Digital Camera News

September 19, 2008

Nikon D90: Fumble-Fingered Video Follies

Nikon grabbed headlines when it announced the first movie-shooting SLR, the D90, offering 1280x720 resolution in a $1000 camera. So naturally, when our review unit arrived yesterday, I headed straight for the video mode.... except it took a while to find it.

I started by looking at the buttons and dials. No sign of movie mode. Tried the 52-page Quick Guide -- not a single mention of movie mode at all (though tweaky photo functions like Nikon's Picture Control System and even PictBridge are covered there). C'mon, guys - where are you hiding your headline feature?

Found the answer in the 278-page D90 User's Manual, in a three-page section. Alright, now I've got it: put the camera in Live View mode, press the OK button instead of the shutter button and you're ready for your close-up, Mr. DeMille. I was immediately impressed by the Live View display. I recently shot with the $3000 D700 and noticed Live View stutters badly when you move. On the D90 it's silky smooth. Good start.

Except my first shots looked pretty strange. I stood still and shot a truck rolling through an intersection. As the truck moved, the light level fluctuated unacceptably. Same thing happened when I panned across my brightly lit suburban street.

Back to the manual. Aha! If you don't want to play Follow the Bouncing Light Level you can lock the exposure by holding the AE-L/AF-L button while shooting. Except it's not an on-off toggle, it's a button you hold down, with the same right thumb you use to start and stop shooting video with the OK button. I tried pushing it with my nose, but it was too squishy. And my left hand was too busy holding the camera to help out.

Much later in the day, and 150 pages after the movie mode explanation, I discovered the workaround. All you have to do is go to section 'f Controls' of the Custom Setting Menu (and not the tempting 'c Timers/AE lock' above it), then choose 'f4 Assign AE-L/AF-L button,' then toggle down to the fourth choice, 'AE lock (hold)' and hit OK. Now how did I miss that the first time around?

We'll get around to testing the D90 video quality when we return from next week's full-court press at the Photokina photo trade show in Germany. Based on the lack of thought invested in designing the controls, though, or explaining the video mode to eager users, I can't say I'm optimistic.