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It's funny how there always seems to be some resistance to knowledge and understanding.
> I sometimes wonder what "fault" people will go looking for next.
You might want to look at my signature and then my Web site. I've been covering Nikon equipment on the Web since the early 1990's. I've got a long history of poking around at Nikon equipment and documenting its abilities and limits. What I asked people to do was perform a test so that I could ascertain a particular trait of the D80 across a wide range of sample bodies (what other reviewer do YOU know that tries to eliminate sample bias from their testing?). I was careful not to say anything about a "fault." That's YOUR word, actually; I used the words "concerned about." Why I'm concerned about it, I did not say and won't until I review the data carefully and publish my review.
> Im happy with the pictures I get from the D80
Nothing I said challenges that in any way that I can see. Generally, there are two camps of photographers out there, the casual and the serious. The casual never push their products towards their limits and are much more tolerant of minor issues. The serious want to know what the absolute limits are and when they might encounter them. You seem to be in the former group.
> forcing the camera to to take pictures in circumstances its not designed for i.e. Lense cap on tests.
Amp noise is an underlying thermally-induced production of electrons that get counted erroneously, and that exists regardless of the picture being taken. It's a relative of dark current noise, but generally specific to a location near an electronic or heat source. My test was an attempt to get a handle on exactly how much of that thermal noise underlies a photo. If you have people take photos of different things, you can't get a good measurement of the actual amount of noise and when it first appears: someone who had a purple subject at that position might not notice it at all, while someone who had a groom's black jacket at that position would most certainly notice it (that should be a hint about how I stumbled onto the issue). In scientific testing, you try to isolate all the variables except the one you're interested in. If anyone would like to debate me on the scientific validity of my testing procedure, I'll be happy to do so. I have an open mind and am more interested in getting the right data than running tests "my way." But I also have a great deal of experience at this and am confident that the procedure is adequate and that I now have the information I was trying to obtain.
Normally, amp noise only bothers folk who shoot astronomical photos, as they're the only ones shooting long enough exposures to see the problem (on some Nikon bodies you can shoot 10 minute exposures and not see visible amp noise) and they're trying to resolve pin-point objects, so any noise tends to be a major issue.
FWIW, a Nikon representative with whom I shared a single sample immediately spotted a subtle pattern in the data I too had noticed but had not mentioned, and which appears somewhat consistent across the full set of data I currently have. The pattern suggests that Nikon's manual for the D80 actually might be incorrect about how a particular feature works, though I'll have to do more testing to figure out if that's the case or not. So the types of testing I do are not random stabs at looking for faults--they're attempts to fully understand the capabilities and limitations of the equipment. Were Nikon a more open organization, I could probably get the same information with a couple of quality yearly visits to the engineering offices in Japan asking questions of the product designers, but that's another story for another day...
Thom Hogan
author, Nikon Field Guide, Nikon Flash Guide
author, Complete Guides to the N65, N75, N80, F100, F5, F6
author, Complete Guides to the D1, D2h, D2x, D50, D70, D100, D200
www.bythom.com
Thom Hogan
author, Nikon Field Guide
and Nikon Flash Guide
author, Complete Guides to most Nikon cameras
www.bythom.com Visit my Nikonians gallery.
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Looks like, if I'm to stick around I have to learn few things. For example; why is it acceptable to accuse Thom of a witch hunt or saying that it's a problem for geeks only yet... oh, who cares. Lets go back to the real issue - the amp glow.
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