Updated 13 Feb, 2012, 6:30 pm IST

REVIEWS / DSLRS / NIKON INDIA PVT LTD

Nikon D5000

14 Aug, 2009, 8:58 am IST | Gagan Gupta | DSLRs DSLRs

Among the consumer DSLR cameras, we've tested I personally found the live-view to be more of a gimmick rather than a feature I would actively use. The live-view in the D5000 was the first that I actively used nearly as much as the optical viewfinder. Firstly the screen (though only 2.7-inches and comparatively low-res at 270,000 dots) works like a charm with live-view. Also, the autofocus in live-view mode happens with the standard half-shutter press, which feels natural, as compared to the awkward zoom-out button press for autofocus in the Canon EOS 500D. The only drawback with the live-view mode is that it suffers from quite a bit of shutter lag.

The D5000 also shoots video at a maximum resolution of 1280x720 (720p), and the good part is that it can shoot video in any mode, by simply pressing the Ok button in live-view mode. The autofocus is fixed in video mode, but you do have the option to initiate it while recording by doing the half-shutter release press while shooting. Though it's not as good as the video quality of a good quality HD camcorder, it is quite usable and better than the lower-end HD camcorders.

The 11-point autofocus should be an easy way to separate the D5000 from the lower-end Nikon DSLR cameras that feature a very unsatisfactory 3-point autofocus. With 11 points, you have a pretty good control of getting the right focus in every shot, rather than framing your shot around the point of focus.

Other features include Active-D lighting, in-camera RAW processing and some pretty good post-processing options like funky filter effects. I was especially surprised to see how well the fish-eye filter worked in most scenarios.

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Tags: Nikon , D5000 , DSLR , 12 megapixel , digital camera , digicam

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