Nikon D90 Digital SLR Camera Review

Neo-Fight gives detailed tech product reviews for the not so geeky. This video will focus on the Nikon D90 Digital SLR Camera .

Nikon D90 Digital SLR Camera Review Tiffany Young: Hi there and welcome to Neo-Fight.tv, the technology shows for the not so geeky. My name is Tiffany Young. Ben Freedman: And I’m Ben Freedman and today on the show we’re going to be taking a look at a brand new—it was just released, like, last week—camera from Nikon. It’s right here. This is the Nikon D90 and you know, they started with, like, the D70 and then they came out with, like, the D80 and then now we have the D90. Tiffany Young: I just wonder what happened to 91 or 71, 72, 73— Ben Freedman: They don’t do that. I think it goes up by 10. You know. Tiffany Young: That’s funny marketing isn’t it? Ben Freedman: I don’t know. I don’t know what it means. But you know what? It is very weird marketing because the big brother of this is the D300. The next one up from that is the D700 but then the next one up from that is the D3. Tiffany Young: How do you remember all that? Isn’t that kind of scary? Ben Freedman: Well my camera says so. Tiffany Young: Yeah, it’s scary that you remembered all that. Ben Freedman: I did. But why does it go, like, the 10 Series to the 100 Series— Tiffany Young: I know. Ben Freedman: to, then, the three? Why not have the big one be the 3000? Tiffany Young: Right. Ben Freedman: So you go 10’s, 100’s, and 1000’s. Wouldn’t that make sense? Tiffany Young: That would make sense. I don’t know. There must be something to it. Ben Freedman: Marketing department here. Tiffany Young: The more 10, I guess, it means more money. I don’t know. Ben Freedman: So this is brand new and it actually shares with the D300, the same sensor and the same big screen—nice big pre-screen. Let me turn this on here and I’ll show you what the screen looks like. Do you see that? Tiffany Young: Oh, it’s very similar to—what’s the one. The one that I have is 2 generations behind this one, correct. Ben Freedman: Well the one you have is Canon. Tiffany Young: Canon. Ben Freedman: The Canon Rebel XTI. I think it has. Tiffany Young: But in the same family? Ben Freedman: Yeah. Tiffany Young: Yeah. Ben Freedman: I mean it’s a different brand but it’s a digital SLR also known as Snapshot Camera. Tiffany Young: Right. Ben Freedman: And a lot of people—a lot of beginners; one problem they’ve had—that they’ve corrected now with this model—is that most people; when they have the little snapshot camera, they’re used to just holding it here and looking at the screen. Right? Tiffany Young: Right. Ben Freedman: Digital slides are optical now. Typically, you have to put your face up to the eye and look through here— Tiffany Young: Which is mine. Ben Freedman: Yours? You can’t see on the screen. With this new generation, they have a thing called live view and if I hit this live view button, you hear the mirror gets flipped up. Yeah. It might help if I took the lens cam off, too. Tiffany Young: Do you think that’s quite more draining on the battery? Ben Freedman: That’s a very good question. It is totally draining on the battery and it also gets hot so it uses a lot more circuitry. So if you have this on the whole time, you’ll find the camera warms up and Nikon says—do you see the live view here? Tiffany Young: Which is not good for Arizona, mind you. Ben Freedman: Yeah. Leave me talking. Look. You see that. Here’s Tiffany. Tiffany Young: Hello, hello! Ben Freedman: Do you see that? Like I can’t find her. There she is. It also warms up and when the camera warms up it tends to affect the picture quality. The colors can suddenly shift. Not a big deal for a beginner but again for someone doing professional photography that can be a problem. Then again, someone doing professional photography probably won’t be using these features. Most of the pros like to look through the— Tiffany Young: I wouldn’t. Outright. And I haven’t seen very many professionals, right, using them. Maybe because they’re so used to not having as far as available— Ben Freedman: You’re right. They usually look through the view finder because, you know, they find— Tiffany Young: So they can’t almost have it. Ben Freedman: It does take nice pictures, may I? Tiffany Young: Sure. Ben Freedman: I’m going to put this on Auto here. Tiffany Young: Thanks for asking. Ben Freedman: Yeah. And I’ll come back here and I’ll zoom in right here. Tiffany Young: Cheese! Ben Freedman: Sorry? Tiffany Young: That is a big lens. Oh my gosh! Ben Freedman: It is a big lens. Look— Tiffany Young: Wow! Even the end of it though, I mean, the— Ben Freedman: It’s a big— Tiffany Young: It’s a big eye. Ben Freedman: And it this is the sock lens filter. You can buy