Back in November I wrote a post about how I’ve always really wanted a Canon Rebel XTi and I had some money, but instead of buying the camera, I paid off a loan. Chris, who I’d met on the BusinessWire panel a year before, emailled me and said he worked at MWW and Nikon is a client of theirs. He asked if I’d ever considered using a Nikon and hinted that he might be able to help me out in some way. I gave him my address, but never heard anything more.

In February, before our trip to Hawaii, I got the Canon Rebel XTi that I’d been wanting. I had some money for it and it seemed like a good time since were were about to go on a big trip.

Fast forward to last week. I got a FedEx at work and there was an elaborate mailer inside. After you unfolded several flaps about how great the Nikon D80 is, there was a mirror that said “You’re looking at a new D80 shooter.” on it. I was freaking out! I was going to get a Nikon D80! And at the same time I was wishing it was a few months earlier and I hadn’t just gotten the Canon, but excited all the same!

After closer reading, this is how I figured out the program works. I get to use the D80 for 6 months. At the end of 6 months I can either renew for free for another 6 months, purchase the camera at a discount, or send it back. As easy as that. I get some time for training, if I want it, and there’s not much they really ask of me. They just want me to use it. I was IMing with Chris to thank him for including me and he said that there were about 20 cameras that went out in the first round and that there would be about 10 more in the second round. He said MWW was looking for bloggers who would use the camera a lot and who were “cool.” Awesome. I’m a cool blogger! All I had to do was go to a web site, put in my confirmation numbers and I go the camera a few days later.

A coworker of mine, Rick Klau, was also selected for the program. I was wondering how MWW picked people to participate and I see he has a link on his site with more information here.

I’m not exactly sure how I’ll decide which camera to use when, but I will have fun with them both. I’ve created new categories on this site so that you can see which photos were taken with which camera. I’m interested to see if I really start to like the output and functionality of one over the other. The D80 came with a more versatile lens, it’s an 18-135, where my Rebel is an 18-55. The D80 also came with a lens hood and a few other accessories that are kind of nice - a 2 gig card, which is a gig bigger than the card I regularly use. But I have always used Canons and enjoyed the interface and interaction with them. Also, the D80 is considerably bigger than the Rebel. We’ll see how this goes!

One thing I do know, this sure beats the pants off that Sprint Ambassador program I was in. In that one we did get a cool phone and unlimited multimedia usage and phone service, but it was Sprint and I could never get Sprint reception in my old apartment.