I now have a Nikon D80. I have a National Flashgun Model PE300SWG Can you advise me if this 'gun is safe to use with the D80?Nikon tell me that as long as the trigger flash voltage is o--250volts it is o.k. I am concerned that it may damage the camera circuitry.I cannot seem to find National online. Thanx David

Take care. Nikon does warn every user of the modern DSLR's not to use old flash guns. Old camera's were fitted with mechanical switches. In those days nobody cared about 5, 12 or even 100 volt on a flash gun. Modern camera's use electronic switches (transistor) and they only can survive when hooked up to modern flash guns, because these guns block high (above 5 Volt) voltages.

The Canon Speedlite will work, but you won't get the full functionality of a Nikon Speedlight. Most importantly you won't get the through-the-lens metering.

The Canon 300TL will work with the Nikon D80, though you won't get all of their features, such as iTTL metering.

The D80 doesn't have video capabilities. Nikon introduced video capabilities with the subsequent D90.

Sorry if that wasn't the answer you wanted to see, but that's the way this camera is.

The D3100 is newer, for what it's worth. It has LiveView and video capabilities.

The D3100 is intended for beginners, the D80 for more experienced users. The D3100 is easier to learn, the D80 is easier to use once you learn it. The D3100 is lighter, the D80 is more rugged.

The other major difference is that the D3100 does not have an autofocus motor, depending on the lens to have one. This means that some lenses (those not designated AF-S by Nikon) will not autofocus on the D3100 while they will on the D80.

The ultimate decision is up to you. Only you can decide which features are most important to you. Also, if you can, try to get your hands on the actual cameras. See which one feels more comfortable to you.

This is not an error, it is telling you how many pictures can be taken in quick succession and stored in RAM, for writing to the memory card at the card's speed. It's described at the bottom of page 36 in your manual, I looked it up.

That's like asking what's the best flavor of ice cream.
The best model Nikon for a sports photographer most likely will not be the best model Nikon for a portrait photographer. A photojournalist might opt for a different model.

The National/Panasonic PE-3550 has a trigger voltage of 32V. The 1992 ISO standard states cameras should be able to handle up to 24V. Some people within Nikon claim their cameras can only handle up to 12V. Either way, I wouldn't use a PE-3550 with a Nikon dSLR.

At least not directly. You can use something like a Wein Safe-Sync to isolate the two.

the nikon D80 has a 250 volts safe range and i have the same issue but readin on the internet i learned that yo can now the voltage of your flash with a voltage metter ond the hot soe.

Vivitar 283 has diferent ranges of voltages depending on the year of fabrication so older ones can achieve 300 volts and earlier have 230 volts so the best is to get a vivitar 285hv for about 75dollars or a safe sync for about 55dollars, you can find all on ebay or other brouser the safe sync converts up to 400 volts to a safe 6 volts that are yust the normal voltage for digital flashes.

That particular unit is probably not a good choice for the D80 because the trigger voltage (the electricity which flows from the flash through the camera circuits to fire the flash) is 19.5 volts, according to http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html - this could possibly damage your camera electronics.

You don't have to stick with Nikon brand Speedlights, but get a modern flash which says it is I-TTL compatible for Nikon.