Nikon D60 vs. D80?

Question

I can't seem to decide whether the new D60 is better than the D80... The hardware seems to be nearly identical and so does the price! Do you believe the backwards compatible lens advantage the D80 has is really a big deal?

Answer 1

I think the backwards compatibility is everything, none of my lenses that I own right now would auto focus on the d60. I would not want to limit myself to just Nikon's newer line of IF lenses. The amount of manual buttons and the top LCD panel make it a 100 times easier to change the settings before I shoot. It is a little bit older of course but worth it in my opinion, hope this helps.

Answer 2

I was told that when you take film camera lenses and put them on digital SLRs like the D80, there is a "magnifying effect" where, say, a 24-125mm lens will behave on the digital camera as a 32-150mm lens. Is this true?

Answer 3

> Do you believe the backwards compatible lens advantage the D80 has is really a big deal



YES, YES, YES

Answer 4

If you think you'll want to use a cheap 50mm f/1.8 lens for low light photography or portraits, get the D80. The D60 can not use *any* of Nikon's Auto-Focus prime lenses. There's also a nice and relatively inexpensive back-catalog of AF tele-zoom lenses, dedicated macro lenses, etc. that will only work on the D80. So if you want to build a lens collection on the cheap using eBay, the D80 is your camera. The newer stuff (apart from prime lenses) will work on both cameras.

The D80's Auto-Focus system is also more advanced than the D60's in that it has 11 AF points vs. just 3. This makes the D80 a little bit better for action photography, etc.

The only other difference is that the D80 has an extra LCD screen and a few extra buttons. This allows you to change some settings a bit faster.

The image quality, resolution, high ISO settings, the size of the LCD screen on the back... all the rest is pretty much identical.

So if you're planning on keeping things simple with just one or two zoom lenses, you won't notice the difference. If you want a camera that you can 'grow into' spend a bit extra on the D80.

Here's a side-by-side of the specs:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=nikon_d60%2Cnikon_d80&show=all

Answer 5

The D60 benefits from the technology of the D300 and D3 cameras, so in terms of image quality, you're better off with a D60 over the older D80.



In terms of lens compatibility, the only advantage would be if you *already* have the older lenses. If you don't, then the D60 is the better choice, because you can simply buy the right lenses with the built-in motor. Nikon is also working towards making their lens lineup more filled with AF-S models, but all their pro zooms are already AF-S along with popular consumer zooms. In other words, there's no shortage of good lenses for the D60 and if you want one, you should get it.