My comparison Buy longer lens or crop center of what I have. P900 vs D90

Jon Robert

New member
My question was: Buy longer lens or crop center of what I have for my Alaska trip. My pondering led me to buy the relatively new Nikon P900 as a satisfactory answer/solution. The cost of a mega zoom lens for a DSLR towards 2000 mm was out of the question and any affordable tele/reach improvement would have been relatively minimal. So I did a little comparison today to see just what would be the difference had I just cropped a center out of my D90 and 18-200 mm lens. Very happy with this P900 option/solution. A camera review is not the purpose of this post just the zoom/crop issue. I will take the D90 also. (I guess the 18-200 should maybe be referenced as 300 mm via crop factor for comparison. I know some make issues out of those technicalities and want to argue)
 

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PapaST

Senior Member
The results look great for the P900. What do you plan to shoot in Alaska? If you're planning on shooting wildlife, I would do some test shots with moving animals. You'll get a better feel for what to expect from the camera.

Part of the allure of the P900 is the fact that it has a smaller sensor that packs about 16MP. The smaller sensor is what gives the "relative" 2000mm zoom. Whereas your D90 only packs 12.xMP on a sensor that is probably twice as big as the P900. So you will get some incredible crops with the P900. Tracking with a P900 might be tougher, so if you plan to take pics of moving animals then I would practice that for sure.
 

Jon Robert

New member
My purpose is souvenir travel photos of whatever including wildlife. I have been working out the idiosyncrasies of the P900 quirks. So far I am finding that scene mode, birding is a very helpful setting in counteracting shutter lag and getting just that right subject pose. With my D90 the lag is nothing and I rarely miss the right instant. Also I cannot crop so tightly with the zoom as the subject (bird) might leave the frame during the 7 shots.The 7 images per "shot" means I will need a much larger SD card than I am normally using. I shoot a lot to begin with x 7 =? . I have chosen a 3:2 image size setting and that only delivers 14MP, that with the smaller sensor for souvenir photos it is perfectly adequate. But to gain the reach at the $500 price point I will learn to live with the idiosyncrasies.
 
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PapaST

Senior Member
Sounds like you've found yourself a winner. I used to have a Canon equivalent and I used to call it my spy-cam because I could zoom in on just about anything. The VR on the Canon was better than the Nikon counter-part. But that was about 5 years ago so hopefully Nikon's has gotten better since then.
 

Whiskeyman

Senior Member
It looks and sounds like you've approached this in the right way. Either way of doing this has its benefits, and also, its problems, but you seem to have an idea of what you need and want beforehand, and have worked to find a solution. Let us see what you capture on your trip!

WM
 

Danno

Senior Member
Congrats on your purchase. Sounds like you have what you were looking for. Please be sure to share some of the photos with us when you get back from your trip.
 

aroy

Senior Member
16MP of P900 will beat 2MP (cropped) of D90 most of the time. For casual photography P&S is heaven sent - it is small, discrete and has excellent tele capability. If the shooting speed is same. I would forget 3:2 and shoot at native format and crop later.
 

Fortkentdad

Senior Member
My sister-in-law has that same pair of cameras. A D90 and the P900. She loves hers and posts some super images taken with the P900. She uses the D90 mostly for macro work and takes the P900 out for her photowalks. She really likes this combination.
 
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