Nikon D80 Body Only Digital Camera

Product Rating
4.33 of 5
9 reviews

Price Range
$699 - $830

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Product Description

Summary

The D80 was an upgrade for me from the D70. I shoot lots of sports on a semi-professional basis, and wanted the D80 for 2 primary reasons: Better high ISO performance over the D70 (allowing me to shoot night games), and the ability to do more aggressive crops (since the D80 has a higher resolution). The D80 has delivered on both points, plus has other features that make it a very nice upgrade from the D70. One feature I didn't count on, but which has made shooting sports much easier is the much better viewfinder on the D80. The image in the viewfinder is so much brighter and clearer, that this feature alone was worth the upgrade.

There is a learning curve with the D80, especially getting used to the way the matrix metering system works on this camera. For outdoor shots I initially tended to overexpose, but have now learned to recognize situations that cause problems, and compensate or use another metering method. The higher resolution and smaller photosite size used with the D80 will really highlight defeciencies with poorer quality lenses, so you want to stay with good quality glass with this camera, or plan to be disappointed.

The 18-200 VR lens is a great "walk-around" lens and spends lots of time on my D80. The range that this lens give you is incredible, but at the cost of some sharpness on each end of the range with the sharpest images in the mid-range at around f/8. I do think the lens is somewhat over-priced, but I was able to get a good deal on mine ($714 to include shipping).

Strength

D80 - High resolution, Excellent Viewfinder, Excellent AF system, Many customizable features.

18-200 VR Lens - Incredible range (11X), VR lets you get sharp photos at low shutter speeds

Weakness

D80 - Matrix metering takes some getting used to. Amp noise may be problem on early models, so the D80 may not be the best camera for night or long-exposure photography.

18-200 VR Lens - Lens creep is an annoying feature of this lens. Nikon decided to make the lens zoom from 18 all the way to 200 mm with only a 1/4 turn of the zoom ring. This gives you a super fast zoom, but makes the lens tend to creep due to the mechanics.

Summary

Price paid was for body and two lenses (saleman sample from Cameta Camera - but the thing looked imaculate/brand new and was refurbished by Nikon before it was sold) I was comparing to the Canon XTi. After I held the cameras in my hand I went with the Nikon hands down (pardon the pun). The Canon didn't feel good ergonomically in my hands. A lot of people have commented on it. Check it out in person before you buy. The "kit" lens which for me was the 18-55mm was better in the Nikon than the Canon, so it helped seal the deal.

The D80 feels solid. Controls are well laid out. You can quickly access most important features by simply holding a button down and turning a thumbwheel. It has spot metering (the Canon doesn't). It also has a fairly inexpensive wireless remote which I highly recommend if you're doing landscape or night shots (two things I do a lot). It also has a battery grip that isn't too expensive. This is another feature I LOVE. It does several things. One, it doubles the amount of battery power the camera can have available to it. You can put 2 of the nikon proprietary batteries in there and shoot forever. Two, it gives you an additional vertical shutter release for when you're holding the camera in a vertical position. Brilliant! Three, it comes with, get this, a AA battery tray. If you get stuck somewhere and your batteries run out, you can zip into a convenience store and grab some alkalines and keep shooting. (rechargeable AA's last MUCH longer than alkalines, btw).

Exposure seems pretty good to me. I haven't noticed highlight clipping others have mentioned.

Having said that - I almost wish I'd purchased the Pentax K10D. Same price, its weather sealed, and has vibration dampening that does work. Do yourself a favor and take a hard look at that camera too if you're looking in this price range. I went Nikon because I have friends that have Nikon stuff (that I can borrow - lol) and because DPReview.com gave the Pentax lower marks. Lots of others have since been highly touting the K10D.

Strength

Build quality.
Spot metering.
Ability to use AA's (with battery grip)
Better kit lens
Fast
Well laid out controls
Better ergonomics

Weakness

Higher noise at high ASA's than the Canon's (still better than more expensive D200 though)
More expensive than Canon if comparing to Rebel XTi (really I think the D80 compares more directly to the Canon 30D actually)

Summary

Great Camera! This is a 5 Star Product!!! The only Flaws are the unusual matrix Meter and that they don't bundle Capture NX with the package. Just go Buy one!

Strength

Too Many to List

Weakness

Inaccurate metering ( Fixable in future software upgrades! )
No capture NX in the package

Summary

Great camera. The images I've captured with this camera is just as good as the ones I've been taking with my D50. The jump from 6.1 to 10.1 megapixels is a huge improvement. Sure, it may not be noticeable if you don't plan on printing huge huge prints, BUT, if you crop a lot, those extra megapixels come in handy. It's a fast camera with a few glitches, mainly the matrix metering and the camera's tendency to overexpose highlights. At times, I have to play around with the EV settings to -0.3 to -1.0. There's a tad more in camera editing features that I would never use, but it could be useful for beginners or those who do not have time to do their editing after transferring their pics onto a computer. But other than that, I love this camera.

Strength

More ISO settings than my previous camera (ISO 100 through ISO 3200). The usual fantastic image capturing capabilities of yet another great Nikon camera.

Weakness

This camera tends to overexpose shots a lot AND it tends to underexpose any shots used with an outside flash source (like an SB-600). It's no big deal. Every digital SLR has some sort of little peeves here and there. My D70 UNDERexposed shots while my D80 overexposes. It's one of the small pet peeves I have with the D80. I don't mind messing with the EV settings and exposure settings on my SB-600 when it's on this camera, but this may be a bummer for beginners. For the price you pay, vibration reduction and/or anti-dust mechanisms would've been great. Rather than provide their bodies with vibration reduction (like Pentax does), Nikon did a smart profit making specific lenses to have VR. Heck, that would be too easy and less profitable if Nikon released a camera body that would apply VR to all your lenses.

Summary

This is definitely a camera worthy of carrying Nikons name. I purchased the 5700 2 years ago, and had I not been travelling it would have gone right back to the sotre. This unit takes great pictures and has a lot of issues that need to be resolved.
1) The camera mis-reports the number of shots left when you insert a 2GiG SD card.
2) The flash sync as per spec says it is up to 1/200 however, the menu only lets you set the sync speed to a max of 1/60
3) Flash photography with this camera is still painfull. The process of focusing when using the flash takes so long that you miss the moment and loose the natural shots as subjects become deers caught in the headlights
4) While the built in flash does a pretty good job - definitely better than the 5700, it still leaves a little to be desired when it comes to shooting subjects in a large room. If you don't have bounce services - it is ugh! Worse, if you do have the old workhorses SB26 etc - they don't work TTL
5) The biggest gripe I have is the AF-AE lock. This button is at the rear of the camera and expected to be depressed as the shutter button is half depressed to activate the lock. This action is unnatural, even for somebody with large hands like me.
6) Those of you who want to use the manual focus - think again. There is no split prisims to help and this mode is very difficult to use.
7) The kit lenses that come with the camera are fair - and one really needs to consider an upgrade to a better lens to get great shots.
8) The LCD images are very mis-leading. It looks like the system bolsters the image intensity - so it makes it hard to judge wheter the image is what you want. It is hard to judge whether you have the focus as tight as you had hoped.
8) Even with these limitations that I have encoutered so far, i still like the camera and hope Nikon will have fixes for them with firmware downloads.

Those of you planning to buy one - go for it (with the limitations in minde of course). i am taking fabulous pictures and the camera definitiely does a great job right out of the box.

Strength

Weakness