D70 first light.

First thoughts on my new hateful digi.

I am familiar with Nikons and I felt very much at home with the controls on the D70. After on half hour of playing with the menu I was reasonably familiar with these settings. This is not to say I know the difference between fine, normal, and basic image quality but that I do know how to select them. Hopefully knowing the nitty-gritty of the difference will come with use. Everything is so familiar that so far I have only had to open the manual for one feature. I had to go, appropriately enough to page 13, because I couldn’t figure out how to attach the neck strap. You have to hate it when it is so complicated that you must read the manual.

While the build is good it is not up to the calibre of my Nikon F90 or F5 but that is to be expected as it is based on the F70 body. It fits well in my hands, because they are small hands, it fits me better than the F5 but then not quite as well as an F90, all in all a very comfortable fit. Although it is a light plastic body it is surprisingly well balanced with the Nikkor 35 – 70 mm f2.8 macro lens attached.

This morning I set the camera to my preferences. Turning off things like image review, flash pop-up, focus assist lamp, set sharpening to "non" and so on and so on. I want to take control, not Nikon! Finally I set the camera to Aperture priority. This morning, after a very busy yesterday I, did manage to snap a few of some flowers in my garden. The first thing I noticed is the warm up time, The camera was ready to shoot in a shorter time that it took me to move my finger from the on/off switch to over the shutter button and a distance of about 1/4 inch. Thank god it attains focus or it would be back in the shop – I have had nothing but problems with digitals and focus. Not only is the auto focus accurate but also it is fast. Switching to manual focus is aided by a "rangefinder" and that is also accurate. The viewing screen is darker than what I am use to but still very acceptable. The Matrix meter is as good as any Nikon SLR’s (film that is) with the exception of the F5. I suspect I will be using my handheld light meter less often with this camera.

The images I got were … well … very good with some caveats. So far the quality is the best Digital I have seen but not as good as film. Please take into account I haven’t seen images taken from all digital cameras. While they will make an exceptional 8 x 10 they will not do this with cropping. With limited cropping they will make acceptable 8 x 10. While the images are very crisp there is a certain softness to them and should make very attractive portraits . Film still gives more bang in this area but the gap is not as great as what I would have expected.

So far the big disappointment in this camera is the wimpy sound of the shutter. My F5 shakes the ground when it goes off warning the world to get out of the way as I am a photographer! The D70 is a wimpy Oliver Twist "Please sir … can I take more?" Who knows maybe in the manual they will have an over ride for this.

Two surprises! First the depth of field is closer to a real SLR than a digital. For me this is a blessing but it will take a bit of digital relearning. The second is the nonsense about the 1.5 lens factor. To get the same angle of view as a 35 mm the 1.5 factor works, so a 35 mm lens on a digi gives the same coverage as a 50 mm lens on a film camera. But when it comes to magnification it is not the same looking through the view finder of a 50 mm lens gives the same magnification in either cameras. For those that want to do birding your 200 mm lens will not give the same magnification as a 300 mm!

How does this cameras stack up with a real SLR? I am not sure you should even compare film to digital as they do address two completely different needs in photography. My main complaint with digital up to now has been costly cameras that didn’t live up to my expectations. For $1500 you can have the Digital version of a $360 SLR. Digi SLR cameras are still costly they this one, so far, is behaving as I expect a camera to. On balance what you give up in image quality your will gain in convenience. What you don’t want to do is compare a D70 against a F100 at the same price. My advice is first body film, second body digital … but that is how I think.

I opened with the term "new hateful digi" This sort of a joke but the fact is it will have to earn a better title as everyone knows I have not been a big fan of Digital cameras. I do have guarded optimism for this new Camera.

g.