The Nikon D90...
Great DSLR that packs a serious bang for the buck, even now in 2014. I recently purchased one in excellent condition with a Tamron 28-75 2.8 for $400! Can't beat that!!
Anywho, on to the review...
I use a D90 along side my D300 for portraits, weddings, and shots of my 1 year old son. It keeps up great and produces wonderful images (usually as a backup to my D300) in those situations.
12 MP dx sensor. More than enough for what I need. I am still able to crop images without pixilation. Great quality images and unless you are cropping very heavily, should be more than enough.
11 point AF system with intelligent "3d" tracking in continuous mode. This is the only mode I use. It is the cats friggin meow for AF tracking. Even for stills and portraits, I can focus on the single center point, recompose, and watch the AF track those eyes all around the frame. Very useful, and more sensitive than I was used to on my canon bodies, even the outer points.
Viewfinder is nice and bright, but not full coverage like my D300 or as big as FX format. Still nice.
Controls and layout are decent but not great. Changing settings like ISO, WB, and AF commands require two hands and usually involve lookin around to find the right stuff. No biggie really...but much prefer my D300 layout.
ISO - the limiting factor here. 1600 is usable after modest PP work in ACR or whatever noise reduction you like. 3200 looks god awful. 800 and below is where I stay. Auto ISO on Nikons is much better than Canon, as you can set your minimum shutter speed and maximum ISO. Very nice feature, that is really useful. I always use it.
AWB and colors are normally very accurate and nice looking IMO. Only in the worst indoor lighting, are adjustments needed.
SD cards...fine I guess, but my D300 is CF and quicker which I prefer...but its not that big of a deal. Write speeds are fast and I have not filled the buffer yet. Not the quickest FPS, but I do not shoot action, so I don't care really.
Dynamic range and active D lighting - If you shoot raw, active D lighting wont matter, but the DR of raw files from Nikons just seems "better" than Canon's. I can usually push/pull shadows and highlights quite a bit and retain a lot of nice detail with RAW files from the D90 and D300. If you shoot JPEG, active D lighting is nice and automatically lessens the contrast to keep a more balanced image with shadows and highlights. A nice feature if you shoot JPEG.
Overall -
I love my D90 and D300. I really do. I used Canon for years (5d and 40d) and something about these Nikon's I just love. Maybe its just a change of pace, IDK...
For the price these days, a used D90 is a great performer.
