But perhaps the most major new feature you’re getting… is the ability to take HD movies with the camera. Interested yet?

Because of the way an SLR works, which it’s mirror assembly and shutter mechanism, typically your recording surface (in the digital era, that’s the sensor) is hidden from view until you press the shutter release button, causing all that stuff to flip up and out of the way. This has been a bit of a technical barrier for doing something like Live View or movies.

In the last year or so, however, companies like Nikon have discovered ways around that hurdle. Modern Digital SLR’s are able to preview using the LCD screen and, with the Nikon D90 release… they can now take movies. This is a feature that many photographers, pro and amateur alike, may not immediately find appealing… but it’s huge. You see, not only does the D90 shoot video, but it shoots HD video (720p) and because it can use all the Nikon lenses, your D-Movie video can look better than most expensive camcorders.

Visit the Nikon D-Movie page and watch some of their sample video.

According to Redmond, the HD-Photo format is the ideal solution for digital image editing as the file sizes are smaller thanks to improved compression, but the resolution is greatly improved over JPG since said compression isn’t nearly as destructive. The format will allow you to decode only the information required at certain resolutions, and will allow you to manipulate the compressed image data. HD-Photo also offers increased image fidelity, preserving the entire original image content and enabling higher-quality exposure and color adjustments in the image, with a greater dynamic range.

With HD-Photo, we’re taking a new approach to creating and editing photos that simply isn’t available to photographers with today’s formats. HD-Photo fully preserves the original image fidelity with high dynamic range while still allowing for significant improvement in compression size. (Amir Majidimehr)

Basically – this means the image is better, smaller, and more flexible to editing than a JPG (which all digital cameras use)… and Microsoft has said that certain camera manufacturers have already stepped up to support the format on their cameras, though we don’t know who yet. This format would not be competing with RAW formats used by manufacturers on their cameras, but could very well take over from the deprecated JPG format.