Nikon - D70 Digital SLR Camera (Body Only) - NEW!

Rating:
Summary: Great Camera, Watch out for scammers even here on Amazon
Review: This is a good camera. The only real complaint is the lack of raw jpeg or tiff storage (you can store raw or compressed jpeg only)

That means a lot of dark room work, or a lot a reduction in printable size. ISO Range is also limited to 200 in the lower end.

A word of caution. When you see this camera selling for new at a price that is significantly below what the Amazon vendor Adorama offers (A reputable lower prices kind of firm) be very cautious.

There are a lot of scams where they offer you a ridiculously low price ($500) for new camera but only if you contact them first. Then they try and upsell you and if you dont buy a bunch of over priced very expensive garbage they cancel your order, but then they have you credit info.

[...]look at Genius Cameras to get a good idea of how this works.

Good luck, great camera.

Rating:
Summary: Tons of great features, and a few heartbreaking shortcomings
Review: This review of the Nikon D70 is written with an eye towards comparisons with the Canon digital rebel. I just spent two weeks playing with both cameras and debating which to keep and which to return to the store. As these two cameras are similar in price and intended target customers, I suspect many camera-buyers are having this dilemma.

What I liked about the Nikon D70:

1. High quality sharp pictures with remarkably low noise even at highest ISO settings. Even its maximum ISO of 1600 is decent, compared to the Canon digital rebel, which looks awfully noisy at the same setting. (But the Canon goes lower, to ISO 100, where it approaches photographic perfection - more on this later.)

2. Instant on. The camera can shoot immediately after you flip the on switch whereas the Canon has a 2-3 second delay. This is a bigger deal than you may think; you'll really appreciate it when something interesting suddenly appears while your camera is turned off.

3. Way nicer manual controls. I found the D70's 4-way button and two thumbwheels much easier to use by touch than the Canon's 4 overly recessed buttons and only one thumbwheel.

4. Fast playback. Reviewing pictures and deleting them is MUCH faster on the Nikon than the Canon digital rebel, even when using slow cheap compact flash cards. On the Canon, it's frustrating to scroll (slowly) through hundreds of pictures to find the one you want. It's very easy to go into "thumbnail" mode on the Canon, where scrolling around is REALLY SLOOOOOW.

5. Exceptional battery life. You can go for hours if not days of heavy shooting without recharging. The Canon Rebel's battery life isn't bad, but it's not as exceptional as this.

6. Lots of miscellaneous features. Here are two I found useful: You can change the Nikon's self-timer delay (to 2, 5, 10, or 20 seconds) whereas the Rebel's is stuck at 10 seconds. The Nikon handles auto ISO nicely: you can tell the camera exactly what threshold the shutter speed has to drop below before it will increase ISO.

These points make the Nikon fun and powerful to use. But alas, it's not perfect. There were several things I didn't like, and they affected the most important thing of all: picture quality. Here they are:

1. Color balance!!!!! The Canon rebel's white balance almost always gets it right, whereas most of the Nikon D70 pictures I took were slightly bluish or yellowish. Although the Nikon's white balance is customizable, there was no single setting that rivaled the Canon's ability to automatically correct color hues. At default settings, my Nikon pictures came out bluish in bright sun, correct in the shade, and yellowish indoors. Adjusting the automatic setting to improve one situation invariably makes others worse. I ended up setting the white balance manually for almost every shot, and also doing a lot of post-processing. For this price, I would prefer a camera that got things 90% right by itself, leaving only minor tweaks to me. I should also warn you: adjusting white balance takes a trained eye - it is no problem for a professional, but is difficult for amateurs like myself to do correctly.

2. No ISO100!!!! I have to question the sanity of the people at Nikon on this point. At ISO 200, picture noise is low, but not silky smooth like Canon photos at ISO 100, which are as close to PERFECT as I've ever seen. Those Canon pictures have so little noise you feel like you're really there, instead of looking at a photograph. It's beautiful, and the Nikon's lack of ISO 100 keeps me from fully embracing this camera, despite everything else it has to offer. Though the difference is only noticeable when cropping and enlarging, I'm often cropping interesting tidbits in my photos, which is why I bought a 6MP camera in the first place. What Nikon did is analogous to making a car that can go 200mph, but then making the engine quit everytime the speedometer hits 100.

3. JPEG compression "flattens" fine details. The Nikon's highest quality JPEG setting makes fine details look flat. By contrast, the Canon's highest JPEG setting is almost indistinguishable from RAW photos. Again, this is only noticeable when enlarging and cropping, but if you weren't going to do that, you probably didn't need a 6 megapixel camera in the first place. This is not a problem for professionals, who shoot RAW anyway, but it is a problem for folks like me who don't want every photo to be 5-10 megabytes.

All three of these shortcomings degrade the final image, and cumulatively outweigh all the nice features I liked. What's most heartbreaking about the shortcomings is that they are not limitations of the camera itself, but of the firmware/software. They could be fixed with an extensive firmware update, if Nikon wanted to release one (but they don't, as far as I know). I'm personally most upset about the lack of ISO 100 (any firmware hackers out there who can add it?)

In summary, this camera is very powerful, with a user interface that is fast, a pleasure to use, and very full-featured. But the most important thing, picture quality, lags behind the Canon Rebel. Expert photographers may be less bothered by picture quality issues because they can be mostly (but not entirely) compensated by shooting raw and post-processing. However, doing so requires gigantic memory cards, large computer hard drives, and extra conversion/processing time. Because I was looking for maximum quality at minimum hassle, I had to go with the Canon rebel in the end, despite Nikon's vastly superior user interface.

I should mention one final thing to consider: lenses. In the long run, you'll spend more on lenses than on the camera itself, and you'll also keep them longer, so it's worth looking into the lenses you'll want. I happen to like image-stabilized zoom lenses (for cloudy days, twilight, and indoors) and Canon has a much better selection of these than Nikon. On the flip side, the Nikon may be more compatible with third party lenses, particularly those by Sigma. This is a big deal because there are some very good (and relatively cheap) lenses by Sigma, and because Sigma lenses have trouble staying compatible with Canon bodies, but seem to work stably and well on Nikon bodies.


Rating:
Summary: No Mode on Display?
Review: What is up Nikon? How do I know what mode I am in when it is dark? Sure there is a backlite LCD panel but it doesn't tell you what mode you are in. And since the program dial just spins around you can't count back what mode you are in either. I guess I will have to carry around a pocket light. Why did Nikon take away such a basic feature. Also the AF illumin. light doesn't stay on long enough and takes too long for it to light up again. Oh and fix the dust on the CCD issue. Come on camera guys we are forking over thousands of dollars for this stuff and still dealing with dust? Even the cheaper digitals have solved the problem. Overall not a bad camera. WB is too warm on A with flash. Nikon still has some homework to finish.