D90-D5000 comparison

cmvsm · Jul 3, 2009

justahobby said:
I figured someone like you would pop off. If you actually read what I said. This is for my wife also. She does not want to hassle with a difficult camera. What is wrong with that. Why have a camera that is so up and down with exposing. And yes it is what it is. Im sure the D90 takes great shots with the right settings. The D5000 just did a better job. Sounds like somebody is a little defensive.

Every now and then someone like you, who just bought their first DSLR, will find the forum and start popping off (your words) about how they've tested two cameras, and are suddenly the authority on those two cameras, and begin soliciting how good or terrible the one or the other is. Or wait, the word was 'horrible'. And of course, you don't provide images to demonstrate this 'horrible' performance, nor do you cite your own inexperience, of being a new owner.

Maybe you and your wife should have started off with a good book on exposure or general DSLR usage? Then perhaps you might have some basic understanding of what you are doing, so when you do make comments about gear, they are a bit more informed. "It is what it is" really doesn't cut it when it comes to image taking, because every exposure is going to have something different going for it, and is heavily impacted by the user, intentional or not.

As soon as you understand this, then maybe you'll refrain from using inflammatory words like 'horrible' in your posts to describe gear. At least until you understand your gear, and yes, that takes much longer than a trip to Best Buy and 400 shots divided up between two cameras.

myzel · Jul 3, 2009

justahobby said:
Or do you have a D90, and you have realized that you spent over a 1000 dollars on something that cannot expose correctly.

I have the D90 and it can expose correctly.

Spot metering and centre weighted metering is spot on.

Matrix metering does exactly what I expect it to do and exposes correctly for what it is designed.

It’s OK you don’t like the exposure decisions the D90 makes in matrix metering, but please don’t assume that every exposure that doesn’t match your taste is a wrong exposure or that a camera that chooses such an exposure can’t expose correctly.

cmvsm · Jul 3, 2009

justahobby said:
Or do you have a D90, and you have realized that you spent over a 1000 dollars on something that cannot expose correctly.

Pretty bold words from someone who just bought their first DSLR, and placed their first post in this forum. I'm still waiting on these 'horrible' test images that you claim to have witnessed. If you do get around to it (I'm not holding my breath), please ensure that you include the exif data so that your settings are exposed. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you know what I'm talking about, or am I being too generous?

SeanOnt · Jul 3, 2009

I apologize if I am wrong but you sound allot like a troll who recently left Nikon for a Sony and who wouldn't let go of the MM on the D90.

Just took a walk in the park on my lunch break and the MM did a good job even in the auto mode. The one area that will always blow the back ground is when I'm focusing on an object in the shade it will blow out the sky but the object in focus comes up perfectly exposed and this is when I know I need to use exposer comp, to be fair almost any camera will fail or make sacrifices in this situation, as currently know camera is capable of seeing what the human eye can. It was explained to me by a pro who is much more talented then my self that the human eye can see about 16 stops of light while the best cameras only can see 8 stops. So they must decide on what compromise they want in these situations when the make the camera. Personally I think the MM could be better on the D90 and would think the D5000 should be better since it is newer and gives me hope that a firmware update could tweak it on the D90. I also think the D5000 with all it scene modes is great camera for those moving up from P&S and a great choice..

justahobby · Jul 3, 2009

cmvsm said:
justahobby said:

Or do you have a D90, and you have realized that you spent over a 1000 dollars on something that cannot expose correctly.

Click to expand...

Pretty bold words from someone who just bought their first DSLR, and placed their first post in this forum. I'm still waiting on these 'horrible' test images that you claim to have witnessed. If you do get around to it (I'm not holding my breath), please ensure that you include the exif data so that your settings are exposed. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you know what I'm talking about, or am I being too generous?

