The Nikon D80 was one of the most hyped and eagerly anticipated 10 megapixel DSLRs which has been rated as a superb camera to own. At the time it was being favourably compared to its only other competitor, the Sony A100, but a lot has happened in recent months. The Nikon D80 has proved to be an overwhelming success. It is a 10 megapixel digital SLR that is designed to be affordable but an upgrade from some of the budget model digital SLRs on the market. The extra money you spend on the Nikon D80 will give you a more solid and sturdy feel as well as an 18-70mm lens as opposed to an 18-55mm lens found on less expensive models. The Nikon D80 offers a number of features not found in any of its competitors in this price range, many from the fantastic D200.
One of the most interesting and misunderstood features is weather sealing, giving good all weather performance. The Nikon D80 has some extra buttons but apart from that, the casing is practically identical to earlier Nikon 'D' series. The similarity, however, is purely cosmetic and does not mean that the Nikon D80 is in the same league as the entry-level D50. The Nikon D80 offers two control dials, enabling one to be used for aperture and one for shutter speed when shooting in full Manual mode, a very handy feature. The Nikon D80 offers the serious underwater photographer many of the attractions of the professionally aimed (and priced) D200. With much of the technology packed into the smaller and less expensive D80 originating with the Nikon D200, it's no surprise to find demand for the Subal ND80 housing so strong. The Nikon D80 is a powerful digital SLR camera that has a lot of features for you to leverage.
The foremost logical prerequisite of a rigid classification is that a mental item belong to no more than one category. Such either/or logic presupposes a digital mode of thinking, which, unlike its analog counterpart, does not tolerate any “gray” shadings among mental fields. “digital thinking” has a staccato character somewhat evocative of the on/off nature of the conventional light switch or the convulsive progression of time on digital clocks, in marked contradistinction to the smooth, legato style of the dimmer or the traditional analog clock.
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U. S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 3, University of Chicago Press (1991)
If you're not already familiar with how you can use aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance and metering to improve your digital photos, I encourage you to learn. The Nikon D80 shows very little noise but has significant softness at ISO 800 and above. These results are not surprising considering the same sensor design is used for all top Nikon DSLRs cameras. The Nikon D80 is obviously not aimed to Nikon fans with huge collections of vintage MF lenses. But if so, they can be used.
The Nikon D80 digital camera is one of our favorite cameras to have been released. Not only does it set a value point for digital SLR's, but the D80 is feature-rich, lightweight, and takes incredible photos. We have yet to read a poor report on this super model. The Nikon D80 supports i-TTL, TTL and non TTL flashes and offers a maximum flash synchronisation to 1/200 seconds. The Nikon D80 is a dream come true for the enthusiast: excellent image quality with low noise at high ISOs, instant response, and excellent handling -- at an affordable price. The Nikon D80 offers 95% scene coverage and 0.94x magnification.
The viewfinder has built-in diopter adjustment (-2.0 to +1.0m-1). The Nikon D80 is a fairly inexpensive digital SLR that packs spectacular performance and excellent (though somewhat soft) image quality into a well-built, solid camera. For under $1000 you get quite a lot of camera, and it will certainly make people think twice about spending hundreds more on a D200. The Nikon D80 Digitutor site - view the photo gallery where they show samples of images taken with various pro-level lenses such as the Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D, Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 Macro VR, Nikkor 12-24mm f/4 DX, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR, and the Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 DX. Left and top menus also allow you access to operational notes and tutorial videos. The Nikon D80 inherits technological advantages developed exclusively for Nikon's latest professional digital SLR cameras, combining color independent analog pre-conditioning with improved 12-bit digital image processing algorithms.
The result is natural looking images that benefit from faithful color and tone reproduction.