it with no lens if you want to but it comes with this set with this lens. Tiffany Young: The sock? Ben Freedman: Yeah. Let me zoom in here. Tiffany Young: Cheese! Yay! Ben Freedman: And there’s a picture of you. And here it comes up in the nice big screen. Don’t you think? Tiffany Young: That is a nice screen. Ben Freedman: And it’s got a hole in it. And I’m going to put this up—we’ll put this up in big format on there as well so people can see it. Tiffany Young: It’s funny. Ben Freedman: Yeah. One other really cool thing about this camera—you notice how, on this lens—I don’t know if you noticed—that the background is kind of blurry? And that’s one nice thing about a big lens camera with a big sensor. You get a beautiful blurry background shot. Video. If you’re taking videos with film, like one a regular Hollywood film camera, you can also get that nice blurry background shot and most small video cameras can’t get that depth of field because the sensor is too small. This is the first digital SLR that takes a video. Tiffany Young: Very cool. That’s very cool. Ben Freedman: Yeah. And it takes video in a 720p High-Definition format. So what I’m going to do now is turn this on and it will take a video of you, okay? Tiffany Young: Okay. Ben Freedman: So here’s the thing, I’m going to zoom in and focus. Now don’t go out of focus. It doesn’t work once the video is playing. Tiffany Young: So it’s manual—auto. Ben Freedman: Yeah. So what you want to do, and I’m going to do this right now—hold on. Yeah. I’m focused on you now. So I’m going to start taking—Okay. Now here we are. Now take a look. Talk to me, Tiff. Tiffany Young: Oh! Hi, Ben. How are you doing today? Ben Freedman: And if you guys noticed, the background is beautiful. It’s really nicely blurred out here and you’re nice and crisp and sharp. Yeah. Let me see that coffee cup—so here we are. Oh. The coffee cup’s out of focus. It’s too close. I’m focused on you. Tiffany Young: Here? Okay. Ben Freedman: There we go. As you can see, the background is all nice and blurry. So it’s a really nice, high-quality video and it has nice depth of field. Tiffany Young: So would you say that this would replace, Ben, your video camera as well as your fainter camera—pretty much in one. I mean with the video being at high quality and then you get—I guess not zooming would not really be helpful. Ben Freedman: Well, you can zoom. I can zoom out— Tiffany Young: You can zoom. Ben Freedman: You can zoom but you can’t—and you can’t focus manually but you can’t auto-focus while the video is going. Tiffany Young: Okay. I got you. Ben Freedman: Trying to focus as manually. Tiffany Young: So...and price? How much is the pricing on this? Ben Freedman: This is, with this lens, 13 hundred bucks. Tiffany Young: $1,300.00, my gosh. Ben Freedman: Yeah. Let me go back to regular video here. Tiffany Young: So, okay, so the one I bought, which is a Canon—and SLR—which I love that camera. I really do. I think I paid $800.00 for it maybe a year and a half ago probably picked it for some lens. Ben Freedman: With the lens. Tiffany Young: With the lens. Correct. A 6-ish maybe now. It maybe 550—6-ish—620. I really don’t—I mean, and I’m not a professional photographer, obviously—can you tell, by the way? All the questions, I’m asking you but I don’t see the point on spending that much more money unless you’re really into photography. I mean— Ben Freedman: Well $1300. Tiffany Young: Yeah. Exactly. Ben Freedman: I mean there are beginner cameras and this is sort of marketed as a beginner-y level camera. I mean they’ve got—The D300 is, like, close to two grand and the D3 is close to four grand. Tiffany Young: So professional for professionals. And the video is kind of a neat thing. It’s kind of—people that are that I’ve met anyway—who are professional in photography really don’t do video. You know what I mean. It’s a very exclusive item that you buy specifically for your business that you’re in. Ben Freedman: That’s true. Tiffany Young: So... I don’t know. Just dollar-wise, I think it’s a great idea. I’m not sure if it’s worth $1,300.00. Out this viewfinder, if it drains the battery, you know, it’s probably not—it’s really not worth it yet. Now if this was 600 or 700, definitely. Ben Freedman: Right. And— Tiffany Young: Which will it’ll probably be, eventually. Ben Freedman: It will come down but right now this—I mean it’s brand new so it just came out but it isn’t, you know. And they do have one that’s even a level lower than this, which I think is the D40 or something like that and it has fewer less features. But you’re right. This one is kind of in a weird space. It’s a little too expensive for a total beginner but it’s a little—but if you’re professional, you’ll probably be going up