If you follow Nikon’s roughly two yearly release schedule, then the announcement of the D80 late this year came as no surprise at all. As fantastic as the D70 is, the time had clearly come for its replacement. With things getting very competitive in the ‘pro-sumer’ end of the market, new players like Sony and Panasonic are set to give the traditional camera manufacturers a run for their money, so any new release has to be pretty special. But can the new Nikon D80 fit the bill?

Yes, No… Maybe?

Make no mistake, the D80 is an excellent camera and a more than worthy upgrade from a D50 or D70s. With 10.2-megapixels, a beautifully clear and bright 2.5-inch LCD screen for playback and preview of your images, and a much better (i.e. larger) viewfinder, the D80 is certainly a step up. It also inherits the pro-grade auto-focus system of the D200, with 11 sensing areas – although it’s a slightly toned-down version with only the centre area configured for wide coverage (as opposed to the D200’s seven wide focusing areas).

Balancing Act

The fit and feel of the D80 is exceptional for a mid-range offering. This is a nice solid camera, with good heft, despite it being slightly smaller than the Nikon D50. The rubberised grip is perfectly contoured for small to average-sized hands, balancing nicely with the consumer range of Nikkor DX lenses.

Speaking of lenses, Nikon has introduced a new kit lens with the D80 – the Nikkor DX AF-S 18–135mm f3.5–5.6G ED. Yeah, I know, it’s a bit of a mouthful, but what all those letters really mean is that this is a quality lens that is sure to please. I was surprised to see that it only has a plastic lens mount, but I suppose with a range from 28–200mm (in 35mm terms) you could reasonably expect the lens to stay put.

Beg, Steal Or Borrow

It would be fair to say that Nikon doesn’t have a particularly good reputation for delivering products quickly. It can sometimes be six months from announcement until eventual release of a new Nikon product. This, however, has changed recently as Nikon has begun re-engineering existing models to create ‘new’ cameras. If you take the D50 body, tweak it slightly, add some D200 innards, new firmware and processing, then – viola! – a D80 is born.

Because Nikon doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel each time it develops a new camera, its production time is reduced and that means cameras are released more quickly to the consumer. On the face of it, this makes a lot of sense. We all want the latest thing right now and I’m all for a baby D200 with most of the power at half the price. But I also wonder if this practice could end up hurting Nikon when the novice first-time buyer starts to compare different cameras feature-for-feature.

What Were They Thinking?

The most glaring omission from the D80, which I believe Nikon needs to seriously address, is the lack of an anti-dust system. And while we’re at it, although I hate to rub salt into the wound, an anti-shake system built into the body (a-la Sony’s new A100) also wouldn’t go amiss. Yes, I know that both Nikon and Canon prefer to incorporate anti-shake in their lenses for an arguably superior result.

However, these lenses always cost more and become less of an attractive investment when other systems include it in the camera and make every lens anti-shake. Just a thought…

All Is Not Lost

Talk of anti-this and anti-that aside, I started this review by saying that the D80 is a fantastic camera and I’m sticking to that appraisal. One of the areas that I believe Nikon has got right with the D80 is its use of the SD (Secure Digital) memory format over the traditional CF (compact flash) cards. There was much eyebrow raising and gnashing of teeth when D70 users found out that the D80 wouldn’t support CF cards, but it is a wise (and somewhat brave) move by Nikon.

In part, the decision has to do with the re-engineering of the D50 body (which takes SD), but it also has to do with future-proofing Nikon’s camera technology. The SD format is undoubtedly the way of the future – it’s being incorporated into every device known to man.

All The Frilly Bits

The technology included in the D80 doesn’t stop there, either. Nikon has included a set of image-editing options in the camera that you can access without using a computer. After you’ve taken the shot (only as a JPEG, since this doesn’t work with RAW files) you can increase its dynamic range by processing the image using Nikon’s D-Lighting feature, remove red-eye from a photo, or trim the size for sending via email.

You can also set the D80 to shoot in black and white, sepia or cyanotype (blue-toned), as well as emulating some traditional skylight and colour correction (warming) filters.

Just like the D200 before it, the new D80 lets you shoot multiple exposures. And, if you do happen to shoot in RAW, a new image-overlay function allows you to merge a pair of D80 RAW files to create a new composite image.

More Serious Stuff

Most of the above capabilities come under the ‘fun but frivolous’ category and not even Nikon makes much of them in the camera’s brochure. What does matter to the serious photographer is the D80’s near instant start-up time, ISO 100 to 1600 sensitivity range, multi-channel histogram, high capacity lithium-ion battery, impressive 11-area auto-focus module, large bright viewfinder and beautifully clear 2.5-inch LCD screen. Combine this with a high-resolution image-processing engine, a massive 10.2-megapixel sensor and superb ergonomics, and you have a camera that is a pleasure to use.

Conclusion

Another feature I must mention is the optional dedicated battery grip for the D80 – the MB-D80 (yipee!). This not only increases the battery performance of the camera, but replicates all the important shutter controls, making it more comfortable to use when shooting in the vertical (portrait) format.

Finally, make sure you check out Nikon’s new RAW processing software; Capture NX. Developed in conjunction with Nik Software, it uses a revolutionary new editing technology called U Point. Very intuitive, and incredibly cool, it will work with TIFF or JPEG files from most digital cameras, not just Nikons.

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