I just recently upgraded my 5-year-old(!) Nikon D70 to the newer, sexier D90. While shiny new toys are always nice, the main reason I bought a new body was that I was having some persistent write errors on my D70 (I’m not alone). I’ll be shooting a friend’s wedding in May, and traveling later this year — I wanted to make sure that I had a solid, reliable camera.

Fast matters

What’s interesting about the switch is that I was expecting it to be just an incremental upgrade — a little faster here and there, modestly better image quality, and so on. Not so. The D90 is such a huge improvement on the D70, it feels like a different beast entirely — and it’s nearly all about speed.

The thing just feels hungry — everything is so blisteringly fast that it feels like it wants to consume images, non-stop. It’s the little things things that add up. The autofocus is about 2x as fast, and far more accurate than the D70. Buttons are placed and spaced so they’re easier to reach. The controls are ‘snappier’ and feel more positive to use. ‘Mirror-blackout’ — the time it takes for the viewfinder to clear — is so fast you’re pretty much always seeing something in the viewfinder, even when you’re taking the picture. It makes it feel like a rangefinder, nearly. The menus are easier to use and faster to page through. Hell, it even formats new cards instantaneously.

Why would I care though? I’m not in a hurry.

Well, for one, the speed and elegance just makes the tool start to disappear — I only notice the difference because I’m so used to waiting on my D70. A month from now I won’t even notice the camera. While having to work within limitations can be helpful, a slow automatic camera is really just a frustration. Modern SLRs are designed to be as fast and functional as possible, so added speed makes the camera fade away more and more, and drives all your attention to the moment.

Speed and design

This is, of course, an interesting design lesson. Speed matters even if you don’t think you care about it. Performance hasn’t always been a high priority on many of my client projects — I design primarily for low-traffic, information heavy sites. Still, I’m going to spend more effort and focus on finding ways to cut load times and package my images so that my sites load more quickly. Every little byte really does count.

Alo, it’s intersting to note that a sensation of speed is never about individual variables — it’s about the speed of the entire experience; the light, crisp feeling of using something that gets out of your way, quickly.

There’s just more there

Image quality is also a revelation. Sure, there’s a bigger image, better noise control, and blah blah… Really, it’s the intangible and immeasurable details of the image quality that really make it interesting. The camera just takes a bigger bit out of reality than anything I’ve used — shadows are deep and rich, highlights well controlled, noise is either gone or pleasant looking, and the RAW files are so malleable they’re like Silly Putty. You can use the camera to create whatever you like.

Really, there’s not too much higher praise for a tool than saying it gets out of the way, quickly. Nice job Nikon.