I am not a photography whizz but I do really enjoy doing photography when I get time. Now, bare with me photography experts if I say something that you don't agree with on this camera as I have never reviewed a Digital SLR before and am still getting to grips with my Nikon. I mainly use my Nikon D80 camera at work as we use the photos for our design work but I am still developing my photography knowledge every day with using this camera but have to say it has been great for me so far to use and I will share my thoughts with you all.

APPEARANCE

All Nikon Digital SLR cameras have a really sleek look to them I feel. I always carry mine round in its padded protective strap case but when taken out it is your standard black design with the lens on the front that can be changes and your pop up flash area. It has the Nikon logo displayed on the front and on the top it has your buttons to adjust settings for picture taking. On the reverse of this camera, you have your 2.5" LCD screen to view photos. The dimensions of this Nikon are 132 x 103 x 77mm and the camera with the battery in weighs 668g.

NIKON D80

So, the first thing really is where do we start? Well I'll begin with setting it up and when I first bought it. It comes with a Lithium-Ion EN-EL3e battery which is easy enough to charge and when charged it should last a good while. You can check the percentage of battery power that you have left on this model and the number of shots taken since you last charged your battery. When I fully charge up my Nikon, I tend to find it should last me quite a worthwhile time but of course just always check the percentage if you need it to last you for a longer amount of time than normal.

This camera has a 10.2 megapixel amount on it which is of course very good and you can buy different lenses to suit what you're photographing. I purchased an 18-55mm lense for mine. Like most camera, this runs on an SD memory card and you can buy as big as you need, it is easy enough to take photos from the camera from the SD. You are pretty much set with a camera like this when it comes to taking photos in all different types of situations, especially with adjusting it to the light etc.

The camera comes with a built in pop up flash, which should activate. You can set this camera to take on automatic mode, normal, softer, vivid, more vivid , portrait or black and white. You can also adjust the focus on automatic or manual, depending how advanced you are. The shutter speed on this model is 30 to 1/4000 seconds. The good thing with this camera is it has built in red eye options to tone it down and also comes with in camera editing. So you can retouch by using the LCD menu and you can do red eye, small picture, shadow/highlighting, image overlay, trimming, monochrome and filter effects.

I do find this quite useful but I don't always use them as I prefer to take my photos straight into Photoshop. The camera has custom auto ISO and to go back to the menus I will now tell you what they include. On the reverse you have a playback button to look at what you have just photographed and you also have a bin icon so that you can delete images and a zoom button to zoom in on the large viewfinder. The viewfinder comes with a removable protective cover which I like to use.

With the menu choices on the reverse you get world time, LCD brightness, video mode, languages, USB custom and retouch. It is an easy enough camera to operate the menus and find what you need to find. Now, that I am using this camera more and more at work though I do want to learn more about using manual settings to really get the best from this Nikon D80. There is so much to learn with photography but I want to read up on shutter speeds etc to get different image outcomes.

USING MY NIKON D80

Now, that I have covered the specifications of the camera, I now want to talk about what I feel about using this camera. When I am out, I don't have a tripod so I tend to just use my self as a stand and just try my best. I do find this camera to be really heavy when holding it around for a while. I have used this in darker interior shots as well as outdoor and it performs well in all occasions. An example is last week I was doing a brochure for a business and the lighting was terrible but setting the camera properly and taking different angles, I got an amazing outcome.

I find a lot of times you need to keep adjusting the focus to get it as sharp as possible but sometimes on the playback I think a photo looks good then I upload it and it is out of focus. Also it can look brighter on the LCD compared to my monitor so maybe I just need to adjust the LCD brightness to overcome this. It is easy enough to delete photos but always make sure your memory card is in when taking photos, I never have issues with battery power running out on me as it warns me.

The flash is ok on this camera as well and the shutter speed settings are easy enough to fix. I think when I upload photos from this camera, I do find the colour is really vibrant and it is sharp. I always think photos on this Nikon D80 come out fantastic and I think they have a higher feel of professionalism to them as they just appear a lot brighter as the lens lets in that bit more light than other cameras. I don't use this on holiday or all of the time but for certain images, this is the best choice.

COST

To buy this camera you can get it from a number of online retailers. I bought mine online but I know that Photosolution.co.uk are selling this brand new for £539.00 plus £8 for postage but you can get used ones on Amazon for half the price.

If you want to find out more then the official Nikon website is http://www.europe-nikon.com/en_GB/