Nikon F80 or Canon Elan 7

Which one feels better in your hands? The quality / features of the two major systems are so close, it probably comes down to which one you like the feel of better.

Do any of your close friends / family shoot with one or the other? That can be a tie-breaker as well. The ability to share / pool equipment is handy.

Since your local camera shop gave you a choice, I assume both Canon and Nikon are well supported in your area for new/used sales, rentals, repairs, etc. In some parts of the world this is not true, and you go with whoever has decent local support.

I don’t think you can go wrong with either system. Have you handled the N80 and the Elan 7 in the store? Which feels better to you? Do you wear glasses, if so the Nikon may be a bit better. My 10D friend always gets depressed looking at the relatively large viewfinder of my N70, hehe.

As far as lens goes, for Canon, it’s simple, any lens you buy today will most likely work with whatever body you buy in the future, digital or film. For Nikon it could get complicated. If you stick with AFD lens, or the newer G lens, you should be safe. If you happen to acquire one of the many excellent but old MF lens, then you need to worry about which camera body it will work on. Both companies make excellent lens, although personally I prefer Nikon.

So here’s my recommendation for you, if you are fascinated by electronics, go with the Canon. If you are into glass, go with Nikon. Either way you will do fine.

A couple of years ago I have to made the same choice between the Elan IIe and the F70. You have to made the decision on the feling you have with the camera, and the versality of it for your needs. In my case, I choose the DOF preview as the most important feature I need on a camera, so I choose the Canon body! I also choose the eye control, It's unbeliveable how this system give me a lot a avantage for taking fast picture

For all practical purposes, your choice is not merely the F80 or Elan 7 but rather whether the Canon or Nikon system meets your needs better. IMO the AF on the F80 is on the slower side and is frequently insufficient for sports photography. That topic has been discussed a few times here in this forum already. If you are serious about sports photography, I would at least get an F100 body but unfortunately at about 3 times the cost. I have never used an Elan 7, but I suspect that a body in the similar price range as the F80 is not going to have Canon's best AF either. For travel photography, the AF on the F80 is just fine and you don't even have to use AF for that kind of work.

Mud or dirt?

The F/N80 and the Elan 7 are pretty much the same camera, with a few things one way or the other. The N80 gets a mechanical cable release (good cuz they're everywhere, bad because they break), and spot metering. The Elan gets MLU and an electronic cable release. I personally prefer the electronic cable releases as I've never had one break, although the instant I lose one I may be humming a different tune.

AF is fairly similar in both, which is to say not great compared to their bigger brothers, although the Elan 7 does well in daylight I think the N80 is a bit behind. If you use AFS and USM lenses on each they're fairly similar. Metering and flash, well whichever works best for you is the logical answer. Both systems are capable and very much equals so its more important to do as suggested by others, consider which system offers more of what you want or which camera is more comfortable in your hands.

Great thing about Elan 7 is that it has 4fps (if i recall correctly) which is very useful in some occasions. By the way there's Zeiss-to-Canon adaptor available if you like to play with Zeiss CY-mount lens, you can use it on canon body if you find that adaptor. Great thing about F80 is that it has 1% spot meter, and it af better in low light. Portrait, your have better choice in nikon lens in mid-tele range, but canon's 35/2 gives pleasing bokeh that I really envy since I like to shoot people indoors and 35mm is nice. I think they can both do a good job as travel camera and both not suitable for sports.

In this segment of cameras N80 is the no doubt winner, cause it has one big essential feature, the spotmeter, and several noteworthy features like on demand grid lines and D-type fill flash. Both cameras have equal (not so good) build quality and AF (which is not so good either).

the first two posts give you your answer. Go play with both. Personally I'd go F80 every time for the same reasons as the above poster.

I agree Umit, I wish someone would put spot meter in the Elan. Unfortunately the N80 misses another big feature, MLU. For me thats a bigger loss than spot metering, one can work around spot metering but MLU can be trickier to avoid needing.

The first few responses were correct. There's no clear winner here unless you need MLU or spot metering for example. Those are the biggest differences between these two cameras. If you choose the Canon, the 7e adds ECF, which may or may not be useful. It works for me on both the 7e and the EOS 3 but it doesn't work for everyone and some find it annoying or weird.