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Nikon D80 or Canon 30D – advice needed
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Folks
About to invest and have read extensively. I was about to buy the D80 until I saw the Canon rebate offer and the Conn’s ad in the papers. There is not a lot of money to choose between them now and I am looking for some help. On paper the D30 would seem to be a “higher end” camera but the D80 has 10MP as opposed to 8MP and is a newer model, with all the advances that 18 months can bring in digital cameras these days.
Advice greatly appreciated.
Regards
JoeI’d definately not be swayed by 10mp over 8mp – you’ll see very little difference in pic size
I use the 20D which I love to bits, but don’t know about the D80 so can’t say, really!
I’ll be very surprised if you get an unbiased response from most!
Tim
I’m a Nikon user but a person who hasn’t already bought into a system has to take a serious look at the Pentax K10D, the 30D is a tweaked 2004 body, both it and the D80 are missing some new developments that may interest someone with a ‘blank slate’.
Hey Joe,
First off, warm welcome to the site :)
Now to your question. I was a D70 user and upgraded this year to the D200. Had the D80 been available I’d have
probably got that instead. I’m a very happy Nikon user.However there are of course people who will feel the same about their Canon, Pentax, Sony etc… cameras.
Tim is right when he says that you’ll find it hard to get unbiased opinions.Canon lens seem to be cheaper in price than the Nikon lenses. Also IS/VR seems to be more of a standard
with the Canon lens.Anyhow, best advice that gets given out on the site here is usually to go into a shop and try the camera, see how it feels
in your hands. I’ve tried the Canon in the past and didn’t find it intuitive to use. But thats me, you might love it.So go to Conn’s or whereever and physically check them out.
Mark
I’ll say from an entire two weeks’ experience, that my 30D will produce ISO3200 photos that will shame ISO1600 from Nikons. And that is verbatim from friends who shoot Nikons, not just my Canon fanboy streak talking. There are lots of recent 3200 pics on my Flickr gallery if you want to have a look.
To be more balanced. The D80 is supposed to have good auto white balance, which Canons most definitely don’t?they’re always too hot in the reds and demand custom white balance from a grey card when shooting in bad or artificial light. I’ve just got used to that but you may not want to. Some people find Nikon ergonomics better than Canon. That’s one of those things where you either learn how to use the bloody camera to your advantage or you don’t. I love Canon ergonomics in the midrange and better cameras. I also like the way you can adapt almost any old manual focus lens (including Nikkors) to Canon’s EF mount but that’s a very limited selection criterion and unlikely to be of interest to most users.
The point above about the Pentax K10D is well made. That looks to be the best bang for the buck camera about at the moment (weathersealed, pro build, big bright finder, backwards compatibility with K-mount manual and M42 lenses), but if high ISO is important to you, do have a look at the images first. Canon rules here and you’d be daft to decide otherwise if low light without flash is a priority.
Mark has it right when he says that the best thing to do is to handle both cameras and see which one you like best. There’s an interesting (if lengthy) objective comparison of the 30D against the D200 (I know you said D80 but the internals are similar) at http://www.completedigitalphotography.com/?p=419 In it, neither camera comes out over the other – they both have their strengths and weaknesses but at the end of it all they are both very capable cameras. Don’t be swayed by the 2MP difference – it will hardly be noticeable.
Two other factors worth considering are (i) will you ever want to shoot full-frame? and (ii) what are your friends, co-conspirators or photography colleagues using (club or otherwise). The answer to the second is important if you ever want to think about swapping/borrowing other lenses and the answer to the first is important because Nikon are unlikely to produce a full-frame DSLR any time in the near future (due to limitations in the lens mount throat size). Only Canon do FF DSLR’s at the moment. Apart from these two factors, it’s entirely your won choice and neither choice will be a bad one!
Thorsten wrote:
Nikon are unlikely to produce a full-frame DSLR any time in the near future (due to limitations in the lens mount throat size). Only Canon do FF DSLR’s at the moment.
Were the Kodak SLR’s not full frame with Nikon mounts at one point? Maybe I’m wrong but I thought they were :) The rumour mill is for a full-frame Nikon within two years at most, the next Canon full frame will have over 30MP according to my skectchy sources so Nikon will either have to borrow Fuji’s noise reduction or go FF if they want to keep up with that kind of nonsense!
joedoyle wrote:
Folks
About to invest and have read extensively. I was about to buy the D80 until I saw the Canon rebate offer and the Conn’s ad in the papers. There is not a lot of money to choose between them now and I am looking for some help. On paper the D30 would seem to be a “higher end” camera but the D80 has 10MP as opposed to 8MP and is a newer model, with all the advances that 18 months can bring in digital cameras these days.
Advice greatly appreciated.
Regards
JoeAre you definitely going to buy from a shop in Ireland?
Even with the rebate, prices in Conns are much higher than the likes of http://www.ajpurdy.co.uk or http://www.warehouseexpress.com even including shipping.
Do have a look at all the cameras in the flesh though
If you go with the 30D (Which I have) try AC-FOTO in Germany, best value & fantastic customer service & no hassle delivery…& a lot cheaper than in Ireland.
Nothing more substantial to add, other than to echo the above, especially:
mark wrote:
go into a shop and try the camera, see how it feels in your hands. I’ve tried the Canon in the past and didn’t find it intuitive to use. But thats me, you might love it.
Have said it before in other threads on this site, I used to use Nikon before I went digital and now I use Canon as it felt right in my hand when sampling in a shop and more intuitive than the Nikon I was comparing. It took me 2 months of solid reading and comparing of the Canon 20D and the Nikon D70 – much the same choice you’re making today – as they’re sort of ‘brother’ cameras, i.e. similar level and feature set.
