Sturdy feel. Lightweight not bulky.Many features to experiment with, well worth the cost.Dials and knobs work easily but a tad small for large hands. Automatic exposure features do a fine job even in tough lighting.

The manual is great except the part where it covers auto focus area mode. That is a little confusing. No weaknesses on the camera itself.

If you have just a little bit of experience under your belt up to an advanced intermediate and are not about to climb mount Everest with your camera- this is a strong consideration if not a shoe-in.

Customer Service

None

Similar Products Used:

Canon AE-1
Pentax Super ME

Nice fit and finish; The plastic feels durable, the dials give a good confident click into position. Fairly good ergonomics - an improvement over the N70, N60 in that area. Nice set of features (spot metering - missed on the Canon IIE).

The position of the thumb selector on the back is difficult to use with your right thumb if you favor using your view-finder with your left eye, i.e. - face and hand collide. Otherwise none thus far.

What an increase in value in the Nikon body line compared to when I was last body shopping 5 or 6 years ago. A nice set of focusing and metering features that Nikon was thoughtful enough to package for little more than an N50 cost back in '95. I have shot several rolls with the Canon IIe and liked the eye controled focus, but I missed the spot meter feature. The matrix metering also seems to produce better looking pictures. Then there's the color... it "seems" to look "better" - can't really pin it down more than that. Overall - what a great price point and features combination to build a nikon lens collection around.

Customer Service

Not used at this point.

Similar Products Used:

Canon IIe, Nikon predecessors.

PACKED WITH FEATURES LIKE DOF PREVIEW, AUTO BRACKETING. IT'S A NIKON. VERY EASY TO USE. EXCELLENT METERING (SPOT, CENTER WEIGHTED AND FULL).
QUICK & QUIET AUTOFOCUS.

NO VARI-PROGRAM FOR BEGINNERS, BUT ON AUTO PROGRAM, YOU CAN CHANGE SHUTTER SPEED AND APERTURE WITH THE TURN OF A WHEEL. VERY LIITLE EXPERIENCE IS NEEDED TO COMPENSATE FOR THIS.

AN OUTSTANDING SLR! FOR THE MONEY ($350-500), IT SIMPLY CANNOT BE BEAT. I'M REALLY EXCITED TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO USE ALL OF THE NIKON SYSTEM.
MY WIFE WISHES IT HAD VARI-PROGRAM LIKE THE N90S, BUT IN 2 HOURS I TAUGHT HER HOW TO GET AROUND THIS (NOT) SHORTCOMING. nIKON IS THE CAT'S MOEW.

Customer Service

NOT NEEDED YET!

Similar Products Used:

PENTAX ZX-7
CANON ELAN IIE

Finally a high-end Nikon with a built-in flash. The plastic body abhorred by many traditionalists does not scare me. Its lightweight feel is very welcome.

Hard to think of any weaknesses. The MB 16 grip is not yet available and that bugs me. Nikon has is still avoiding a mirror lock-up feature.

Nikon quality is written all over this baby. For the money (CDN $650 = US $450) it has incomparable

Customer Service

None experienced yet.

Similar Products Used:

F 90 X

Its costs less than an F100, better than a N60 or N70. easy to set exposure mode. built in flash.

Its considered cheap by photographers with money to burn!

If you are a person who can't afford an F100, than a N80 is about as close as you can get for the least amount of money. It is not cheap just because its plastic! Don't let photographic no-it-alls tell you its not durable enough for a $500 camera!

Customer Service

never used it

Similar Products Used:

Nikon N70

Beautiful, fast, accurate autofocus.
Intuative button placement and a great lightweight feel. Nice fill flash for daylight shadows and lowlight. Excellent exposure control and a pretty decent viewfinder.

I bought this camera with the hope that I would be able to use it for at least 3-5 years. Unfortunately it looks as though durability will be a concern. I travel a lot. 4 times a year to Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Italy or England. I need a camera that will be able to last through wet, dusty as well it must be able to take hard knocks. After owning mine for the last week I have realized I am going to have to trade this F80 in for an F100. It has a really plasticky body, and cheap feeling buttons, as well a lot of the buttons are hard to use. As well the size is a concern for me. I have a Nikkor 70-210 and the camera feels really uneven and hard to handle, especially when held vertically. I am sure that the vertical grip would help though. I also shoot a lot of skateboarding and performance work and the FPS needs to be higher than 2.5. The last thing is the AF-aid light that I find all but worthless. It is annoying for people and is not all that powerful.

Save for the F100, it will be worth it.

Customer Service

Not needed through I expect that I would in the near future

Similar Products Used:

Nikon (F801)8008
Nikon (F60)N60
Nikon FM2
Canon Rebel X

Features compared to the N70, N60 are a great improvement...bright viewfinder compared w/ Cannon

Focus area button on back very inconvenient...using left eye to look through viewfinder, it was in the way

I was in the market for a new camera...I really wanted to buy the new N80 because of the hype surrounding it and how much it was a smaller version of the F100...didn't really feel cheap..just really lightweight...features are great...Spot metering, autofocus zones...when I look through the viewfinder w/ left eye, my nose was in the way of the focus zone button...I can't believe this isn't a problem for anyone else out there...I am used to the much more solid feel of the ElanIIE and thus I bought the ElanIIE...not because of the eye focus but other than spot metering,it had almost all of the features of the Nikon and for $350, you can't get a better deal on a new camera...some people are paying that much for a Rebel 2000. Just don't get the 28-80 lens...I've heard it is a piece...step up to at least a 28-105 USM for a little bit more $$

Similar Products Used:

Cannon ElanIIE,Nikon N60

Lightweight, sturdy,
many options.

