.......The camera will record clips up to five minutes long at 1280 x 720 pixels (20 minutes at the smaller movie sizes) before recording is stopped to give the image sensor an opportunity to cool. The file size for a typical five minute, 1280 x 720 pixel clip is roughly 600MB. There's no control over the JPEG compression level. A mic on the front of the camera picks up audio.
Video capture can be started and stopped with the OK button at the centre of the 4-way controller (capture is also automatically stopped by pressing the shutter button to take a still picture). The D90 allows you to select the aperture (from wide open to f/8) prior to commencing, then it handles the adjusting of ISO and shutter speed automatically as needed to maintain video brightness as lighting conditions change during recording. To disable automatic exposure adjustment, it's possible to lock exposure prior to beginning the recording.
The recording of audio can be turned off. If a lens with Vibration Reduction (VR) technology is attached, its VR stabilization will automatically kick in when recording commences.
This all sounds good so far, but that's also about where the list of D90 video features ends. Auto WB, as well as the selection of an alternate white balance setting, is disabled during recording, so white balance has to be firmed up before you start. Autofocus is also inactive, leaving manual focus as the only focus option while a movie is being made. Zooming will be similarly manual, since there are no powered F-mount Nikkor zoom lenses available, though the camera itself can't be faulted for that of course. But, the D90's D-Movie mode lacks any sort of digital zoom which, given the expected sensor quality, could have been both useful and had a minimal negative impact on video quality if it were limited to 2X or so.
Audio is mono only, with no provision for plugging in an external microphone. Other than turning the mic off, there are no audio options such as manual level adjustment or wind filtering........
