For Christmas, I bought myself some new camera gear and received a few things as gifts..

I picked up a new Nikon D90 DSLR from my local reseller.  I almost sprang for the D300 but decided that I could get by just fine with the D90 as it is more than capable for my needs.  My initial impression is that the D90 is quite a bit faster to acquire targets and focus than the D70.  It also exposes slightly better, I’ve noticed that the D70 overexposes a bit.

As gifts, I received the SB-800 speedlight and Sony Ni-MH batteries and charger.  The NiMH batteries are 2700mAh and according to Nikon’s documentation should be able to cycle the flash in almost half the time compared with standard AA batteries.  Plus they are rechargeable so I can stop buying AA’s all the time.

I tested the SB800 with the D90 and found that I can use continuous firing with the flash and it’s quite consistent.  When I had the SB600 on the D70, the flash would not fire for every frame when firing continuously.  In a burst of 3 frames the flash would usually miss one of the shots.  No problems when using the SB800.  I’m also very impressed by the SB800/D90’s exposure of people.  The lighting seems more natural.

I’ll be taking some comparison shots with the D70/SB600 and D90/SB800 to try and highlight differences in the near future.