None

A very impressive camera. I have put it through
it's paces and it has come through every time. All
controls are easy to reach and sensibly laid out. I really like the way you can program it to suit
your individual taste. The built-in flash seems
to be adequate for all but very long shots. The
Auto Focus is very fast and spot on. I'm not
afraid of the plastic body at all. It has fine
build quality and close tolerances. After all,
White-water Kayaks, which are constantly beaten
against jagged rocks, are not made of aluminum,
magnesium, or titanium. They are made of plastic!
No metal could hold up to the abuse they recieve.
I am very happy with the purchase of the N80 and
would recommend it to a friend.

Customer Service

Not needed

Similar Products Used:

Canon A-1, Minolta X-500
Nikon QD-800

Light weight. Compact. Great Look.

Flimsy pop-upflash and shutter sound.

I have been waiting for Nikon to replace its confusing F70 for a long time. Finally, come the F80. My first impression of the camera was good. It looks compact, yet sturdy. All functions seem well placed. F80 has depth-of-field button next to lens mount, like manual or pro camera.

However, when compare to EOS 50 which should be the same class of camera from Canon, F80 does not feel as good. While EOS 50 has a solid and smooth movement for pop-up flash, F80 uses a cheap spring movement. Shutter sound of EOS 50 is much more solid than F80. I compared both of them with F100 and EOS 3. The EOS 50 sounds very much like the pro camera, while F80 sounds like a cheaper Canon EOS 3000.

F80 program mode is not truely comprehensive. In low light, F80 requires you to manually pop up the flash while EOS 50 flash would automatically come up.

Other than that, F80 is an OK camera. It has all the necessary function for advance amatuer although I think Nikon could have done a better job by at least putting F80 into par with EOS 50.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

F100, EOS 50

Excellent metering, excellent handling, great built in flash, solid construction, DOF preview, useful grid feature, great size and weight for a go-everywhere camera

No metering with non-CPU lenses (no problem for me), diopter slided is difficult to adjust

I've been waiting a long time for this camera and it's worth it. I made the change to Nikon from Olympus OM cameras and my first body was the N70. The N70 is a very good camera, but I couldn't have the photographic control I want and need without a depth of field preview. I bought an F100 which is a great camera, but I missed the built in flash for fill shots and outdoors macro photography. And although the F100 is demure compared to the F5, you definitely feel its heft when it's hanging off your neck.

The N80 was announced at the first of the year with not only depth of field preview, but with features that include a substantial subset of the F100's, including 3D matrix metering, 5 zone autofocus, and great ergonomics. The metering and autofocus are just a bit less sophisticated on paper than the F100's, but the slides I've shot with the N80 give nothing away to the much more expensive camera. The N80's size and weight are much better for my use on river trips, hiking and biking in the wilds. Considering the N80 has a built in motor drive, autofocus and flash, the size of the body is as impressive to me as my classic OM-4. The build quality is also impressive. Some metal purists will knock the composite body, but the N80 has metal where it counts and the finish and feel are excellent. Handling is on par with the superb F100 and the N80's back doesn't flex or creak like its big brother's does.

The controls are similar to the F100, with dual thumbwheels as the main camera control. The N80 is even easier to use than the F100, with direct dial control of mode selection and faster selection of custom features. If you're looking for fast motor drive, the 2.5 fps N80 won't be your body of choice, but for most photographers it will be ample. Silent rewind is one of the great features carried forward from the N70. The shutter release is threaded for *gasp* a standard mechanical cable release. I'm selling the $60 Nikon electric cable release that I bought for my N70. Thank you Nikon for going back a step and saving camera owners needless expense.

The finder resembles the view through the F100, with a very complete view of camera and exposure information. The on-demand grid is a cool feature that is very useful. Use it as an aid to composition, as a check to your horizon, to align panoramic splices... it's the screen I would buy as an accessory but better because it's built in and changeable in an instant without fiddling with the innards of your camera. This ain't no gimmick folks... The view is slightly darker than the F100's -less than 1/3 stop however. The red illumination for the focus spots is nice, but in dim light it casts a faint glow over the rest of the screen.

I loved the built in flash on the N70, and the N80 provides the same performance. Automatically balanced fill flash provides great fill flash exposures without harshness. My lenses are all D series and I'm consistently impressed with how well the flash and metering systems are balanced. F5 and F100 owners should consider an N80 second body just for the built in flash. By the time you've dug your Speedlight out of your camera bag and screwed it (and it's weight) to your camera... well you get the idea.

The autofocus illuminator (also red eye reducer and self timer indicator) can be obnoxious, but it does give you the capability of shooting focused images in total darkness up to about ten feet away. The feature can be easiliy disabled in the custom settings. The top LCD panel has an illuminator that was notably missing from the N70. The light comes from a lamp on either side of the LCD instead of the elegant electroluminescent panel of the F100, but it gets the job done in the dark.

Custom settings let you configure the camera to your tastes and needs. I created my own pocket cheat sheet since the settings are selected by num

Customer Service

Excellent! The SU-4 wireless slave needs a different diffuser for the N80. I called Nikon and they sent a free part with updated instructions. It arrived the next day! Very pleased...

Similar Products Used:

N70, F100