You must have no life, does Nikon mean that much to you. The reason I have not posted any photos yet is they are all of my 7 and 3 yr old daughters, and my wife asked me to please not post pictures of our kids on the internet. I understand it is very hard to make a comparison after a few hundred shots first time around. My problem is that I was shocked about how much different the pics looked between the D90 and D5000. And I am still thinking about getting the D90 and learning how to use it becuase I liked the way it handled and loved the screen on it, and then get my wife a d40 or d60. Not sure yet.

justahobby · Jul 3, 2009

cmvsm said:
justahobby said:

I figured someone like you would pop off. If you actually read what I said. This is for my wife also. She does not want to hassle with a difficult camera. What is wrong with that. Why have a camera that is so up and down with exposing. And yes it is what it is. Im sure the D90 takes great shots with the right settings. The D5000 just did a better job. Sounds like somebody is a little defensive.

Click to expand...

Every now and then someone like you, who just bought their first DSLR, will find the forum and start popping off (your words) about how they've tested two cameras, and are suddenly the authority on those two cameras, and begin soliciting how good or terrible the one or the other is. Or wait, the word was 'horrible'. And of course, you don't provide images to demonstrate this 'horrible' performance, nor do you cite your own inexperience, of being a new owner.

Maybe you and your wife should have started off with a good book on exposure or general DSLR usage? Then perhaps you might have some basic understanding of what you are doing, so when you do make comments about gear, they are a bit more informed. "It is what it is" really doesn't cut it when it comes to image taking, because every exposure is going to have something different going for it, and is heavily impacted by the user, intentional or not.

As soon as you understand this, then maybe you'll refrain from using inflammatory words like 'horrible' in your posts to describe gear. At least until you understand your gear, and yes, that takes much longer than a trip to Best Buy and 400 shots divided up between two cameras.

What is so wrong with the word horrible. Is that a bad word, they were horrible, and it was probably my fault, I admit to it so what. I am in no way putting Nikon down, I like Nikon, use to own a D70s, it got stolen in 2007 from a trip to Disney world. Did not have the D70s for very long, but really liked it. And I will say this again I would have not even known about D90 ever exposing till I came to Dp review. So what about the hundreds of people on here that talked about how bad the D90 overexposed, let me guess you think they are all full of crap right?

Holmes375 · Jul 3, 2009

While the two cameras are going to meter somewhat differently I cannot imagine the difference being as dramatic as what you have described.

I'm betting that there were indeed setting differences in play and if you're not truly familiar with Nikon DSLRs and their menu structures, you may easily have overlooked them.

My advice would be to go through the DPR reviews on both bodies and arm yourself with a bit more knowledge of their respective features before you go back or make a costly/regretful decision. Perhaps you might know someone who is a Nikon shooter that might assist.

Here's a link to Nikon's Digitutor which may be of value to you:
http://www.nikondigitutor.com/index_eng.html

Good luck to you and your wife - hope you end up with a nice camera to enjoy.
--
-Holmes
http://holmes.zenfolio.com/

justahobby · Jul 3, 2009

Holmes375 said:
While the two cameras are going to meter somewhat differently I cannot imagine the difference being as dramatic as what you have described.

I'm betting that there were indeed setting differences in play and if you're not truly familiar with Nikon DSLRs and their menu structures, you may easily have overlooked them.

My advice would be to go through the DPR reviews on both bodies and arm yourself with a bit more knowledge of their respective features before you go back or make a costly/regretful decision. Perhaps you might know someone who is a Nikon shooter that might assist.

Here's a link to Nikon's Digitutor which may be of value to you:
http://www.nikondigitutor.com/index_eng.html

Good luck to you and your wife - hope you end up with a nice camera to enjoy.
--

You are correct, I think I had read so much about over exposure, then went and tested a demo out , that probably was set up wrong for outside. And over reacted. I am going back to Wolf camera and take another look.

larrytusaz · Jul 3, 2009

To the original poster--I basically agree with your observations, although again I have never used a D90 or a D5000 and can't really comment on how they work personally. I can tell you how my D40x vs my D80 worked, and that the reviews from here seem to suggest that the D5000 vs D90 seems to be a somewhat similar scenario, and those mumblings--combined with the D5000 gaining features that the D40x/D60 missed (auto-bracketing, 11 AF points, selectable JPEG-size in Raw + Jpeg, viewfinder gridlines, 1/3 ISO steps, Kelvin WB) make me think that may be the way to go for me ultimately, despite the missing features vs the D90.

