Acquired used in Camtec Photo, Montreal
I only used it for a week or so before getting rid of it. It’s not really an upgrade from my D50. The body’s the same but the grip is a bit less comfortable even than the D50 since the pinkie can’t be placed on the grip properly anymore (yes I’m that picky). A big move up in the number of megapixel does not help image quality at all. A better lens make better pictures and more megapixels without changing sensor size will just fill your hard drive faster with interference and useless data. The screen is a move up and makes viewing the D50 screen uncomfortable once you’ve seen a D80 screen.
External controls aren’t that much different from the D50 but you can still easily manage to do a lot without going into menus. New aperture preview button can be useful for setting up shots. Bracketing function’s useful too for HDRs. Of course, a second scroller is immense help.
One new feature that can be very useful is that the newer D80 can control Nikon flashes with Nikon’s creative lightning system without extra equipment. Also, for being the newest of the 3 camera bodies I will review, it’s also compatible with the much cooler, miniaturized AND less expensive ML-L3 wireless remote control.
