Anyone who knows me well understands that I am a bit of a 35mm rangefinder camera aficionado, favouring cameras from the likes of Contax, Zeiss and Leica, constructed of such materials as titanium, magnesium and duraluminium alloys. So it may come as a bit of surprise that one of my favourite film cameras in my collection is an SLR, in fact a Nikon F80, made extensively out of engineering grade polycarbonate which is camera marketing department speak for plastic.

Compared to my all metal rangefinder cameras, the F80 came as a bit of shock as it can best described as a piece of early 2000's drastic plastic. Whist it is a highly capable modern AF 35mm film SLR aimed at the "serious amateur" market, it still comes across as a bit of a placky toy really... but...

... as a machine for making real photographs on 35mm film it is a serious photographers little gem. It has excellent "3D Matrix" metering, fast and snappy AF with five sensors with single and continuous focus, the usual PASM modes, ABC for auto bracketing, single and continuous film frame advance, plus AE and AF lock functions. Then there is a raft of 19 custom functions with control info displayed on an LCD panel on the top of the camera. Ah, and did I mention the built in pop up flash? This is a sophisticated, light weight little beast of a camera.

It takes the old AF D lenses that don't have focusing motors in them but rather their AF is driven off the motor built into the camera body, old tech by modern standards and a little (though not excessively) noisy as a consequence. The happy upshot of this is, however, these excellent lenses are available at a much lower cost on the used market as they won't provide AF on modern DSLR Nikon cameras because of said lack of lens integral AF motors.

My only caution regarding the F80 is that, being made of a mostly plastic, don't drop it onto a hard surface. Oh and also, as it isn't in any way weather sealed, don't take it out in seriously adverse conditions. Apart from that it's an oldie but a goodie.