So, on that, I'm with you, and that is the point of this thread.

But forgive me for a little diversion if I may.

You stated that you weren't posting your test photos because your wife doesn't want you posting photos of the children on the Internet. By all means you should respect your wife's wishes, and I don't mean to start an argument--really I don't--but I will say, it does disappoint me a little to hear of yet another situation where people, frankly, are overreacting to the prospect of photos of their children.

I say this because, well, my experiences lead me to be somewhat irritable at how society at large nowadays is so very overly-sensitive about these things. You should see the grumblings I hear at times when I do nothing more than take my camera to the lake, mainly to photograph the ducks. People assume I'm trying to take photos of their children--I'm not, but in fact it's completely legal and not at all rude to do so if you ask me, it's called street photography--but in fact just because I have a camera at the lake or park etc people automatically assume you're some pedophile trying to peddle child pornography, using their children as the subject matter. Completely baseless.

By all means, respect your wife, but at the same time, at the risk of upsetting you, please don't be like too many parents nowadays too worried about everything. I see it, too, when I go to the lake and encounter parents who take their children to the lake--they purposefully TAKE them there, mind you--but will not let them so much as tip their toys in the water. It's their business, but when I observe it I must say it drives me crazy.

In other words, enjoy photography, don't be so overprotective regarding dangers that are extremely exagerrated vs reality. You have America's Most Wanted and Dateline NBC to thank for how society is a bunch of scared-e-cats (sp?) nowadays.

Sorry if I'm out of line for discussing this, and again I mean no disrespect.

---
LRH
http://www.pbase.com/larrytucaz
{ http://larrytxeast.smugmug.com/ (inactive) }

cmvsm · Jul 3, 2009

justahobby said:
What is so wrong with the word horrible. Is that a bad word, they were horrible, and it was probably my fault, I admit to it so what. I am in no way putting Nikon down, I like Nikon, use to own a D70s, it got stolen in 2007 from a trip to Disney world. Did not have the D70s for very long, but really liked it. And I will say this again I would have not even known about D90 ever exposing till I came to Dp review. So what about the hundreds of people on here that talked about how bad the D90 overexposed, let me guess you think they are all full of crap right?

Hundreds of people talk about overexposure on the D90 in this forum? Really? First off, that is incorrect and a monstrous blanket statement. Please feel free to name those hundreds of which you speak. You just got to the forum, so I'm not sure how you would wildly throw out a figure like that.

Secondly, this is a forum after all, and you are going to get more people complaining about everything from exposure to focus issues, no matter what camera that they have. I suspect this is the same with any forum. Go to the audio visual forum (AVSforum.com) and you'll never buy another LCD or stereo again due to the complaints. These complaints are not full of crap, but you have to take them all with a grain of salt and not be influenced by them until you've had the chance to fully check things out for yourself. The operative word here is 'fully'.

From the sounds of things, you read a few posts on the forum about someone having exposure issues with the D90, walked into the store with a pre-conceived notion about this. Took it home expecting the same, tried the camera out on the most basic of levels, confirmed your pre-conceived notion, took the camera back, and then posted on this forum stating that the camera is horrible and how others are just mad that they wasted $1000 on a camera that you just discovered to be faulty, and weren't a sucker like the rest of the buyers on the forum. Sound familiar? Sounds pretty ridiculous. The kicker is that you have no idea why people are agitated with your post.

sandy b · Jul 3, 2009

Did not mean to come off as a hard ass, sorry about that, but when I saw another post about "Horribel" D90 metering I overreacted.

