Nikon D80 Digital SLR Camera Review
By Alex Burack
Reviewed.com Editorial Staff
September 07, 2007
With two DSLRs below it in the line, Nikon’s D80 takes a full-featured approach to the sub-$1,000 DSLR design. Equipped with controls and options tailored to more mature shooters, the versatile D80 is poised to appeal to experienced photographers without losing sight of first-time SLR owners. The D80 has large shoes to fill – occupying a slot in Nikon’s DSLR line vacated by the vastly popular D70 and D70s before it. Priced a bit steeper than its direct competitors, the D80 looks to attract consumers with its wide feature set, prosumer design and build, and slight speed advantage.
Near the end of 2006, we pitted Nikon’s D80 up against Canon’s Rebel XTi and Sony’s Alpha A100 in a three-way grudge match among the top sub-$1,000 DSLRs the industry heavyweights had to offer. A bit pricier than its direct competitors at $999 (D80 body alone), the Nikon held its own on most fronts and may offer the most complete package of the three.
Sharpness is a traditional measure of image quality, and Nikon is a traditional camera manufacturer. Catering to those longing for detail, the D80’s sensor combined with most Nikkor optics packs a solid punch. The camera’s default settings leave images straight out of the camera a bit soft, but there is a lot of room for additional sharpening to be applied before introducing artifacts. In our late 2006 Battle Royal, the D80 didn’t quite match the sharpness of Canon’s Rebel XTi, but the difference was minimal. Both performed stronger than Sony’s Alpha A100.
Nikon’s D80 took the speed race in the head-to-head competition, shooting a slightly faster 2.8-frame-per-second (fps) burst than both the 2.7 fps Rebel XTi and the 2.5 fps Alpha A100. The D80 also was quicker to start up, which will ensure spontaneous moments won't be missed. The D80 continued its burst for 100 consecutive JPEGs, trumping the stamina of Canon’s Rebel XTi. The Alpha A100 needed no rest; however, continuing its burst until the card was full.
Surprisingly, the Nikon D80’s default colors were a bit more saturated than we expected and lacked the accuracy of both Canon's and Sony’s offerings. With limited dynamic range at its lower ISO settings, photos from the D80 appeared more contrasty than the Rebel XTi or Alpha A100 out of the box. The Nikon D80 retains dynamic range better than the Alpha A100 through the deeper portions of its ISO range, but still falls short of Canon’s XTi.
Decades of camera manufacturing prowess are evident in the Nikon D80’s design. The camera is quick and well built. It surpasses Canon’s Rebel XTi and Sony’s Alpha A100 in almost all of its core external and mechanical functions. With superior autofocus and build quality, the D80 is the most solid and robust camera of the three.
A modified 11-point autofocus system is embedded in the Nikon D80. The new autofocus module is a noticeable step up from its predecessors, and handles low light and moving subjects more like upper-level Nikon DSLRs than any of its more consumer-oriented cohorts. Neither the Canon Rebel XTi nor Sony A100, which both offer 9-point AF systems, could keep up when the lights went down.
In terms of handling, the D80 again gets the nod. The Nikon D80 is the only camera of the three to offer two control dials, enabling one to be used for aperture and one for shutter speed when shooting in full Manual mode. The other two models, by contrast, require users to depress a button while rotating the single control dial to switch between settings. The single dial setup is common among entry-level DSLRs, though it’s not as efficient as dual-dial designs.
Controls on the D80 are vast. It includes all necessary manual controls for adjustments during image capture: aperture and shutter speed, ISO, white balance (fine tune, custom set, Kelvin presets), autofocus, metering, and bracketing. Nikon has also implemented its Image Optimization menu for tweaking image parameters like sharpness, contrast, and saturation, as well as including settings for color space.
Within its tabbed menu structure, the D80 houses a surplus of control options. Along with the impressive amount of settings available, the D80’s menus are well organized and easy to read. Canon and Sony’s menu structures are acceptable, but are not as intuitive or as clean as Nikon’s design.
Nikon didn’t overlook the point-and-shoot contingency; the D80 includes a full Auto mode as well as a Retouch menu that allows users to modify images during playback. The Retouch menu contains D-lighting (which boosts shadows in underexposed images), Red-Eye correction, and a color-correction tool. More experimental users can also utilize virtual filter effects, a digital Black and White mode, or the image overlay function, which combines two RAW files into a single image.
The D80 is a clear step up from the D70 and D70s that preceded it. When pitted against Canon and Sony’s top sub-$1,000 offerings, the D80 shows some performance vulnerabilities. Most notably, the D80 doesn’t offer the smooth tonal transitions, high dynamic range, and pinpoint color accuracy of Canon’s Rebel XTi. It also lacks the mechanical image stabilization of Sony’s Alpha A100. However, the D80 excels in areas you’d expect from Nikon: build quality, speed, and autofocus. With two cameras below it in the line, the D80 takes some liberties in catering to more photographically-knowledgeable consumers. However, the camera’s solid construction, competitive performance, and slew of scaleable settings should help the D80 appease first-time SLR owners up through budget-oriented professionals.
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