What makes the D80 and D200 respectively "amateur" and "professional" cameras?

[sjmurray]

Anthony, here are the tests I did comparing my D70 with a D200 in the store. My D80 is similar to the D70 in terms of high iso noise. I've heard the D40/D40x have low high iso noise as well. I wonder if the 4 channel output in the D200 is great for speed but worse for noise?

[sjmurray]

Oops, forgot the actual link:http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00IyNc

[ShunCheung]

Steve, I have mentioned that I asked Thom Hogan about high-ISO noise back in April this year. Hogan mentioned that even though they all use essentially the same 10MP sensor, the D80 is better than the D200 and the D40x is in tern better than the D80. He thinks the difference is the result of gradually improved technology; it has nothing to do with 2 channel vs. 4.

[Sanford]

And the D50 may edge them all out in terms of high ISO noise performance...

[mawz]

Actually the 4 channel output is responsible for the infamous banding and a bit of the noise (the sensor runs a bit hotter than the 2 channel version when you're going all-out). So it is somewhat responsible for the differing noise performance. But the big difference is the updated noise reduction in the newer bodies.

 

What makes the D200 a semi-pro body and the D80 an amateur? Build, sealing, control layout. The D200 is built to take a beating that the D80 can't, can handle rougher weather & wet conditions, and is set up so you can control the camera much better without removing your eye from the finder, and without going into the menus. All of this is in aid of the pro in a hurry. D80's a great little camera and can produce as good results, but when the going gets tough, the D80 will fail or slow you down long before the D200 will.

 

@Sanford: D40 is now king of the high ISO performance, beating out the D50 noticably.

[g-man1]

Price. :-)

 

Although I thought the D80 was amateur, D200 was advanced amateur, and the D2 etc were pro. The D40 and D50 were just to make photos.

[albertdarmali]

Were just to make photos? So what do these "pro" D2 series make? Sandwiches? :)

[eric_arnold]

it's really largely a question of marketing. the d200 is aimed at the pro market, while the d80 is targeted toward the advanced amateur or p&s stepper-upper, although nothing's stopping pros from using the d80. being a "pro model," the d200 doesnt have the in-camera functions that the d80 has, like color balance and crop, which are actually fairly useful tweaks that can save time in pp. the biggest difference is probably the weather-sealing and faster frame rate; everything else is kinda cosmetic. but the d80 certainly benefits from coming after the d200, just as the d40 benefits from following the d80.

[ilkka_nissila]

Typically higher end models have better ergonomics, better reliability, more durable construction, better viewfinders, better compatibility with a wider range of existing accessories, and some other features which may or may not make a difference.

 

The D200 supports in-camera metering with manual focus lenses. These are often of better build than the autofocus lenses and can be manual focused more securely and easily.

 

In any case, why would you care about what other people think? You pick your gear based on your needs, not theirs. If you feel insecure if your equipment is called amateur equipment then that's more of a psychological problem.

[dave_bernard]

What makes a camera professional is if it is used to make you money. The most professional camera is the one that makes you the most money.

 

A Ford Crown Vic is a professional car if it used as a Taxi. A Ford Taurus is a professional car if it is issued to government agencies for official business.

 

A Porsche is not a professional car if you use it only for Sunday pleasure drives.

 

A D200 is not a professional camera if you use it only for your own personal family and vacation shots.

[aldrich]

"A Ford Crown Vic is a professional car if it used as a Taxi. A Ford Taurus is a professional car if it is issued to government agencies for official business."

 

Thank goodness Ford doesn't make cameras....they still haven't gotten their cars right! :-P

 

Excellent point though, Dave!

[bobchaphalkar]

Sold my C330 with 80 mm lens for a mere $145. Sold my SRT101 for a mere 30 bucks. Cannot pat with my 645-1000S yet!

[RaymondC]

Yep but many professional photographers and not paid photographers would swap to a lighter camera body away from their work, or if they are not engaging in serious photography paid or pleasure they resort to even a compact camera or even just their phone. I know locally someone who was a full time wedding photographer, when he takes time off with his own family he took his Sony RX100 but after a while at the time he said he was selling that and just used his phone. One time he did take his Nikon D700 and a UWA zoom but he said he couldn't took a handful of photographs with his family trip it wasn't worth it to carry that set-up with him.

 

I know someone else who used to do weddings, won some accolades also a photo judge and now the president of the NZIPP NZ wedding portraiture assoc thingy, she now is doing more higher end higher paid portfolio shoots. Anyway their family went to Japan for fun, they took family photographs they were pretty much just off the phone it looks like maybe with a compact Fuji, she's a Fuji X Ambassador she uses Fuji X and also the Fuji GFX medium format. The family shots were not well lit, wireless flash to the side with a small softbox either 10 inch or whatever. Prior to Fuji she used to use full frame Canon.

