Nikon gave the estimated selling Price in the United States as US$ 899.95 for the body alone[2] and as $1299.99 with the Nikkor AF-S DX 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR, which by itself sold for $399.95.

[3] Some of the improvements the D90 offers over the D80 include 12.3-megapixel resolution, extended light sensitivity capabilities, live view and automatic correction of lateral chromatic aberration.

It supports Global Positioning System integration for automatic location tagging of photographs, using a GPS receiver sold separately.

As with other DSLRs, the D90's CMOS sensor captures video frames using a rolling shutter, which may cause skewing artifacts during rapid camera or subject motion.

[44] Digital Photography Review also published a highly positive assessment,[45] but noted that the only weakness seemed to be that matrix metering on the D90 is tied too strongly to individual focus points, and therefore allows highlights to be clipped in other areas of an image.

[46] Statistics from Photo sharing website Flickr also show that the D90 is ranked as the most used Nikon system in terms of picture uploads.