In several articles I wrote for PDN I opined that the digital camera market was soon to change. While companies had previously been racing to get to bigger and bigger megapixel counts, soon the number of pixels on a sensor would exceed the average consumer's needs and the companies would then turn to features for the next round of the digital photography war.

Sure enough, manufacturers are starting to come out with a range of exciting products in the 10-12 megapixel range that fit the particular needs of particular companies, rather than just fighting for resolution counts. One of the most interesting of these is the new Nikon Coolpix P80, an all-in-one fixed-lens SLR-style digital SLR with an amazing 18x optical zoom lens. That's an astounding amount of zoom for a digital camera and it's the equivalent of 27mm to 486mm. There's just no equivalent single-lens solution for a non fixed-lens digital. Therefore, this might be the perfect digital camera for someone who is looking for a single body to use on vacation, at home shooting the kids playing soccer, as well as capturing close up shots of  the neighbors down the street. (Note: taking close-up shots of neighbors is potentially illegal if they don't know you're doing it, regardless of how fun it is.)

The P80 even has built-in vibration reduction technology and face-recognition focusing, features that make it much easier to take photographs under a wide range of conditions.

The camera's got a $400 price tag in the U.S. markets, which makes it incredibly affordable, putting it right into the range of many enthusiasts and hobbyists.

The initial press release doesn't indicate if the camera captures raw images (we're guessing that it does not, but we'll have to see). However, it does mention that the camera has a USB 1.1 interface on it, meaning you'll want to pick up a card reader to move images off of the SD cards supported by the D80, unless you like watching really slow progress bars march by.

All-in-all this is an exciting camera for the digital photography consumer; even the pro. I'm likely to pick up one of these and leave it in my car—I always have a camera with me that can capture everything from an ultra-wide landscape to a super-far telephoto shot with one camera.