If you can’t tell already, I got a new camera. And I’m pretty excited about it. The new baby is a Nikon D90, the latest DSLR put out by the company. When I bought my D40 last November, it was a hard decision not to go with the D80. But the D80 cost twice as much as the D40 and it was nearing the end of its life. I decided to get the D40 and see if I was going to take the hobby seriously. If so, I could upgrade when the D80 replacement hit the shelves.
Well, the D90 hit the first of September and it sounded like a perfect next step. And I got what I think is a good deal from Best Buy in Fayetteville. I went in with a dubious 10% off coupon I downloaded from the Internets. (It was a real coupon but it was PDF file from a scan and I didn’t know if it would count.) The coupon apparently didn’t count for that particular camera, but when i told them I intended to order one online to save paying the 9.5% Fayetteville sales tax, they offered it to me at the employee discount price, which turned out a little lower, tax included, than what I would have paid online. And then they scanned the coupon anyway and gave me some other kind of discount. I saved $22 over what I had planned to pay. Sweet.
Could I make pictures just as good with the D40? Of course. But the D90 makes getting those pics easier. For example, the picture above was shot with a the 50mm 1.8 lens It’s an older model that won’t autofocus on the D40. I love the lens but it wasn’t made to focus manually. I’ve always had a hard time using it on the D40. With the D90 it’s a breeze. In addition, the D90 has better high ISO performance. The above shot was at 1100 ISO. It looks much better than the D40 would at 1100.
Here’s another example. For this shot I used the D90 spot meter to take a reading off one of the geeses’ backs. These geese backs were blown out using the matrix meter. On the D90 there is a button to change metering modes right on top. On the D40 you have to dig into the menus to change the metering mode. I probably would have never thought to do it if I was using the D40. The geese were standing on the concrete spillway at Lake Fayetteville.
More pics from Lake Fayetteville with Gramps and Abby. Click on the photos to see them large.
The D90 also makes hi-def videos. i haven’t played with that function yet.
Comments
way to go Dug. I am glad you have stepped-up your P-Game.
congrats on the new camera. and on saving that 22 bucks–you are quite the bargain hound. i can only imagine the how great the shot will be of whatever is the next thing that comes out of abby’s nose.