Old DSLR. How to give it a new life? Shoot RAW?

[KhaoHom]

I was gifted a Nikon D80 DSLR. Never learned to use it. I recall only 10 megapixels.

 

Is there anything I can do to make it worthy of use in 2025?

 

What about shooting RAW? 

 

Is converting to jpg as easy as saving as??

 

Thanks 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

I have a Nikon D70 with 6.1 MP that I purchased in 2004 that still works just fine for casual photography. I have other, newer Nikon camera bodies that I use more frequently, but nothing wrong with the D70 for snaps. 

 

The lens is often more important than the number of pixels or age of the camera. What lens or lenses did you get with the D80?

 

If you plan to make adjustments to your images in photo editing software on your Mac or PC, then shooting RAW gives more flexibility. If you're not going to get that involved in photography, then just shooting jpeg is probably going to be sufficient. RAW files are much larger than jpegs, so if storage space is limited, jpegs may be better.

 

Photo editing software easily exports to jpeg from RAW. I do this after I've made adjustments to the original RAW image and want to use a jpeg to post online or keep as a smaller file.

 

The best camera in the world is the one you have with you, so carry the D80 around and enjoy taking photos.

[KhaoHom]

Hi thanks

 

We have a number of old cameras. Best now probably GoPro 5?7?. Wife's Cannon from like 2000 is compact always nice shots. Unused in a decsde. She uses her phone now. OnePlus 11 Hasselblad camera.

 

Had Olympus nothing but problems both land and underwater. Gave the half broken pen2 to Thai niece. Underwater camera was crap too. Both always breaking and neither cheap . Never again 

 

The lens is probably just standard. Dunno, was a gift. It's a nice middling lens as it zooms to 200mm I recall. No idea about wide. Yes, agreed so much is just the lens hence my OP.

 

TBH it's a lot too lug around even on a trip. I could have been a pro photographer and SEA and South Asia my oyster from 1990+ - but I loathe lugging stuff around. That especially includes camera gear. At one time I lost about five+ years travel photos. Era between slide film and digital. I wanted to experience the moments more instead of always needing to shoot.

 

Agreed on generally shooting jpgs for snaps, but if you'd humor me... Would it be worth shooting RAW if I wanted to say make some special shots of an indoor party or gathering and then simple Photoshop or even irfanview? The camera I recall 10mp... 

 

I find the controls tedious on the Nikon D80 TBH . I've never really dug in but not intuitive. 

 

What about movies? Looking at the wiki I don't see ability to shoot video? Odd . The camera was quite advanced for it's time. 

 

Thank you for your time and input

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_D80

[Peter Crow]

This   OP reads pretty disgusting...

 

[KhaoHom]

13 minutes ago, Peter Crow said:

This   OP reads pretty disgusting...

 

 

What??