Can’t comment on the Pentax K10D though DPReview has given it a ‘highly recommended (just)’ rating, so it might be worth considering too.
I guess one of the main deciding points would be knuckling down on features that better fit your style of photography, which for me was what swayed it in favour of Canon, and the handling factor was a nice bonus that ‘sealed the deal’ so to speak.
Also as mentioned above, there is no ‘right’ answer but I hope that your thread and others before it, help you to see a bit beyond the marketing blurb.
Good luck.
Plenty of good advice above. Welcome to the forum.
When I bought my first digital SLR, I was using medium format film cameras and didn’t have any other 35mm camera so was starting from scratch like you [or so I’m assuming you are]
I’m not going to advise you either way but say how I made my choice. I chose to buy a used Canon 10D even though as a brand I would rather Nikon and still would. The heart said Nikon, the head Canon. These are the reasons why I went for the Canon.
#1 Noise. Looking at some of the review pictures on several websites I thought the canon was less noisy and had a greater range of ISOs. This was a very marginal and subjective issue but this was my conclusion. ISO range mattered to me.
#2 Lenses: Looking at the price of the top of the line lenses, it seemed that Canon were cheaper. But on the other hand, Canon are bad value in Ireland IMHO, Nikon less so. If you must buy everything in Ireland, skip all this waffle and buy the Nikon.
#3 More Popular: Looking at popularity in terms of resale values and finding used equipment, my searches at the time gave Canon the nod on this.
#4 Full frame option: The killer blow for Nikon was the lack of a full frame sensor in their line-up. I knew I would eventually get one. Which I now have. Nikon sadly dont make one yet. Maybe never will, who knows?
#5 Dedicated flash: The Nikon in my opinion do much better flashes. I decided that most of my photography would be without flash or in studio with lights and thus I didnt mind choosing the Canon in this respect.
The feel of the camera is important, I think it was Mark made that point and its spot on. I think the Nikon feels nicer but I personally dont really care that much as I could get used to any model.
But whatever your choice you will have a superb SLR and good luck to you.
What excitement, starting out on this journey.
You’ve identified 2 cracking cameras, IMO.
A lot of noise is made about full-frame (especially by Canon), neither the 30D or the D80 has one, frankly, I’d rather not have it for the work I do for a number of reasons, not for here.
You’ll probably be looking at the lens/camera/flash combo (if not now then soon).
The Canon 30D is what the 20D should have been, it is an excellent camera and will produce prints that will print A3+ no bother at all. AT the moment it is beong sold in kit form with an excellent Image stabilised lens (18-85 I think).
Nikon and Canon handle noise differently with Canon getting the edge on high iso shots (although if you’re using the camera in daylight, this is moot).
I’d give the flash system to the Nikon and the focussing too (as long as you know how it works and how to get the best out of it).
If I were buying now, I’d probably get the 30D with the IS kit lens and flash, value for money is excellent.
I used to use exclusively Canon and went Nikon as I was fed up with Canon changing the lens mount. It’s the glass that focusses the light on the sensor, any camera if this quality will be limited by the quality of the lenses (the Nikon sensor is probably higher at resolving fine detail). I have 2 lenses from the 1970s that I can use on my Nikon.
Sigma make great lenses for either camera.
As someone said above, go to a store and have a good old feel! :) it has to sit nicely in your hands and sit straight.
Good luck
Si
Allinthemind wrote:
I’d give the flash system to the Nikon and the focussing too (as long as you know how it works and how to get the best out of it)….
I used to use exclusively Canon and went Nikon as I was fed up with Canon changing the lens mount. It’s the glass that focusses the light on the sensor, any camera if this quality will be limited by the quality of the lenses (the Nikon sensor is probably higher at resolving fine detail). I have 2 lenses from the 1970s that I can use on my Nikon.
I keep hearing that people have problems with Canon’s flash system :( I can’t say I’ve ever had problems with it. I suspect that it’s very much a case that people simply don’t understand how it works. Can’t really comment on focusing other than to say it’s not been a problem for me once I understood that I needed to adopt my film-camera focusing technique for digital. If you search the WWW, you’ll find plenty of users complaining about soft images and focusing problems with both Canon and Nikon cameras. Personally, I think most of these problems are user-faults!
As for Canon changing the lens mount – at the time I thought Canon were mad to do this but now I think it was a master-stroke and I for one am delighted that the Canon engineers had the foresight to do what they did when they did. It’s one of the reasons Canon can so easily do full-frame as the lens throat is significantly larger than Nikon’s. Granted, not everyone wants full frame, but at least with Canon you have the choice!
It may be worth waiting for the 40D, a replacement for the 30D and at a guess will be 10mp. I think, and don’t quote me on this but it’s to be released early 2007. Might be worth scanning other sites for rumour release dates.
T,
Any camera in knowledgable hands will get the results they want from flash and focussing, I see a lot of different cameras (with hands attached) come through the school, one gets to see similar complaints (and this is usully a lack of knowledge problem) about different cameras. The Nikons seem to be easier for new users to get to grips with when they start over-riding the “whatever” (auto) functions. Not so long ago there were many 5D/20D/350D users, recently, there have been many D200 users, be interesting to see the mix when the January courses start.
Another reason for me going the Nikon route was the ability to attach lenses to the Fuji bodies, not sure if Fuji is still a serious contender, I was excited by the design of the Fuji superccd sensor but the body has been lagging behind. The Fuji S5 looks a cracking camera although the sensor would benefit from a revamp.
I think everyone needs to decide for themselves, mostly on how the camera fits in the hand and what sort of work will be done.
Si
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