Camera Labs

Just wanted to say you've got a great site here and to commend Gordon Laing on his 'to the point' style of reviewing. Also think the video reviews offered are a great addition to the reviews.

I am a relative newbie, in that I haven't owned a DLSR before. I'm 19 and took a 1 year course where I used my dads film slr, a minolta Xg-1. I then treated myself to a compact digital camera. I went for a Canon Ixus 800IS. It was a great little camera but unfortunatly suffered from a misaligned lens. I sent the camera back and got a refund which I put to getting a Nikon D80 body and the 18-200mm VR Nikon lens. It seems that lens is very hard to come by in the UK and am in for a two to four week wait. Ah well.

Anyway, thanks for the reviews and comparisons between the 400d D80 and A100. I was first sold on the 400d, from looking at the wide range of canon lenses, but then read your comparison review and went to a store and compared the feel of the 400d, and D80 as well as comparing the finders and was sold on the D80.

Thanks again,
Greg.

Hi Greg,
welcome to the ever growing community of D80 users. Excellent choice including the lens - it's well worth the wait for...
Tell us what your main sort of picture motives is.

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Mostly greek islands, seasides, villages and that sort of thing when im on holiday. Some street photog in the UK where i live, maybe some macro photog. We have henley river regatta where I live so probably some shots on the races and the likes. Also would be doing some long exposure shots of city scapes etc. Also like a bit of black and white.

Hi Greg, thanks for your kind words and welcome to the Cameralabs forums!

Congratulations on your D80 and 18-200mm VR as well - one of the best DSLR and lens combos around right now.

Nikon really seems to have hit the nail on the head with this body and lens, as it appeals to both experienced photographers and DSLR newcomers who want a step-up from cheaper models.

Speaking of which, are there any Nikon D40 owners out there? If you bought one, or have tried it and ended up going for a pricier model instead, we'd love to hear from you!

In the meantime Greg, let us know how you get on with your D80 and if we can help with any questions!

Gordon

I havent got round to reading the rather hefty manual just yet and was wondering if there are user guides to the D80? I've heard of this one;
http://www.bythom.com/d80guide.htm

I am at a bit of a loss with what bracketing means, metering, and the huge amount of AE-L/AF-L functions. Is there any newbie guide out there you guys could reccomend? Before I got this camera, all I ever did was set the exposure to + or - 0,5, 1 , 1,5, or 2 to bring out the clouds more if there was no detail coming out, or make the clouds darker to show the lower half of the picture that was too dark. The manual tells you how to work the functions but isnt very clear on what the results are of making these changes. Or will I simply have to tinker around with it and eventually realise what each thing does??

Regards,
g.k

Greg,
I personally let the excellent automatic of the D80 do most of the work and shoot RAW files with 12 bit color depth. It did up to now never overexpose critical content. This is the best condition for tweaking your pics afterwards on your computer with a decent software, like the CaptureNX I've got for myself.
That's super easy and you never have to worry about the exact exposure and let's you focus on your motive.

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Yeah but you cant have a D/SLR camera and just use it on auto all the time surely? Isn't that like buying a sports car with an automatic gear shift?

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My PC: AMD X2 4600, 2gb ram, 8800gtx, Monitor; NEC 20WGX2
Gear: Nikon D80, 18-70mm
80-200mm F2.8

Yeah,
but I know some cars that actually accelerate faster with automatic than with manual gear
My answer was like it was because you used the term "newbie". I know you sure will play around with all the buttons and modes. The next thing that I used after automatic was "A" for aperture mode, where you can fix the aperture and control the depth of field and the D80 just selects the right speed. Esp. if you're into macro that's a must!

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

I say newbie because I dont do this for a living, havent bought an SLR camera before. I've used shutter speeds, apertures, depth of field, polarizing filters, I have adobe photoshop CS which I use to touch up my photos.

With my dads minolta XG-1, if I had it on auto, I would touch the shutter button, and rotate the aperture dial on the lense to what u wanted and it would tell you what iso speed the shot would be taken at (with a light coming up next to the right speed to take it at in the view finder), I would normally have my 70-210mm minolta lens on the camera, and if there wasnt enough light for the shot to be taken with at least 250 shutter speed (any lower and i might get camera chake) I'd use the 50mm lense that came with the camera. I got the 70-210 on ebay mint condition.

I'm sure the DSLR will be much more complicated but I do intend to make the most out of its features.

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My PC: AMD X2 4600, 2gb ram, 8800gtx, Monitor; NEC 20WGX2
Gear: Nikon D80, 18-70mm
80-200mm F2.8