I own nikon d40 as my first dslr 2 yr back. This was an excellent camera with some limitation like incompatibility with af lenses to autofocus.and the kit lens is slow one due to absence of wide aperture. Then i made my mind to replace . I had once thought to switch to canon product but canon does not have good lcd screens in its dslr line-up. And in addition to that canon camera are preferable if your main aim is sports photography. Canon camera are excellent for sport since they are fast in terms of frames per second .
So with much thoughts i decide to stick with nikon brand. D80 has inbuilt autofocus motor making it compatible to all auto focus lenses nikon has. This is a must feature if you go to more professional photography. Ii bought my d80 in jan2008 from usa for$700 ( at that time d80 body had a price of rs 40000 in india). I am using ’nikkor af 50mm f/1.4 d ’ with my camera. This very fast lens has the same result on my d80 as an exotic zoom lens on d3. So i would say that this camera is value for money . This camera is a low cost solution of nikon d200 since it offer the same flexibility and control on photography as d200 offers. Only some dedicated buttons are not given in d80. One of the feature i liked is that you can fine tune the white balance in every setting from -3 to +3 colour temperature.you can also use photographic software to correct white balance later on but it is always helpful to set correct wb at the time of taking picture and then correct them in computer
The tracking of moving subject to auto focus is much better than nikon d40. Nikon’s multicam-1000 tracking gives very good performance and your moving subject would be in focus most of the time. The 11-points focus ensures that your subject would be with in the coverage every time as it leaves the previous point. ( d40’s 3-points focus is a problem in keeping the moving subject in focus). So it would be a great pleasure to see the accurate focus and results in shooting moving objects.
The battery life of d80 is excellent & battery lasts upto 3 times as long as that of d40. The bracketing feature helps beginner to take different exposures and it also helps in difficult light situations.
So if you want a semi-pro camera with affordable price d80 is the answer.