovely depth of field but that’s about it. The rolling shutter problem or jellocam as it’s become known is reason enough not to use it – especially if there is anything moving in the scene. Having said that, if something happens in front of you and the camera is all you have then it will certainly capture the moment, and I suspect that’s the idea behind video on DSLR’s. I don’t think the situation with the 5DII is much different either, despite Canon’s attempts to pitch it as a serious movie making tool. For the moment, they’re just not up to it.

Walkabout from Thomas Fitzgerald on Vimeo.

So, there you have it. These are just my initial thoughts and I will continue to blog about it more, because Im sure there are other canon users out there who are also interested on what’s on the other side of the fence. My plan is to try and use this camera exclusively for the next few weeks and then switch back to the 5D to see how I get on with it after using the nikon. I’ll keep blogging about my experience either here or on my photoblog, but In the mean time feel free to check out my gallery of test shots.

(*all photos featured taken with the D90. I’ve put full resolution versions on Flickr for most of them for pixel peeping. Personal Use Only. All Images are Copyright Thomas Fitzgerald )