I’ve tried DSLRs before, namely the Canon 10D and the KM 7D. Both were pretty decent light tight boxes, but, man, they were crummy cameras. You couldn’t argue with the image quality in most situations, the typical digital highlights issue aside. A camera’s a lot more than a light tight box though, or at least a good one should be. Squinty viewfinders, short battery life, long start up times, wonky AF systems, and generally bad human interface issues do not make for a good camera. Given that a lot of photography depends on issues not even vaguely related to technical quality, a camera with useability issues is like a ferrari with steering wheel covered in porcupine skin, quills included. I was pleased when the D200 was announced. I’ve always liked the controls on Nikon’s AF cameras. They’re almost as good as a manual camera. And the D200’s viewfinder seemed to address one of the other major issues; the issue of battery life and start up times seems to have been resolved in most of Canon’s and Nikon’s recent models. The price of the D200 was on the upper edge of my spending limit though, and it’s a little too big for day to day use. So when Nikon announced the D80, I thought, hmm, I might get one of those in a couple of months. Well, when I saw them in stock on B&H’s website yesterday, I ordered one immediately without really think about it. Blame the jet lag - I’m still recovering from the 24 hours in transit from Korea, not to mention the 14 hour time difference. My D80 will be here in a couple of days, along with a 30mm F1.4 sigma lens and 2gb card. If I end up liking it, maybe some of the hexar gear will end up for sale. If not, anybody interested in a 20% discount on a barely used D80?