Technofart

The big fuss over the D5000 is that it’s Nikon’s first DSLR with an articulating display. Now, thankfully, it’s not just there to be pretty: it’s versatile and bright, colors are sharp and visibility in bright sunlight outside is excellent. The screen itself sports an exceptionally good GUI that has a smorgasbord of statistics and numbers: it’ll alert you if no SD card is present, tell you if the

right side up, no matter how you tilt the camera–nice touch. Additionally, the initial Amazon reviews on it are excellent. Now, do let me point out that this camera is meant to be sort of a poor man’s D90, and I’m sorry but you can tell: it feels a bit too rubbery and plastic, the build quality just isn’t there, so you can tell it’s intended for amateurs, GWC’s, and photographers not making enough yet to afford a full-on pro’s camera.

The internals on the D5000 are pretty much the same as what you get on the D90, and that’s really the essence of what I’m saying here: you’re getting a D90 in a somewhat-less-sturdy case, so do you really need it to be sturdy or not? The D5000 has the same 12.3 megapixel sensor, the same

LCD, and, most importantly, a top-mounted display (the D5000 tries to make up for a lack of a top-mounted display with the super-duper GUI). The MSRP for the all-pro D90 (Amazon.com D90 page) is about $1,150 whereas the D5000 can be had for just $850.

More than you’d ever want to know about the D5000 (33 pages worth)

The people over at Digital Photography Review have got hold of a D5000 and put together thirty-three pages of mind-numbing detail about it, have a look: Nikon D5000 Review at dpreview.com