I’m a Canon man but the reviews of the new Nikon D90 that I’ve seen so far are intriguing. Chase Jarvis, arguably one of the best modern day professional photographers, was given the opportunity to advance test the Nikon D90. In fact, his entire team was able to get their hands on a few of them and to test them during a project they were working on.

Photo credit: Chase Jarvis.

Here are Chase’s top five reasons that the Nikon D90 is great:

“1. The D-movie. HD720 video in an dSLR is really big news. It’s so cool that we’re seeing the merging of high quality still and video pictures into the same camera. Sure, for us pros, we’ve got the RED camera. But for everybody else? This is the future. People: this is an SLR that shoots killer video! It’s the merging of features that the pros are using and it’s made accessible the the amateur at a price point of $1200+ bucks. Trust me, I played with this feature at length…all of us on location did, for that matter. It’s going to be a powerful tool. You can control your own depth of field so beautifully using the manual focus ring, the audio capture is solid, the high ISO capabilities in video?! Way cool… Long lenses, fisheyes, zoom lenses…versatility. I’m a BIG fan of the D-Movie.

2. Photo J possibilities. This camera will be a great second body for pro photojournalists. Commercial guys like me will be loyal to the D3 and its future, but for any PJ shooter, all the bells and whistles we’ve discussed already– especially video and audio capture–make this a no-brainer as a backup body.

3. Image Quality. The sensor is really top tier for a camera targeted at advanced amateurs. The high ISO capabilities are going to be a welcome addition to cameras in this price point. Want to take images of your kid in the rain at his baseball game at 7pm? This is your camera. It’s the D300 sensor with some juice.

4. The ergonomics of this camera are great. As someone who holds a camera for a living, I think camera ergonomics are waaay underrated. This camera (light at only 1lb. 6oz) is a treat in your hand. The menus are great and everything is right where you want it.

5. Oh ya, did I mention that this thing shoots video?!”

It seems like Nikon is taking a giant leap forward in the “advance amateur” category by giving all of this away for about $1,200 and I hope that other manufacturers quickly follow suit.

Source: Chase Jarvis RAW: Advance Testing the Nikon D90.

The video at the above link is also worth watching.

A panorama of a foggy Downtown Pittsburgh from the top of Mt. Washington.

There are about seven photos that I managed to get out. I had to play with them in Photoshop a little to make me a little happier about them, which I know a lot of people have no trouble with but in general I only do minimal post processing.

I believe a few of the photos had much higher potential if 1) I knew what I was doing with a camera. I suppose that the lessons Eliza and I are planning to take will come in handy with this one. 2) I had a better camera when I was taking the photos.

The photos from Pittsburgh were taken with a Canon S2IS. Surely not the worst camera available, but definitely not as nice as our Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Somehow everything is inferior to it now – though I do enjoy the limitations set forth by my iPhone.

Hope someone likes them.