Yesterday Nikon has announced the successor of D80, in the middle range of Nikon DSLR offer: D90. This announcement is just one day after the Canon announcement of 50D successor (60D).
The announcement period before next big photo fair in September is started!
Let's see now in details all the relevant new things in this model.
- first DLSR with a movie mode! Congratulations Nikon, this is something will be appreciated very much - why just taking clips with compacts???). Movie will have a very good resolution: 1,280 x 720 pixels x 24 frames, that means HDTV!
- new LCD with 3 inches of diagonal and wonderfully 920K pixels;
- new 12.3 megapixel CMOS sensor (CMOS sensor like Canon is using from the beginning for the DSLR series, while Nikon tried also CCD sensors);
- ISO 200-3200 range (with optional pump-up to 6400);
- added new functionalities for image retouching (in the camera), like lens distorsion/aberration correction, horizon straightening, color balance. Other features exisiting in D80 remains like exposure/brightness/shadow correction;
- burst shoot at 4.5 frame per second;
- improved battery capacity - Nikon claims up to 850 shoots with one charge (quite an impressive figure);
- live view (this is not new) with Face Detection priority mode (means that the AutoFocus will first try to focus on what it considers faces);
- compatibility with the new (optional) GPS module GP-1 for geographical coordinates tagging of pictures;
- longer shutter life (> 100K shoots);
- new AF tracking systems (inspired by higher level cameras);
- HDMI connector to output to HDTV.
Seems to be very promising. We'll see it in real fields tests from second half of September.