Nikon D80: Giving the D70s A New Look With The Nikon D80

The Nikon D70s finally gets a much-needed face-lift with the Nikon D80. Replacing the 6-megapixel sensor is a more powerful 10.2-megapixel CCD imaging sensor. The AF system gets upgraded as well, jumping from 5 to an 11-area system. From 2 inches, the 230,000-pixel LCD of the Nikon D80 is now at 2.5 inches. Despite the different increase in specifications, the D80’s body is actually smaller in terms of dimensions. Nonetheless, if you have ever held the D70s, you’d find the D80 to be quite familiar.

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Most of the dedicated button positions remained unchanged. Also positioned around the body of the D80 are three dials: one mode dial and two dials that can be found on the front as well as the back of the camera grip. These two dials can tweak the shutter speed as well as the aperture setting. When used altogether, full-manual shooting is a walk in the park. The menu system of Nikon is simple and quite intuitive. One of the new features in the menu system of Nikon is the Retouch Menu that lets you immediately edit your captured images with some basic retouches such as red-eye reduction, crop, resize and even overlay.

The D80 comes with the 3D Color Matrix Metering II that is found in the D50. As for the image-processing, in addition to the AF system, they came from the D200. The D80 also features the Commander Mode. The Commander Mode allows you to control Nikon Speedlights without having to purchase a wireless trigger. It also supports SD-HC, so you can use SD cards that have a capacity that is greater than 2GB. Also, an optional grip, the MB-D80, will let you store up to two EN-EL3e rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

Performance-wise, the D80 was quite stellar. The D80 took only 0.1 second to be up and running from a cold start. Without flash, shot-to-shot time took 0.3 second while adding 1 second with flash. The D80’s shutter lag in well-lit areas clocked in at 0.45 second. It doubled when shots were taken in dim environments. Continuous-shooting mode whipped up 3.33 frames per second.

Images taken with the D80 looked great. The colors were accurate as well as neutral and the camera’s reading as well as providing of exposure was right on the money. The ISO of the D80 maxes at 3200. There was practically no noise at ISO levels 100, 200 and even at ISO 400, the noise was just a fine grain.

Speed, new features and great image quality make the Nikon D80 an excellent upgrade from the aging D70s.