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12 out of 12 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"in the end, best camera I've ever used"
Pros: speed, build quality, speed, image quality, speed, ease of use. Have I said already... speed??
Cons: It could have 8 MP and it could meter with MF lenses
Summary: Hi,
I own an F100 (and an FM2n), with several AF and MF Nikkor lenses. My digital compact is a Sony S85 and just bought a Nikon D70 with the 18-70 lens. And I'm thrilled!
The F100 was the perfect extension to my photographic mind, I love it and it's the absolute best camera I've ever used (and I've used quite a few, among SLRs, medium format, compacts and compact digitals). BUT, since I bought the D70 I'll never use it again, unless someone makes a really good and affordable digital back for it!
I'm using my D70 since day one with the 2.0 firmware set, which was already available for a few days when I bought the camera, so I don't know how it's to use the D70 with previous versions of it's firmware set (mine came with 1.2 and 1.3 firmwares), but it's so great I couldn't let it go the first day I used it. My right hand got hurt from the ultra-heavy use in just 5 hours of index and thumb fingers - I took 500 pictures in this time period! Then I went do Barcelona, Spain, for 6 days and took 2200 pictures - I got NONE out of focus, underexposed or overexposed. I repeat: NONE, out of 2200. I took them all in P mode, which is the same flexible program I got in the F100, although in the F100 I always used aperture priority, because my lenses all have the aperture ring in the camera, which I prefer, so I used it always. But the P flexible program is almost the same, within the reach of the right thumb, so, no complaints, took 1/2 hour to get used to it.
It's image quality is really great up to ISO 800, and very usable at ISO 1600. It's colours are all beautiful and natural, plus you have three colour spaces to choose from (sRGB Ia, sRGB IIIa and AdobeRGB)!
It focuses (with the supplied 18-70) in a snap and really allows you to work as fast as you think, it's that great. Of course it helps to have a fast and large card (I have a 2 GB Hitachi microdrive).
And you can't believe the quality of the NEF (RAW) format sharpness and colours... but mainly the sharpness, which is perfect.
NOTE: You don't need to buy anything to take advantage of the RAW format! The supplied software is completely capable of converting your RAW images. Only if you want to take full advantage and have full manipulation capabilities of RAW images you have to buy extra software from Nikon.
In the end, believe me, the D70 is the best thing for any enthusiast and demanding photographer (not hardcore professional, for those there is the Dx line) since the F100
Cheers!
Fernando Martins
