Any of you d00ds shoot on a D90? I have questions.

[GilloD]

Well, my poor old D70 is getting the boot. I know that swapping bodies every few years is sort of a fools errand, but the compact flash is driving me nuts and I'm just sort of looking to freshen up.

The D90 was an obvious choice as I was really satisfied with the D70. However, I also wanted something that could shoot some short movies. I'd been using a point 'n shoot Lumix for awhile and got addicted to shooting little flicks. So, it's a nice time to be shopping for a DSLR since "Hey, it shoots video, too!" is quickly becoming a standard feature.

However, the D90 is a little notorious for it's 'jelly' effect. Have you guys found this to be a substantial problem in shooting small video clips? I know I'm not going to be able to film a soccer match, but is it totally useless in a handheld situation? Should it be considered tripod only?

Any other D90 comments/suggestions, ideas of other models to have a peek at are much, much appreciated! Thanks!

[Mupepe]

tripod only.  it is messy as hell as a handheld.  my mom's boyfriend has one.  great picture with a tripod, a great big mess as a handheld. 

[Tauntaun]

I was kind of sad when this thread wasn't about guns.  D90 sounded like a gun to me.   

spoiler (click to show/hide)

And by gun I mean my penis.

[close]

[Bebpo]

I use a D90.  The video mode is NOT MADE FOR PANNING.  If you are going to be moving the camera while filming video get one of the better cameras that don't have the wobble problem.  Also manual focusing for video when things are happening is tough and make sure you use AE-LOCK so the brightness isn't changing and trying to compensate every other second.

For pictures I love my D90 very, very much.  But yeah, I don't do videos with it.  If I wanted to do HD filming I'd have gotten the Canon or next Nikon that did it.

[BlueTsunami]

The Canon 7D is a monster with its Manual adjustment capabilities but at a $1700 price point. All Digital Photography Cameras exhibit the rolling shutter unfortunately. The new Nikon is supposed to handle it better but its over $5000. As Bebpo stated, a tripod and minimal panning may be the best setup.

[recursivelyenumerable]

i just use a couple d6's and a d20.

[GilloD]

Sweet. I think I;m going to stick with the D90 since video is a nice to have, but not SUPER IMPORTANT. ANy lens suggestions? I have the 18-70 from the D70, but the D90 has the 18-105 VR, so I think I'm going to start with that and see if I can offload the 18-70 later.

[BlueTsunami]

You should check out some fast wide angle primes, Gillo. I'm not sure about Nikon's lens selection but getting a lens with a wider aperture thats wide angled would be very versatile. You wouldn't be able to zoom in with it though (primes are fixed focal length lenses) but large aperture lenses give you that cinematic movie feel due to the small Depth of Field. Plus a large aperture lens would allow you to shoot in very bad lighting situations. On the Canon system, people are buying up 24mm f/1.4 lenses because of this.

Though, a VR lens would be very useful with keeping the frame steady. No matter what you chose, you'll probably dig the quality of lenses and what it'll do to your videos (as far as how good they'll look when compared to P&S video).