  We present morphological and photometric properties of 79 low redshift
(z<0.12) radio galaxies extracted from two radio flux limited samples of radio
sources. All objects are imaged in the R band and for a subsample we have also
obtained B band images. The sample includes sources of both FRI and FRII radio
morphological type. Through the decomposition of the luminosity profiles and
the analysis of the structural profiles (ellipticity, PA, c4) of the galaxies
we are able to characterize in detail the optical properties of the radio
galaxies. The average absolute magnitude is M_HOST(tot)=-24.0 with a clear
trend for FRI sources to be 0.5 mag brighter than FRII galaxies. In about 40%
of the objects observed we find an excess of light in the nucleus that is
attributed to the presence of a nuclear point source whose luminosity is on
average 1-2% of the total flux of the host galaxy. The luminosity of these
nuclear point sources appears correlated with the core radio power of the
galaxies. Radio galaxies follow the same mu_e - R_e relationship as normal
elliptical galaxies. The distribution of ellipticity, the amount of twisting
and shape of isophotes (boxy,disky) do not differ significantly from other
ellipticals. The evidence for recent interactions is therefore rather modest.
Finally on average radio galaxies are bluer and have a color dispersion larger
than normal elliptical galaxies, and the average color gradient in radio
galaxies appears slightly steeper than in normal ellipticals. These results
support a scenario where radio emission is weakly related with the overall
properties and/or the activity have negligible effects on the global
characteristics of the host galaxy.