One of the most respected Nikon reviewers put it this way:

"One not-so-obvious change from the D80, at least until you use the D90, is the exposure and focusing systems. Nikon has used essentially the same parts as the D80, but the D90 uses the pro camera Scene Recognition System to tie them together better. Matrix metering still isn't perfect in Single Point AF (still too much emphasis on the focus sensor), but it's better and more reliable than the D80 was. Better still, the CAM1000 seems to have gotten a juicing from this integration. This wasn't obvious to me at first, but after using the camera for a while, I'm now finding repeatable situations where the D90 simply focuses faster and more reliably than the D80, especially in the all-auto focusing mode. Since these were two things I never liked on the D80, I find these changes very welcome. The D90 feels much more like a lower build quality D300 than the D80 felt like a lower build quality D200. Yet no one moved the cheese: if you've used a D80 you'll move to a D90 without even cracking the manual (you should crack that manual, though, as there are lots of little changes that are important to learn: for instance, Single Point AF on the D90 is not the same as Single Area AF on the D80)."

See the full review here: http://www.bythom.com/nikond90review.htm

And of course the excellent review right here.

The D90 metering is not perfect, compared to say the D300, but most reviewers consider it a step up from it predecessor, and about the best in its niche. I have not seen any competent tests yet, but initial observations seem to indicate the D5000 is more prone to under exposure than over. But Matrix mode on a $1000 dollar camera is like driveing a porsche with an auto tranny. Sure it works, and is easy, but its not the best. An automatic metering system is going to not always meet expectations. But the D90 has the option of fine tuning how it meters. And contrary to a very few posts, it seems to be consistant, which is most important.

Anyway, you have bought a fine camera, and I hope you and your wife enjoy it.

"

justahobby · Jul 3, 2009

cmvsm said:
justahobby said:

What is so wrong with the word horrible. Is that a bad word, they were horrible, and it was probably my fault, I admit to it so what. I am in no way putting Nikon down, I like Nikon, use to own a D70s, it got stolen in 2007 from a trip to Disney world. Did not have the D70s for very long, but really liked it. And I will say this again I would have not even known about D90 ever exposing till I came to Dp review. So what about the hundreds of people on here that talked about how bad the D90 overexposed, let me guess you think they are all full of crap right?

Click to expand...

Hundreds of people talk about overexposure on the D90 in this forum? Really? First off, that is incorrect and a monstrous blanket statement. Please feel free to name those hundreds of which you speak. You just got to the forum, so I'm not sure how you would wildly throw out a figure like that.

Secondly, this is a forum after all, and you are going to get more people complaining about everything from exposure to focus issues, no matter what camera that they have. I suspect this is the same with any forum. Go to the audio visual forum (AVSforum.com) and you'll never buy another LCD or stereo again due to the complaints. These complaints are not full of crap, but you have to take them all with a grain of salt and not be influenced by them until you've had the chance to fully check things out for yourself. The operative word here is 'fully'.

From the sounds of things, you read a few posts on the forum about someone having exposure issues with the D90, walked into the store with a pre-conceived notion about this. Took it home expecting the same, tried the camera out on the most basic of levels, confirmed your pre-conceived notion, took the camera back, and then posted on this forum stating that the camera is horrible and how others are just mad that they wasted $1000 on a camera that you just discovered to be faulty, and weren't a sucker like the rest of the buyers on the forum. Sound familiar? Sounds pretty ridiculous. The kicker is that you have no idea why people are agitated with your post.

Were in my post did I say that I bought the D90. And took it home then took it back. Please show me that. The fact of the matter is I have not yet bought a DSLR, I am leaning towards the D5000, but I know now the way I tested the two cameras was not good. When I first started looking at Nikon I wanted the D90, I really actually believe the exposure issue is something I can work around, if I can just get the wife on board, I still just might give the D90 a chance.

cmvsm · Jul 3, 2009

justahobby said:
Were in my post did I say that I bought the D90. And took it home then took it back. Please show me that. The fact of the matter is I have not yet bought a DSLR, I am leaning towards the D5000, but I know now the way I tested the two cameras was not good. When I first started looking at Nikon I wanted the D90, I really actually believe the exposure issue is something I can work around, if I can just get the wife on board, I still just might give the D90 a chance.

Well, good. Glad to hear that you're going to give it another go around. And you may very well walk out with the D5000, be completely satisfied and never look back. The point is that you get some 'stick time' behind each one if possible, and understand the nature of each camera. You're going to have to learn the tool to get the most from it, no matter which one you choose.

