I would say the all round quality of 1 & 3 exceeds 2 & 4 comfortably (not quite clear which is D80, so I am not rooting for it per se)

However, you will find you have a very fine degree of control of this in post-processing to get exactly what you want, and especially I think (being a Canon+DPP man) if use Nikon NX and shoot in RAW, see thread

http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...ead.php?t=1341