Got my new D80 in

[priller]

I was out of town most of this week (in Minneapolis, brrr!), but I had a nice present to myself waiting when I got back. Only have a little time to play with it today, but here's one pretty good shot of our dog, Lily.

This is taken at ISO 800, as a jpeg in camera (not raw), with no sharpening or levels or any other adjustment (other than cropping). The light is coming in from behind her, but I think the exposure is really good here, and better than I would usually get with my old D70s. In fact, that's probably the biggest difference I've noticed with the camera so far, that exposure seems to be more accurate, which I appreciate greatly. I'm pretty impressed so far.

[liberalEd]

1. Lily is lovely

The manufacturers are doing really nice work on getting exposure right, as well as impressive high ISO captures.

[Deep13]

2. I haven't figured out all the controls yet.

I did find the built-in B&W filters and had some fun with those. My previous SLR was (cue drum roll) a Pentax SP1000 with screw mount lens, an aftermarket cold shoe and a nonfunctioning light meter. This is a bit of a technological jump for me. Uhhhh, where are the knobs rewind it? Dur, where do I put the glass plates?? I have one lens I use most of the time: Sigma 18-125mm. With the 1.5x digital conversion factor, it covers the same range as three lenses on the old camera. Plus I have a 50mm f/1.8 lens for low light. The resolution so far is just astonishing. Look at the hairs around your dog's eyebrows. Holy crap. I was going to wait for the Pentax K10, but my 20 year class reunion was last week and the K10 was not out, much less reviewed and tested. We liked the ergonomics on the Nikons, so that settled it.