Nikon D80 vs Nikon D70

I've grown attached to my digital SLR now that I've had one for 2 years. The D70 went everywhere with me and I have some great shots with it. My problem was that I'd also offered to take pictures at some friends' wedding this weekend, so I had to replace the D70 pronto.

The D70s would be the natural replacement, same camera mostly, and updated software - but along with my camera I'd lost all my compact flash chips, batteries, and everything - so starting over and choosing from scratch was an option. I still had my 70-300 Sigma zoom, but I'd decided I wanted a better long lens anyway, so it really didn't even matter if I stayed with Nikon.

I should probably explain that, while I'm one of the Internet pioneers, I really would much rather shop in a store than online, so...off I went to my favourite camera store to see for myself what were the current offerings.
OK - my choices were the new Sony Alpha DSLR-A100, the Canon line, and the Nikon line. I include the Sony because I have been looking at the motion-correction lenses from Nikon as my step up in lenses, and the Sony has image stabalization built into its body so any lens that fits is motion-corrected. I have some older lenses that would fit it, but they're really not good enough quality for today's digital cameras with their smaller imaging area.

The first thing I noted with the Sony was that I couldn't do many of the things I'd come to rely upon with the D70; change speed/f-stop while looking in the viewfinder for instance. The whole packaging was strange - not bad on its own, but simply not up to the standards set by Nikon.

OK - over to the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I hate to say it, but in my hands, this camera is just too light. I have a bit of a tremor, and I need a bit of mass in the camera to offset this. Again, for this reason alone I had to reject the Canon even though I've had Canon systems in the past from the AE1 through several A1s and many of their fine lenses - but that was back in the days of film and with the power-winder these cameras were hefty.

All right - now let's compare the D70s with the D80. I guess Nikon has me because I've become so atuned to their user interface and capabilities; but which to choose?

The D80 is slightly lighter than the D70s - but not nearly as light as the Canon. A minor point against, but then I'm getting older so carrying a heavy camera is not nearly as easy as it used to be. I'm also in the market for the image stabalization lenses which will help - both because of what they are, and because they themselves are fairly heavy.

Money was an object, but not at the top of the list. It turned out that the two cameras were about $400 apart when configured with the 18-70 lens. Quite a bit, but not a killer. What really made my mind up for me was the fact that a 4Gig compact flash card was twice the price of a 4Gig SD-flash - $300+ compared to $150 - and I wanted 2 of them. That right there made a difference of $300 in the comparison - so the D80 with 2 4Gig SD-flash cards was only really about $100 more than the comparably equipped D70s with 2 4Gig CF cards. Sold!

So I'm now the proud owner of a Nikon D80. But I forgot one major item that I'd used to decide what camera to purchase last time - whether or not it is supported under Linux. It turns out that Nikon had, for the D70 and D70s, decided not to do what they'd done on the D200 and other of their high end cameras; encrypt some of the information in their file format, in this case the white balance info. They've taken a step backwards in the case of the D80 and again encrypted the white balance.

When I realized that my installed version of Dave Coffin'sdcraw gave ugly results, I started off to get an upgrade. In the search I came across the fact that Nikon had encrypted the white balance but that Dave and others have cracked the encryption so I can still get at MY information despite Nikon thinking they own it. I'll rant about that some other time - but I did tell my salesman that they almost got the camera back - and to tell their Nikon rep that, and why. Maybe if enough of us complain they'll understand.