to D300, which has more flexibility. Tiffany Young: Right. Ben Freedman: And you might not need some of the features like the live view. Tiffany Young: Does this have the five different exposures that—mine has three, meaning it’ll take— Ben Freedman: Bracketing? Tiffany Young: Bracketing. Exactly. Thank you. It’s a special world. Ben Freedman: This will only do for three. Tiffany Young: How many? Ben Freedman: Three. Tiffany Young: It only does three. Ben Freedman: It only does three and bracketing. So it’s something we use to hide on to have a ranged photography as we bracket our photos and this will only do three whereas the D300 will do seven or nine, even. Tiffany Young: The—I don’t know if you’ve ever tried that, but the most amazing photos usually look in that bracketing if you, especially— Ben Freedman: High-dynamic range. HDR for photo freaks. Tiffany Young: Like, still—not for people, but for still objects. It’s really neat. Ben Freedman: Anyway, I’ give this a 4 to 5. I think that it’s got a lot of good features. It doesn’t have a couple of those high-end features that, even though a camera with this amount, I think, like the bracketing I think it should have and you know—so—and it is a bit pricy. 13 hundred bucks is quite a—seems like quite a bit for an entry-level sort of camera in—not quite the entry level but close to it. So beyond all that, it takes beautiful pictures. It’s got the same sensor with the higher-level one. You can buy different lenses for it if you want. So that’s 4 to 5 for me. Tiffany Young: And I’m not – I’m not just convinced that it’s going to take a better picture than the one I paid $800.00 for. Ben Freedman: Well a beginner may not notice. You’re right. Tiffany Young: Right. And unless I’m going to blow it up to a huge poster, I—you know—it’s just—anyway, I’m going to give it 3 out of 5 just because I just wouldn’t buy it at this point unless I was really into photography then I probably would move up if I was, so a 3 out of 5 for me. Ben Freedman: A 3 out of 5 Tiffany; 4 out of 5 for me for the new Nikon D90 SLR Camera—takes pictures, takes video, high-def and cool concept. Tiffany Young: It’s too expensive. Ben Freedman: But it makes the camera a little pricy. But it’ll come down, like you say. Tiffany Young: Yeah. Ben Freedman: And we’ll be right back after this so please stay tuned. Male: Are you used to lighting your videos the old-fashioned way? Heavy fragile lighting fixtures? Hot lights that make your talent sweat. Gels and filters to match your colors? Time to take a look at the Zylight LED lighting system, the future of lighting today. Small, compact, endurable LED lights with high-wattage output. Cool LED technology won’t overheat your talent. And multi-colored presets let you instantly choose from Daylight, Tungsten or custom-color eliminations. Fully domical at the touch of a button. And each Zylight with wireless networking built in for easy remote control. For more information, visit Zylight today at www.zylight.com. Ben Freedman: And we’re back and in the second spotlight section today, we’re going to be talking about this tiny little guy, which—this will make you happy, Tiffany—is far less expensive than the Nikon camera we’ve just reviewed. It was up for $1,300.00. This is $20.00. Tiffany Young: $20.00 not bad, not bad, looking good. Ben Freedman: This is the Griffon PowerJolt and it’s actually the PowerJolt SE. There’s two models of this. There’s the PowerJolt and the PowerJolt SE. And what this is, it’s basically a car charger for your iPhone. Now what makes this special is—oh by the way, you’ve got your iPhone. Tiffany Young: I did. I love my iPhone. Ben Freedman: Now you’ve had it—or you were just getting it—at the last episode, we did. Tiffany Young: I’m so happy. Ben Freedman: Finally, a phone she’s happy with. It’s her iPhone. Tiffany Young: Can you believe it? It’s the—I just went through all the painful other phones and even the services, you know—it’s still pretty darn good for what the phone does. Ben Freedman: So the old iPhone—I used to have an old one before I had the new one—and I had a thing in my car that lets you plug your iPod—iPhone as do you. I used to charge my iPhone. Tiffany Young: It doesn’t charge. Ben Freedman: No it doesn’t? Tiffany Young: No. Ben Freedman: And you have a fairly new car. Tiffany Young: I do. Ben Freedman: You have this year’s model—a BMW and it’s got the iPhone kit, right? Tiffany Young: Right. It’s got everything hot, you know, pre-wire built it and it’s really frustrating and I just got that car not too long ago. Now it still plays with the stereo and all that. Good stuff. Ben Freedman: It plays but does it charge? Tiffany Young: It does not charge. Ben Freedman: So you’re sitting there