THOUGHTS ON THE NEW NIKON D80

When I first saw the teaser for the new D80, I was amused. They were basically saying,'new Nikon digital slr in 20 days.' Many people thought it was Nikon's way of stealing the thunder from the recently released Sony A100, and indeed, I know a few people who held out to see what Nikon had to offer.

When I first saw the images of the D80 floating around the net, I must admit I was not all that excited. It seemed a lot of people felt the same way. From those photos on the net, the camera looked 'chinzy' or 'cheesy' to me, almost like (pardon me) a 'girly-man' camera. Perhaps the Sony A100 at under $1000 did steal the show. There was very little of the hysteria that accompanied the D200's announcement. It is quite apparent that 10.2 megapixels is becoming the new standard. It will become what six megapixel sensors have been for a long time. The D80 is expected to be competitively priced at $999 USD for the body only, or $1299 with the 18-135mm kit lens.

Recently, I was able to look over the D80 closer through photos from a Nikon released press kit, not generally available for public consumption. Don't worry, there are no secrets in there, but the camera did look better to me. From the photos, the back of the camera looked quite a bit like the D200. With the optional grip, the camera should feel pretty good for folks who like a little bulk on their cameras. This is already one area where the D80 has an improvement over the D70/D70s. Nikon made no grip for the older D70/D70s, and many folks had to resort to buying clumsy aftermarket contraptions. This time they listened to the people.

The two lenses being released with the D80 looked pretty good too. The 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S lens should be a good all-arounder, and if it matched the performance of my old 18-70mm AF-S kit lens, I'd be happy with it. The 70-300mm f/4-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR lens looks like a nice telephoto zoom. The press kit stated the lens had "a nine blade rounded diaphragm opening, out-of-focus elements appear more natural." That's Nikon's way of saying the lens will have nice bokeh.

The images from the D80 on Nikon's brochure looked very nice (as they always do), but as an available light shooter, I noticed that there were no low-light, high iso sample images. I believe there was a night shot in there, if I recall correctly, but shot at low iso. If they could improve on this area, even a little, from the D200, I could live with it.

You can read all the specs of the Nikon D80 on Nikon's website. The camera seems to be an overall improvement over the D70/D70s, a classic 'people's' camera. But ironically, there are some downgrades in my opinion. The D80 doesn't have the D70's 1/8000 shutter speed, it doesn't have the D70's 1/500 flash sync speed. It probably doesn't matter to many people, but if it matters to you, that's something to consider. I will have more to say on the D80 in the future; I do not plan on getting one, but I am sure some of my comrades will. Stay tuned.

Photo: Taken with the Fuji F11 Zoom, iso800