Nikon D5000 Digital Camera Details|Nikon D5000 Digital Camera Reviews

"Having bought my first D-SLR Nikon D60 last November, I was intrigued with the announcement of the D5000. At the time of my D60 purchase, I was considering the D90, but after holding both in person, I chose the D60 for its the much smaller form factor, lighter weight, and much lower price tag. I have been largely happy with the D60, although its low-light performance while dramatically better than my old point-and-shoot camera still wasn't fantastic."

"Given the D5000 uses the same sensor and imaging sensor as the D90, but in a smaller lighter case, I decided to upgrade. And I must say I'm exceptionally pleased with the D5000."

"Stunning Image Quality even in Low Light, without a tripod or fast lens"

"The D5000 takes exceptional pictures, especially in low-light and in challenging lighting scenarios. The D5000 is the first camera I've owned that can take a picture at night and capture everything (and in some cases more than) my eye sees. And this is in Automatic mode (flash off), without a tripod, using an average-speed (f3.5-f5.6) Nikon VR lens. Truly impressive."

"I went back and took the same night shots in the same settings with the same Nikon 16-85 VR lens and the results are noticeably better on the D5000 vs my D60. The difference between the D5000 and D60 is almost as dramatic (in low light) as the difference between my D60 and point-and-shoot camera. I've posted a few example images to illustrate."

"Images captured even at ISO 1600 have exceptional detail and very low noise. Even when you zoom to 100% the D5000 renders these tough shots beautifully. Highlights are controlled and not blown-out, while even low-contrast areas of the picture are captured."

"Ability to capture details in challenging light, automatically"

"The D5000;s ability to capture all details of an image, even at night, with areas of highly contrasting lighting is even more impressive than it's low-light performance. As some have noted, the D5000 has a tendency to slightly underexpose these pictures to preserve detail. (The D90 tends to over-expose these shots, illustrating that the D5000 is not entirely a "D90 in a small case"

"In one example (posted to the customer images), a night-shot of the famous Castro Street theater the D5000 captured the bright neon signs, architectural lighting of the facade, and even the mosaic tile and billboards in the very dimly-lit entry. All again in automatic mode, no tripod, F3.8 ISO 800. When I post the sample pictures they will tell the story better than I could ever describe".

"I can only think that this performance is related to a combination of improvements over the D5000: 11 autofocus points, 3D matrix metering, next-generation Active D-Lighting, latest Nikon EXPEED processor."

View details of the Nikon D5000 Digital Camera

No-compromises feature set that is still easy to use for the beginner

"One thing that annoyed me about the D60 was its lack of some features (eg. bracketing) intended to "dumb the camera down". The D5000 has every control you would ever want, yet its menu system remains extremely easy to use even for a beginner.

Example features the D5000 offers that are not available on the D60:

- RAW-JPG ability to select JPEG quality (Std,Basic,Fine)

- bracketing (useful for HDR post-processing) and I'm sure there are many others I have missed.

The D5000 also includes a number of additional SCENE modes (a total of 19) for the beginner used to point-and-shoot simplicity. Everything from Night Landscape, Sunset, Food, Pet Portrait, Sports, and more."

Useful Live View and Vari-Angle Display for those hard-to-reach shots

"A first for Nikon, the D5000 includes a "vari-angle" articulated LCD. Despite the specs on paper (230,000 pixels vs the 920,000 pixels on the D90) the screen quality is outstanding - very bright and easy to see even in sunshine.

Using the Live View mode, you can take pictures in hard-to-reach angles such as above a crowd, or looking up from a low angle, or taking a self-portrait. What doesn't work so well in Nikon's implementation is that the hinge is on the bottom of the camera, so if you're using a tripod your choices are limited.

New to the D5000 LiveView (not on the D90) is subject tracking, which keeps focus on a moving subject within the frame.

As others have pointed out, the D5000 LiveView autofocus performance is very slow. The more that I have used it, I must say that LiveView performance is probably worse than your point-and-shoot camera. Some other owners on the Nikon forums have reported complete failure of LiveView autofocus, although on my D5000 it works.

As it is, I compose 99% of my shots in the viewfinder, which gives you the super-fast response of a DSLR in the first place. For me the ability to use LiveView in hard-to-reach situations is a nice feature.

All in all, however, the outstanding image quality especially in low-light, and features offset the very minor areas that could be improved. For that, the D5000 gets my 5-star vote."

Nikon D5000 12.3 MP DX Digital SLR Camera (Body Only) + Nikon Telephoto AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR (Vibration Reduction) Autofocus Lens + R1C1 Wireless Close-Up Speedlight Flash System with Commander SU-800 (Macro Kit A) + Willoughby's Dental/Medical Accessory Bundle

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Nikon D5000 12.3 MP DX Digital SLR Camera (Body Only) + Sigma 70mm F/2.8 EX DG Macro Lens + Sigma Flash Macro Ring EM-140 DG + Willoughby's Dental/Medical Accessory Bundle

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Nikon D5000 12.3 MP DX Digital SLR Camera (Body Only) + Nikon AF-S Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G ED Macro Autofocus Lens (2177) + Nikon R1 (4804) Wireless Close-Up Speedlight Flash System (Macro Kit B) + Willoughby's Dental/Medical Accessory Bundle

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Nikon D5000 12.3 MP DX Digital SLR Camera with 2.7-inch Vari-angle LCD (Body Only) BigVALUEInc Accessory Saver 8GB Battery/Rapid Charger Bundle

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Nikon Coolpix L20 10MP Digital Camera with 3.6 Optical Zoom and 3 inch LCD (Deep Red)

The Coolpix L20 is a great camera for beginners just getting started in digital photography. Easy to use and fully featured the Coolpix L20 will delight it's users with great pictures, fun features and a huge 3.0-inch display at a surprisingly affordable price.

"I recently purchase the Nikon Coolpix L20 after lots of shopping. I have used only Olympus cameras only up to now. This time I wanted a smaller pocket sized camera, that still took the AA batteries, and that still gave great photos with all the features I was used to. This camera fit the bill!

It takes 2 AA batteries, inexpensive SD memory cards and yet still delivers fantastic photos. I have already tried all the features, and was completly happy. I love using the different scene settings, and could not live without the video feature.

Both still and video capture worked well in both bright light and low light.

The sound playback via the camera is hard to distinquish (live music), but fine once uploaded. I didn't really require the smile feature, but tried it out on my 3 year old, and was blown away....it really works!

The blink feature is also quite ingenious. The camera actually asks you if your subject blinked when they do, but not when they don't. This is particularly handy when taking photos of children. I would have loved this feature when I was still my daughter's yearbook photographer.

What can I say, fabulous price and awesome quality!!! Definatley worth the money. Comparibly priced camera's that we have used, produce grainy shots.....but have not found this with this camera at all. I would recommend this camera to anyone! "