Less than an hour to go - Nikon D80

wow, didnt even see it coming. Then again I was away from civilization for the last 2 months.

time to research

just had a quick look at the spec.

and pretty happy with the spec e.g mp, viewfinder, histogram, lcd, AF.
not happy with SD format only, body and materials used looks like same as D70.

USA price seems to be around $1000. so I imagine UK price would be around £700-800 body only.
 
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Yeah, well hopefully they'll pull their thumbs out of their rears and get making some decent lenses in the £300-£700 arena, equivalent to the lower range Canon L series.

Having just bought a D100 on a whim, I hope this body is good, as it could be my next camera next year.

PERFORMANCE

Most likely the same image quality or slightly better than the D200.

Identical materials and robustness to the D70.
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I don't think D200 owners will like Nikon much if the new D80 is better for IQ. I guess though at this stage it's all pure speculation.
 
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Am I right in think Nikon is brining out a new AF-S 70-300mm VR lens in October?

If so I might hold off for another 2 months and see that rather than buy the sigma 70-300 now?

Anyone?
 
MichaelG said:
Am I right in think Nikon is brining out a new AF-S 70-300mm VR lens in October?
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It looks like Nikon are bringing out a new 70-300 VR but don't hold your breath for when it will be available. The new 18-200 VR has been out for many months but it's impossible to find one in stock anywhere.
 
nolimit said:
not happy with SD format only, body and materials used looks like same as D70.
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Is there much difference in performance between SD and CF cards ?

I've always thought CF to be quicker/better - am I right ?
 
SDK^ said:
It looks like Nikon are bringing out a new 70-300 VR but don't hold your breath for when it will be available. The new 18-200 VR has been out for many months but it's impossible to find one in stock anywhere.
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Yes, but it's only f5.6 @ 300mm :(
 
Gareth said:
Yes, but it's only f5.6 @ 300mm :(
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It's fine by me and this lens is only 725g including VR!

If it was f4 at the 300mm end, the weight would be doubled! There's no such things as free lunch. Sigma's 100-300mm constant f4 weighed around 1440g! Want f2.8? Sigma offer this 120-300mm for whopping 2600g!

Anyhow, if you use f2.8 at 300mm, the depth of field would be razor thin!
 
Well, I'm very pleased that Nikon have made the D80 as a "D200-lite" rather than "D50 with a new sensor". I didn't think I'd be tempted by the D80, but after going through the specs and changes, I'm quite tempted now :p

With the exception of the SD-card, the D80 seems to have improved upon the D70 really quite significantly - ranging from a much larger viewfinder (same size as the D200) and D200's excellent menu system (on the amazing 2.5inch TFT), through to even supporting metering with non-CPU lenses (really didn't expect it on a prosumer model).

All that remains to be seen is whether it delivers on the image quality front, without suffering from banding that plagued a good number of D200s.
 
The banding was only on early models and was simply fixed so its not going to happen with the D80.

As for the IQ, i doubt itll be better than the D200, which took the image processor from the D2X - if Nikon were to do this they'd be killing their own higher end models and they arent that stupid (awaits canon fanboy cr@p).

Shame about SD cards though, makes it useless as a spare body for anyone of the D200/D2X like me which is a shame as the lovely lady wants one.
 
Despite my reservations on how good an upgrade the D80 would be to the D70s I'm actually quite impressed with it's features.

One thing though. Why are Nikon destroying one thing that made them stand out against the competition? High flash sync! It makes using a fill in flash in bright light conditions a pain in the ass.

Also think the size and SD card thing is a strange decision. Making it more fiddley and uncomfortable in big hands and making established users ditch their current choise of memory. Not a fatal blow, but I find it hard to think of them as "advantages".
 
The d80 will be a good upgrade to the d70s without a doubt, you get D200 features pretty much for less money (though it's close to the D200 so I expect a D200s or such quite soon)

High flash sync was one big d70 advantage in some situations, though to the average user it wasn't a big deal and it was out of place on such a low end camera. my bet is they're getting rid of it to differentiate towards high flash sync speed on the D3 series when they get here and possibly the upgrade to the D200
 
bigredshark said:
High flash sync was one big d70 advantage in some situations, though to the average user it wasn't a big deal and it was out of place on such a low end camera. my bet is they're getting rid of it to differentiate towards high flash sync speed on the D3 series when they get here and possibly the upgrade to the D200
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I'd agree, but the D50 is the bizarre stand out exception. Why did they ever think putting a 1/500 flash sync on the D50, and a 1/250 flash sync on the D200 was ever a good idea?

Someone must have put the high flash sync memo in the wrong pile at Nikon HQ.

They then continued the trend with the D80. Bizarre!
 
My expectation is that the D70 got it first (seemed like a good idea/accident) and the D50 is largely D70 based. The D200 is D2 series based and the D80 is D200 based.

So in general the irregularities are down to where the feature was inherited from...
 
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