Nikon D5000 review

There's no doubting the D5000 is a Nikon, with its classic styling offering no departures in terms of the body design or basic control layout. The 2.7in screen on the back isn't the largest either, but it's literally the most flexible.

Give the ridged tabs a tug and it comes away from the body of the camera via a hinge at the bottom; it can be pivoted through 180 degrees, and swivelled too. If you tend to chuck your camera haphazardly in a bag, you can turn the screen round so it faces the back of the camera to protect it.

And in conjunction with the Live View mode, it means you can frame shots very close to the ground or over your head which, with a traditional SLR, would be completely hit-and-miss. The contrast-detect autofocus makes this less flexible than that of the Alpha A330, but it's still a valuable tool to be able to resort to if circumstances demand.

The D5000 also offers 720p HD video recording, putting it in the elite company of the Canon 500D and Panasonic GH-1. The video mode is a little hampered, though. The lack of 1080p isn't too surprising at this price, but the five-minute limit on HD recording (a function, says Nikon, of the Motion JPEG format) is a bigger worry. Budding cinematographers aren't going to worry - very few shots last for more than five minutes - but it's hardly ideal for children's birthday parties and other more prosaic uses.

Our tests also reveal that the Canon 500D produces cleaner, sharper video, probably because of the H.264 MOV file format. The 500D is the more flexible in terms of time too, allowing you to shoot up to 29mins 59 secs of footage.