[mike_halliwell]

Cannot pat with my 645-1000S yet!

Likewise!

 

I've always hoped I could shoehorn a big, cooled sensor in there somewhere..there's so-much space compared to a DSLR:cool:

[Erik-Christensen]

Sold my C330 with 80 mm lens for a mere $145. Sold my SRT101 for a mere 30 bucks. Cannot pat with my 645-1000S yet!

I was offered $30 for my SR7 and $50 for the SRT101 !! I gave both of them with 3-4 lenses to the Street Childrens Photo Club in Saigon instead.

[BeBu Lamar]

I always hear posters saying things like, "The D80 is good . . . for an amateur

DSLR." What's that supposed to mean? I thought that the skill of the

photographer determines the quality of the images. I understand that, to some

degree, the quality of the photographer's images is determined by the quality of

her equipment, but still--isn't the determining factor the photographer herself?

 

Sometimes, I feel as though my decision to purchase the D80 is being

undermined/second-guessed by people with deeper pockets.

 

They are called based on the skill of the cameras not the photographers. Anyone can use either.

[mike_halliwell]

Sometimes, I feel as though my decision to purchase the D80 is being

undermined/second-guessed by people with deeper pockets.

The glass thing you put infront of the body determines the IQ of the image more than the body itself.... and yes good glass is expensive.

 

Composition, DoF/ShutterSpeed AKA exposure, and to a varying degree, focus are chosen by the photographer....for there specific requirements.

 

The body pretty much comes bottom of the list

 

Sure, features like FPS, rear curtain flash sync and sync speed are useful features for specific tasks and are vital to have if you need them...... but for most photographers, not so much.

[glen_h]

There are some funny things though. I don't remember now for the D80.

 

Some Nikon DSLRs will meter in manual mode, and others won't.

It can't be that hard to do, likely a little software. But that way they sell the ones

that can, and so are more likely used for pros, for higher prices.

 

Some have the AI follower, so will work with manual focus AI lenses.

It isn't that hard to do, but pros are more likely to use AI lenses, so they

put them on the pro cameras.

[ben_hutcherson]

Nice old thread popping to the top.

 

I have a D80 that I keep around primarily because it's IR converted. I pretty much keep the old 18-200 stuck on it all the time, which is showing its age but is a good match for the D80 and serves me well when I use that camera.

 

I don't actively use a D200 anymore, but somewhat regularly use a Fuji S5 which is more or less a D200 body with a Fuji sensor(and an aggravating firmware lock that keeps it from working with anything other than Fuji batteries that are otherwise identical in dimensions, voltage, and capacity to the much more available Nikon EN-El3e the D200 uses).

 

In 2020, the best comparisons I can think of is the D7500 and D500. The D7500 is billed as an "advanced amateur" camera and is a pretty darn good unit. It has a 20mp sensor, the ability to use screwdriver lenses, and makes the "creative'(PSAM) modes easy to access and use while also offering a "green box" full auto(camera does everything) mode. Like the D80, it lacks an AI metering tab for metering with MF lenses. The D500 was the "baby brother" to the D5. It's the same basic sensor as the D7500, but packed in a tough, durable weather sealed body and backed up by the D5 AF system. It is a popular wildlife and action camera thanks to its excellent AF, relatively high frame rate, although it's not as fast as the D5 and D6, and probably most significantly the 1.5x multiplier on a DX camera(the D850 gives similar resolution in crop mode, but needs a grip to shoot as fast). The D200 controls are very similar to its contemporary D2H/D2X. Specifically, it only has PSAM modes and easy access to several functions like AF modes. The D500 copies a lot of the control cues from the D5, including the "new" placement of the mode and ISO buttons and the little nub for selecting AF points.

[glen_h]

I never knew about the S5 before. Interesting.

 

Seems that the used prices are a little higher that I might have thought.

 

I do still use the D200 when I don't need the features of the D700, which is

my other choice. IR conversion sounds fun, but still a little more expensive than

I could find use for.

[ben_hutcherson]

I never knew about the S5 before. Interesting.

 

Seems that the used prices are a little higher that I might have thought.

 

I do still use the D200 when I don't need the features of the D700, which is

my other choice. IR conversion sounds fun, but still a little more expensive than

I could find use for.

