The New Nikon D80—little brother to the Nikon D200

The Nikon D80 is now officially announced. DPReview has a short preview and robgalbraith.com has one as well . With the same resolution as the Nikon D200, it might make an excellent backup body. Too bad I just purchased a second D200 a few weeks ago at $1699, since the D80 is priced at $999 (US). Still, the D200 is presumably a better-built camera.

Nikon also announced a 70-300/f4.5-5.6G ED-IF AFS VR zoom. Note that is is not a DX lens (it covers the full 36 X 24mm frame), which suggests that Nikon has something up their sleeve in the full-frame category.

An 18-135/f3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX zoom was also announced. It remains to be seen if either of these lenses are better than the 18-200/f3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR in terms of optical performance.