rippinchikkin wrote:

Bracketing is shooting around your exposure. If your taking a photo and you are unsure of the exposure (or dont trust your meter) you over expose and under expose your photos, in increments of half stops (or even third stops).

Ah, Canon refer to that as "Exposure Compensation". I agree with sending it back, too, was just noting that other people have had the problem.

I think it's great that Nikon have continued support for all their old range of lenses on their new cameras. That was one of the reasons I wasn't going to upgrade my old Canon. The FD range doesn't fit the new EF/EF-S range of bodies. I've had to buy an adapter to mount my old kit on my new body. Trouble is, you then have a third-party piece of glass between the old lens and the camera, unless you want to lose infinity focus. Quality of the final image suffers a bit but it's just a stop gap until I can afford to upgrade my lenses to their EF equivalents.

Luckily, my Dad also has an old Canon so I can donate my lenses to him.

We're going to call about sending it back today... some photo company in NY is where we bought it. They have good reviews, but I swear I think they sent us a grey market item... which really pisses me off. I can't tell by looking, but the lack of product info with the camera was a red flag. Plus the battery is a bit different from my D50, despite the chargers being the same. I just don't like the situation... and from a company with good reviews (both on Pricegrabber and elsewhere) it makes me wonder if it was a mistake.

They will be getting several calls from us today. We may just return it (despite an outrageous restocking fee - which we can hopefully argue since the item is DOA as far as aperture goes), and go buy it locally despite the higher costs and tax.

I tested the camera for a few hours last night. Aperture works fine with P mode, and adjusts accordingly to the Shutter Speed in S and M mode. But if I turn to A... nothing, no change at all when I spin the subdial.

I did reset the camera using the tiny button on the side, after I found it, LOL.

Whole situation just kinda bummed me out last night... I was excited about it. I just hope we can get another before our annual trip to the mountains next weekend.

John, i'm trying to remember how you change the aperature, I don't change it often, try holding the button beside the dial, AE-L/AE-P, i have the feeling that unlocks it. Also, you said you got a lack of documentations and the battery seemed different, would you mind posting pictures of your products IE battery, what came with it, bottom of D80, and i'll compare it to what mine came with/has and maybe we can tell if yours is a gray maryket item. Who did you buy it from?

Usually you can change the aperture by setting the dial to "A" and then rotating the sub-dial... the spin wheel under the top right of the camera, right beneath the display on the back of the camera.

42photo.com is the merchant... in NY. They are off today for a holiday in NY, so I can't reach them until Sun.

I also looked at battery pics on Amazon... seems I do have the right one.

I got a manual and everything, just no warranty card or anything like that.

kanaloa wrote:

Usually you can change the aperture by setting the dial to "A" and then rotating the sub-dial... the spin wheel under the top right of the camera, right beneath the display on the back of the camera. 42photo.com is the merchant... in NY. They are off today for a holiday in NY, so I can't reach them until Sun. I also looked at battery pics on Amazon... seems I do have the right one. I got a manual and everything, just no warranty card or anything like that.

What he is talking about, on the nikons (there is an app lock. Canons too, I believe.) on the lens, there is a small switch near the mount end of the lens, if its pushed in to one side, it will lock the app ring in place?
But what I gathered from your explanation, was more that the app ring is working, but the camera body is not picking up the changes?
If you have the serial (which Im sure you do, lol) just register the warranty at nikon.com

Yeah that's what I'm going to try this afternoon... I thought about it yesterday but never tried it. It's a good idea. Another guy said he found out his was grey market from this came company that way.

What's weird is that this company has such good marks on most review sites. Like 90% of the compliments, even on third party sites, are all good. And there's hundreds of comments dating back well over a year. They've only had 8 BBB issues in the last year, 6 of which were all resolved to the customers wants. Not bad for their volume I'm sure.

The lens should be fine... both lenses work fine with the D50. It's just the D80.

Basically if I turn the master control to "A" and then rotate the sub dial, nothing changes... the f-stop number in the display just stays the same, usually "4." I can change shutter speed fine in that mode, and the Aperture also changes with it... as well as in Program mode. But in Aperture priority mode... nothing.

OK, few updates.

One, the camera is apparently grey market. So we'll sort that out with them next week.

Second, I'm an idiot... and my wife is close behind, LOL. In fact, the camera guy at our local store ALSO missed this. Since the D80 apparently is different from all other models, none of us picked up on the fact there are TWO rotating dials on the right side of the camera. One on the back, and one on the front.

Well the one on the back is what I'm used to, and is what controls everything EXCEPT aperture. Go figure? The front dial does that. And now that I know it's there... duh, it works. So the camera is fine.

I think all three of us felt like morons when we saw the dial... but I was relieved. Now we just need to work our warranty out, versus return anything.