If your wife wants something simplistic to use, why not just get her a D40, and save a few hundred to put towards your own? That DSLR is about as simplistic as it gets, and the output is excellent.

justahobby · Jul 3, 2009

cmvsm said:
justahobby said:

Were in my post did I say that I bought the D90. And took it home then took it back. Please show me that. The fact of the matter is I have not yet bought a DSLR, I am leaning towards the D5000, but I know now the way I tested the two cameras was not good. When I first started looking at Nikon I wanted the D90, I really actually believe the exposure issue is something I can work around, if I can just get the wife on board, I still just might give the D90 a chance.

Click to expand...

Well, good. Glad to hear that you're going to give it another go around. And you may very well walk out with the D5000, be completely satisfied and never look back. The point is that you get some 'stick time' behind each one if possible, and understand the nature of each camera. You're going to have to learn the tool to get the most from it, no matter which one you choose.

If your wife wants something simplistic to use, why not just get her a D40, and save a few hundred to put towards your own? That DSLR is about as simplistic as it gets, and the output is excellent.

I think that is probably the best thing that I could do. Get her a D40, and I will get whatever I want.

Sammy Yousef · Jul 4, 2009

I was put off buying the D80 for the metering issues. I've had a D90 for less than 2 weeks (about 2550 shots based on the image file number) and what I'm getting out of the camera is stunning - a quantum leap above what I was getting out of my D70s. I know I can't have improved THAT much in a handful of weeks. I'm certainly not seeing unreliable metering, but I don't leave it permanently stuck on evaluative. I was shooting birds today and had it on spot. Earlier I got some beautiful images of my son asleep in his car seat and they were taken with evaluative. I've never seen the camera blow out a picture. Sometimes highlights are blown, but not very often.

I don't think people are idiots but I do think when we get such wildly different experiences SOMETHING is going on.

I'd suggest people having trouble reset the camera to default settings using the buttons with the green dots (doesn't reset everything, but it should be a good start). Use in the default settings for a while and see how you go.

If you're still having problems I wonder if individual copies of the camera are different, or if a particular behaviour triggers the overexposure and some users just don't do whatever triggers it.

I do miss 1/8000th shutter though that's psychological since I only used that speed on test shots on the D70s. More significant is 1/200th shutter sync with the on camera flash (and FP giving reduced flash power for higher speeds with the SB800). Small price to pay for shots that are so much better, but it's still going to sting till I get use to it.

--
Sammy

Midpack4 · Jul 4, 2009

I'm also a relative novice (so my credibility is about equal to the OP) and I just bought a D90 after comparing the same two DSLR's. I absolutely love the D90, and haven't had to adjust exposure that much, sometimes not at all. The D5000 is a decent camera although inferior in many ways and it seemed like a toy in comparison to the D90. But I would never describe the D5000 as horrible, that's idiotic...YMMV

justahobby · Jul 4, 2009

Midpack4 said:
I'm also a relative novice (so my credibility is about equal to the OP) and I just bought a D90 after comparing the same two DSLR's. I absolutely love the D90, and haven't had to adjust exposure that much, sometimes not at all. The D5000 is a decent camera although inferior in many ways and it seemed like a toy in comparison to the D90. But I would never describe the D5000 as horrible, that's idiotic...YMMV

So what is your point.

Midpack4 · Jul 4, 2009

You can't be serious?

justahobby · Jul 4, 2009

Midpack4 said:
You can't be serious?

Hey midpack4 sounds like you need to stay away from the kool-Aid.

Midpack4 · Jul 4, 2009

I tried both as well, and bought a D90 - the right choice for me without question. You're entitled to your opinion, although it's contrary to a lot of folks more qualified to judge than you and I, and so are the rest of us. There may be a good explanation for your experience, but by being so harsh you asked (by your own admission) for the response you got. And then acted surprised/hurt? We can agree to disagree, and evidently we (collectively) will...life goes on.

D90-D5000 comparison

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