A quick look. 

Having had the pleasure of attending Nikon's press launch of it's new D80 dSLR yesterday and had a play with the pre-production model on show, I was suitably impressed.

 A quick glance at the specifications does give the impression that Nikon may have shot themselves in the foot as far as the D200 is concerned, but in fact, this is far from the case..

A new 10.2mp sensor is competition for the D200, as is the use of their CAM100 focussing engine that also has a couple of tweaks over the 200.

Otherwise, this is a regular upgrade, and a worthwhile one no doubt, to the D70/s

Still at 3fps, the thing that will cause consternation for a lot of D70 owners wanting to upgrade will be the use of SD memory format. Fine for upgraders from the D50 though!

Another plus point of the D80 will be the availability of a Battery Grip, but the grip, and the camera, use the EN-EL3e battery of the D200 and newer D50, so no carry over of the EN-EL3 from the 70/70s which are not compatible.

On the large rear screen, a couple of indoor, on-board flash shots at ISO1600 looked very clean, possibly a plus point for the new processing engine that the camera sports, but we'll have to wait until I can get my hands on one for a bit longer before we can see the real advantages.

Another advantage of the D200 over the D80 is support for manual lenses. The 200 does but the D80 doesn't!

Certainly, having spent my own hard earned on a D200 less than a month ago, I am not too upset by this offering, although it is a worthwhile upgrade from the d70/50.

ian