Buying a new DSLR Part - 2

Before getting into too many details let me start by dropping a few cameras off my list.

Canon 20D - No spot metering
Nikon D70 - At just $100 less than the D80 it makes no economic sense to buy this. Plus just 6MP as compared to the 10 MP on the D80.
Pentax - I actually like these cameras but I think they need a new and improved model to catch up with the rest of the brands. I know megapixels are not everything. But now 6 MP just does not cut it. I would not recommend people with 6MP cameras to switch for a 10 MP. But if you have none, then why buy a 6MP?
Nikon D200 - Just too expensive :-)


So this boils down to the Sony A-100, Nikon D80, and the Canon 30D. As much as I hate the idea of buying a Sony product I do have to consider this camera simply because I have Minolta lenses that are useless otherwise.

Sony A100

Next one being eliminated: Sony A100. Why? performance. I looked at the detailed review and the pictures the camera generated on its detailed review at dpreview. I took some of the camparison pictures and showed it to people after removing the labels. I used this method for all the cameras. Most people who saw the A-100 found them inferior to the competition.

Also the A100 has extremely noisy high ISO (800+ ISO) pictures. This means I will have to buy extremely fast, therefore, extremely expensive lenses.

So this comes down to a Canon 30D vs a Nikon D80 decision. So lets look at some differentiating factors.

• 30D costs almost $300 more.
• Nikon D80 is 10 MP vs 8 for the 30D
• Nikon D80 has some neat features like multiple exposures which is extremely rare in DSLRs as they expect you to take two pictures and use photoshop.
• Nikon software sucks. You have to pay an additional $100 to get Nikon's good quality raw image editor. This essentially ups the camera cost by $100. Canon comes with the software.
• The Nikon D80 uses a SD card and not a Compact Flash card. nothing wrong with that except taht I have a 2GB CF card. This adds another $100 to the cost of the Nikon. Making the Nikon cost of ownership approach that of the Canon 30D.

The main battle comes down to image quality. as yet, no proper detailed review of the Nikon D80 is available. A few sample pitcures are available which make the Nikon look far better. However, in my opinion the Canon 30D generated far superior pictures to the Nikon D200, D70, and D50. So compared to other Nikon models the canon does much better.

Then I saw these pictures, not a very well managed comparison, but still a revealing comparison of Canon 30 and the Nikon D80. They seem to reveal that the D80 has reversed the trend. I used my old trick of showing several friends both sets of pictures without telling them why and what camera. Asking them to select the pictures they thought looked better.

In 100% of the cases people selected pictures taken by the Nikon D80 at ISOs ranging from 100 to 3200. I too preferred the Nikon D80 pictures to the Canon 30D pictures. You can see for yourself and make your own opinion.

When you browse to these link and are asked to install some fonts, just hot cancel. You may have to do so a few times. Then scroll all the way to the bottom and click on the photographs. Please note these are large files.

Canon 30D

Nikon D80

The pictures have made me lean towards the Nikon D80. I do still intend to wait for some more detailed reviews to be published before I make my final decision. But the Nikon D80 does look promising.