 

The Fuji DSLRs were an interesting side note in the history of DSLRs. I have examples of the whole range. The S1 and S2 are honestly pretty bad. They're built on a lower end body(I think an N65 maybe?) and are really large and clunky. The S1 needs both CR123s to run the camera functions(meter, shutter reset, etc) and AAs to run the digital component. The S2 will work without the CR123s, but complains about it, and they have a nasty habit of their sensors dying(camera will seem to work fine, but records a blank frame). The S3 was an improved sensor in an N80 body that only needed AAs(and included NiMHs). It was a big step up, but it's really slow and clunky. Forget shooting RAWs if you want to shoot more than a couple of photos a minute, and it still has the awkward N80/D100 set-up of using the mode dial to change ISO. The photographer at my sister's wedding was using one(it would have been current then, or maybe right around the time the S5 came out) and he turned out superb results, but if he stuck with Fuji I imagine he dumped it for an S5 as soon as possible. Of the three N80 derived DSLRs, Nikon's D100 is definitely best as far as fast handling, and although I consider the S3 clunky it's fast and efficient next to the Kodak DCS 14/n.

 

The S5 was the only one to actually competently handle like a DSLR, and that's because it used body designed to be a DSLR and not a repurposed film camera. It really operate very similarly to the D200, but you get to use Fuji's Super CCD with all its ups and downs. Wedding photographers loved it since it gave them more dynamic range than any other CCD-based camera did. I still use mine as something of a studio camera(read eBay), usually with a radio transmitter to my studio strobes parked in the hotshoe and the Nikon DX 35mm f/1.8 on it most of the time. Fuji can give some amazing SOOC JPEGs, especially in film emulation modes. Lightroom and other popular software also handle the .RAF RAW files really nicely. One of the things I have noticed is that the sensor can give some color fringing on a high contrast area-like white lettering on a black lens-but then even though Fuji does improve over the D/R of most CCDs, that's still something that can happen with them(I can sometimes fix it with the Fuji by pulling back the highlights a bit, something that it does better than a conventional CCD but not as well as a modern CMOS sensor).

 

On my IR conversion-I bought it already done, but the person who did it did a bit of a low-budget job that still works well. Basically, they used a larger piece of R72 filter material that was thin enough for the sensor stack and cut it to fit, then swapped out the hot mirror for it. It gives the IR look in B&W mode or desaturated psot, and also gives a really interesting look if left in "color." Since I've always used it with relatively slow kit lenses, and often stopped down some, focus is close enough even if not perfect(especially since it's not in any way an every day camera for me, but more a "this would look great in IR" camera).

[Dieter Schaefer]

he S1 and S2 are ... built on a lower end body(I think an N65 maybe?)

F60/N60 for the S1Pro and F80 for the S2Pro, just like the S3Pro that came after it.

[ShunCheung]

F60/N60 for the S1Pro and F80 for the S2Pro, just like the S3Pro that came after it.

When I bought my first digital camera in 2002, I actually had a choice between the Fuji S2 "Pro" and the Nikon D100. Both were DSLRs based on the then Nikon N80/F80 body. Those were such early days that DSLRs were modifications from film SLRs, instead of DSLR designs from scratch.

 

The result is that my D100 has a 35mm film size mirror, even though the sensor is DX/APS-C. I believe on some of those early Fuji's, even the film rewind crank remained on the DSLR bodies. It wasn't until the D70 and D200 that Nikon designed new DSLRs from scratch, and those mirrors were reduced to match the sensor size.

[Dieter Schaefer]

It wasn't until the D70 and D200 that Nikon designed new DSLRs from scratch

I got into the game with the D70 - the first Nikon DSLR with a reasonable price. Two years later, I upgraded to a D200 (choosing it over the D80, a choice I never regretted). After that I only skipped on upgrade generation (the D7000). Would have skipped the D7100 and D7200 too had Nikon come out with the elusive D400. Now it appears we have reached the end of the line with the D500 - the only alternative now is to pay double and move to a high-MP FX body like the D850. Or wait and see what a Z8 or Z9 will have to offer.

[ben_hutcherson]

believe on some of those early Fuji's, even the film rewind crank remained on the DSLR bodies.

 

The only place I've seen that is on F5-based Kodak DSLRs, and it's more a dummy knob than an actual full fledged crank.

 

Those cameras, however, do retain their "Nikon" and "F5" branding.

 

(DCS 760 next to film F5-and as you can see if you think the F5 is big, it looks diminuitive next to the Kodak with all its extra add-ons)

 

 

Also, I'd say that from a practical perspective, the D100 was most likely the smartest choice you could have made then. Even though you can tell it's an N80 body, Nikon did a much better job(IMO) of integrating the digital "guts" into it than Fuji did. Plus, you got real, long lasting lithium ion batteries.

 

Of the Kodak and Fuji offerings based on the N80, the Fujis were great if you could use their higher dynamic range, and of course the Kodak was your only choice for a full frame Nikon in those days. With the Kodak, though, you'd best prepare for IQ to tank if you need to go above ISO 100 or so.