D-SLR = hardest choice ever
Thursday, November 02, 2006
How did i decide to get a Nikon D80 instead of the myriad of other DSLRs available on the market?
This was probably one of the most painstaking decisions i’ve ever made in my life. It’s funny - i can will take months and months to deliberate, trying to figure out which camera to buy, but i’ll shell out the equal amount for to rent an apartment and not really think twice about it. Oh well. I guess you never really have to think that hard about putting a roof over your head.
In any case, Nathan asked why i chose the Nikon D80, and i’m fully prepared to answer! It began with lots of reviews. I went to websites like CNET and NewEgg to see what people had said about the camera. It wasn’t very helpful though, because in the end, they probably haven’t used that many cameras. At least, not enough to give a full quantitative/qualitative analysis. So i decided to go to a more comprehensive site: www.dpreview.com.
I was comparing D-SLRs that are roughly in the same category: Canon EOS 400D (otherwise known as the Digital Rebel Xti), Sony DSLR-A100 and the Nikon D80. I pored over the specs of each, trying to learn more about lenses and features. I even considered Fuji cameras because i had heard that their sensors were superior. However, their image processors are not as sophisticated as the other brands.
It took me at least 2 months of research once i got serious about buying a camera. I mostly went of the DPreviews breakdown of the Nikon D80. Resolution wise, the three contenders were quite comparable. The differences broke down to:
1. The Nikon’s image is a bit more color saturated than the Canon’s images, which usually turn out sort of blue-ish.
2. The Nikon handles better in low-light situations than the Canon and Sony
3. Nikon had more unique and interesting features at which they excelled over the other two. This includes features like multiple exposures and having up to 32 of your own pre-sets.
4. I just don’t like Sony: they always run out of batteries quickly and have all sort of proprietary issues such as memory and video formats, etc. Sony just rubs me the wrong way in that sense.
5. Canon’s lens that comes standard really sucks.
So the big hurdle was the price gap between the Digital Rebel and the D80. The D80 is quite a bit more expensive, but it also has a nice lens (18-135mm) which allows me to do wide angle shots as well as telephoto shots. I figured that if i got the Canon, i would spring for a good lens and then it would cost the same as the D80. BUT that would require more research. And by that time, i was getting tired of it all.
But do you know what? All that research was wonderful (and headache inducing), but I still wasn’t sure. In the end, do you know what did it? Going to BestBuy and just picking up the camera and playing with it. I was pretty much sold on the Rebel Xti. And then i picked up the D80.
And it was over. It’s like that proverbial moment when you meet the person you’re supposed to marry. You just know.
I just loved the way the D80 felt. Everything was in the right place, it had a good heft to it. The lens was wonderful right off the bat, and the color was great. The Rebel, on the other hand, had somehow gotten white-balanced incorrectly and everything was showing up dark blue on the display. I tried to reset it but it was not intuitive enough for me to figure it out. In the end, i just got frustrated and went back to playing with the D80.
In the end, I bought it from BestBuy instead of RitzCamera or those other places that have it tax free because those sites don’t have it in stock. BestBuy even agreed to drop the price in an attempt to match the no-tax price of Ritz. So in the end, it was about the same price. :D Sweeeeeeet.
And so that’s my tale of how i came to own a beautious Nikon D80.
Ooh. Pretty.
Posted by Greg on 11/02 at 11:43 PMGreat cam & nice pics.
BTW, how did you hear of dpreview.com? Nice site.
--me
Posted by on 11/04 at 12:18 PMI think you would have been unhappy with the Rebel Xti since you don’t have dainty little hands. The hand grip on the Rebel Xti is terrible because it’s so small. The D80 is a much nicer camera in terms of build. Having owned both Canon and Nikon DSLRs, the Nikons are definitely more intuitive. I plan to own a Nikon next in addition to my Canon 20D.
Posted by Dan Kim on 11/05 at 04:29 PMThank you for the indepth explanation. I still am leaning toward the Canon system because they have nicer mid-level lenses (which are actually sorta affordable) and eventually I want to upgrade to a body with a full-frame sensor, and Nikon seems to have no commitment to bringing out a full-frame sensor.
But we’ll see. I still need to go to the store and play around with them.
Posted by on 11/10 at 06:00 PM