Buying new toys, like my Nikon D80, is fun but the buzz of adding new tech in the arsenal doesn't end till you've accessorised. So far, two extra bits are entering Chez Mojo in support of the D80.

Firstly, I really needed a decent camera bag. With a dSLR, extra lens, charger, memory cards and other assorted bits and pieces I really needed a decent bag. A friend at work recommended the Lowepro SlingShot 100. It costs about $100AUD in most shops and has plenty of space for securely holding the camera and the rest of my photography kit.

This is a sling bag with a single strap that sits diagonally across the chest. there's a second strap that goes around the waist to keep it steady. What I really like is that you can pull the bar around your body and extract the camera without having to remove the bag. Better yet, it acts as a small bench so i can easily change lenses without having to enroll in clown school to become a juggler.

There's a video on the product page that demonstrates this.

My other accessory is memory. I've got a swag of 256MB and 1GB cards but, as my friend David Hague says, you always need more. I'm waiting on delivery of a Sandisk Ultra II 4GB card that the folks from Sandisk have kindly sent my way. With that as my main card and the 1GB units "just in case" I should be able to keep snapping for hours without running put of space.

 Lowepro Slingshot 100 • Nikon D80 • Sandisk

It's been a while since I bought a new digital camera. My usual habit its to wait till a new round of cameras is released by someone and then buy one of the superseded unit. My theory is that I'm still getting a decent camera and that I'm doing so at a great discount. However, I've never bought an SLR before so I decided that I'd buy a current, not-quite-the-base-model-but-somewhere-in-the-lower-end unit. At the end, all the really clever folk I know told me that there basically two kinds of people - Canon and Nikon. I know that there are others but that's a little like saying there are two kinds of people - Windows and Mac. We all know there are Linux and Unix people but the market seems to be in two main camps. So, I started doing some research and settled on the Nikon D80. Thanks to all my friends and family that pitched in to this camera. I recently turned 40 and a bunch of people contributed towards this purchase as a gift.

As well as the camera body, I bought 17-50 and a 70-300 lenses. I was concerned about the gap between them but as one friend told me "take a couple of steps - that'll sort the difference out". I didn't go for VR (Vibration Reduction) lenses as they're a little too rich for my blood.

Not having ever owned a dSLR and having the same level of SLR photography knowledge as a really unknowledgeable gnat I've been living off the automatic mode. Thus far, the image quality has been astounding and makes me seem like a far better photographer than I really am. I've been shooting lots of product images for a bunch of reviews I've been writing for APC and I'm picking stuff up that my old camera never saw. My old camera, a Konica Minolta 5MP point-and-click gizmo, with a 8x zoom seemed pretty good but this 10.2MB beast just slays it.

There's a bunch of images over at my .Mac gallery. Other than some cropping these shots are straight from the camera - no enhancement or editing. With my larger lens I was able to get clear shots of faces at about 30 meters.

I don't know a lot about digital photography. But I do know when a device makes me look like a decent snapper it can't be that bad. There are plenty of reviews of the D80 around so you can make your own decision (here's a Google search for them). However, if someone asks me if the D80 is a decent camera then I'll say "yes".

You can buy the Nikon D80 at most good camera stores (and some of the crap ones as well I guess!).

 Digital Camera • Nikon • Nikon D80 • photography