and you drive around it all day and, you know, BOOM you’re running out of time. Tiffany Young: You have to buy a separate charger for the— Ben Freedman: I have the Apple Wi-Fi. Not Wi-Fi, Hi-Fi—the speakers by Apple, made by Apple speakers. I put this thing in there. It’s playing back music. A few hours later—done. Tiffany Young: Yeah, nothing. Ben Freedman: Nothing. You will not charge. And I also had a couple of these that wouldn’t charge. The great thing about the PowerJolt is if you’re looking for a way to charge that will work with, not only every iPod, but also the new iPhone. This works with the new iPhone. Tiffany Young: Perfect. Ben Freedman: Two different models. One’s a little pricier. This is the absolute dirt-cheapest one and what makes this cheap is you’ll notice it’s an non-removable cord so it’s only ever going to charge your iPhone or iPod. The other one, the non-SE model, has a USB plug here and will charge anything USB. Tiffany Young: Right. Ben Freedman: So it will charge your iPhone but it’ll also charge, if you have a Razor or if you have a USB camera or something else that will charge in the USB, that’ll work with the USB. Tiffany Young: How much would the price that’s between this one and the one with the USB be now? Ben Freedman: This is $19.00 and that was $29.00. Tiffany Young: Oh so 10 bucks. It’s not bad. It’s actually— Ben Freedman: And this is cool. What I also like about this is. Now where is the cigarette lighter on your car? Because on mine, it’s backwards. It’s in the armrest and if you have one of these that has the two long here, it covers one of the cup holders, which is vital. It is vital to have that cup holder, right? Tiffany Young: You have to have a cup holder for your five cups of coffee. Ben Freedman: Where are you going to put your beer? So what I kind of like about this, as well, is you see how short it is and then it turns to 90-degree corner. Tiffany Young: I do like that. This has a styles grain. I mean there’s nothing worse than having a big old cranking’ honk stuff stuck in your cigarette lighter, right. Ben Freedman: Yeah. Tiffany Young: I mean really. Ben Freedman: No! Tiffany Young: It’s just not—its eyesore, fantastic product, good job. Ben Freedman: Do we even have to call it a cigarette lighter anymore? Tiffany Young: I was just going to say that. Ben Freedman: Isn’t it a power adapter or something? Tiffany Young: I mean, who really uses those anymore? Ben Freedman: That’s right. Good job. Tiffany Young: I don’t know with Ben. To charge stuff, it’s good. So isn’t it now—didn’t you hear they were going to make something? Some sort of adapter that’s going to— Ben Freedman: I’ve heard that. There’s going to be an adapter that you can plug in that will you allow your new iPhone to work on older equipment. Tiffany Young: That’d be fantastic. Ben Freedman: I haven’t seen it yet. Maybe, they’re going to send it to us or whatever but I haven’t seen it yet. Tiffany Young: So in the mean time—fantastic idea and it’s a lot less expensive than Apple’s. Ben Freedman: That’s true. The Apple one is quite a bit more expensive. Tiffany Young: So 5 out of five for me for Griffon. Ben Freedman: And 5 out for five for me. It does what it says and says what it does. Tiffany Young: Perfect. Ben Freedman: It’s a 5 out for 5 for me, 5 out of 5 for me that’s 10 out of 10 for the Griffon PowerJolt SE $19.95. Tiffany Young: Good job, Griffon. Ben Freedman: Yeah. And that’s all the time we have for today but if you have an extra minute, leave us a comment on the website, www.neo-fight.tv. By the way, one thing I want to mention really quickly is we’re going to be changing hosting providers shortly and we’ll end up probably having just a flash and the MP4 version of the video. The iPod version of the video left on there and I happen to be close to you but I wanted to mention it so people knew. Tiffany Young: You knew what I thought you were going to say. Ben Freedman: Yeah? Tiffany Young: We’re changing hosts. Ben Freedman: Changing hosts, no hosting’s Friday. Tiffany Young: I’m like, “Oh that’s not the great time to tell me, Ben!” Ben Freedman: Yeah, no. This is Tiffany’s last episode by the way. Security! Security! Tiffany Young: Thanks for watching, by the way. Ben Freedman: Now hosting services, we’re going to changing soon so I apologize if there’s any downtime. It’s still three or four weeks away. Tiffany Young: What have I done? Ben Freedman: And if you happen to have a nice 30 seconds, take a look at this. That’s funny. This is Tiffany’s last show! Andy Walker: Hey, I’m Andy Walker. Have you just bought a new computer with Windows Vista on it? Or maybe you’ve got an old XP computer you’ve upgraded? 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