When Going To a Gunfight, Bring a Big Gun

Let's get right to the guts of it. I love my Nikon D70. It is, without a doubt, the most powerful and versatile imaging tool I've ever laid my hands on. I've owned other superb P&S digicams, but comparing them to the D70 is an exercise in futility. The D70 ain't in the same ball park with those P&S cameras; it ain't in the same league. Hell, it ain't even the same sport. But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself.

What separates shooting a D70 from shooting a Canon A610(a most awesome P&S)? It's the firepower; pure and simple. Before a person can squeeze off a single shot with a A610 or A70, the D70 user is probably on shot number 10 already. And suppose you are shooting under tricky conditions that requires fidgeting with stuff such as white balance, exposure compensation, flash....etc, it takes 2 seconds to accomplish on the D70 whereas the same task would take perhaps 10 seconds on a A610. And don't even get me started on flash recycle time compared to a turkey like Nikon Coolpix 5600.

Any geek can give you a mouthful about how a DSLR, compared to P&S, is superior in per pixel sharpness, noise suppression, pixel count...etc, but believe me, in the end, what really makes one willing to lug that 0.7kg hunka metal & glass around isn't the reasons listed above, but rather, it's the ability to capture shots that might otherwise have been missed. A cheapo A610 can produce superb images (under ISO200), but when you are called on to shoot those once in a lifetime situations that requires a fast hand and a faster camera, you bring that D70 along with you. Trust me, it’s not in your best interest to bring a knife to a gunfight.

There are more buttons on the D70 than the Starhsip Enterprise, each with a dedicated function. This is the secret behind the fast operation. You want to change white balance on the fly? Simply hold the WB button, then rotate the control dial until you see the desired setting on the B&W LCD display on top of the camera(not the big color one on the camera’s back). Ditto for ISO, image compression, exposure compensation, metering mode, flash mode, flash compensation, bracketing, and frame advance mode. You savvy?

While newbies’s head may spin from all those photo jargons, these dedicated buttons are a godsend to a pro or seasoned amateur. Back in the late 90’s, there was a movement to remove as many buttons from the camera body as possible, then place the majority of controls through LCD menus. My old Nikon N70 (35mm film SLR) is the embodiment of this design philosophy. Thank God that movement is long dead. Amen. Once you understand the function of each button on the D70, you can change settings in a speed that just isn’t possible with lesser cameras. And as the Israeli Air Force manual says, speed is life.

Granted, the D70 is a relatively complex beast, and studying the manual is a requirement if one wishes to use it to its fullest capacity. But what I can say is that the control interface is always logical. I’ve never thought to myself : Gee, I wish those geeks at Nikon HQ could have designed this thing some other way. While newbies might object to the product’s complex nature, the rest of us can take solace in the knowledge that Nikon high-end products have always been designed by photo geeks for photo geeks. And I, as a photo geek, am one satisfied customer.

The stock 18-70mm lens definitely deserves a mention. The FOV crop is 1.5X, so in 135 photography terms, the focal length is 27-105mm. My perception of zoom lens have always been very negative, thanks to the lame 35-80mm that came with the N70. But boy, how the times have changed. This thing is fast, bright, and flexible. Shooting landscape is a dream at 18mm. No skills required; you just point and shoot. It’s so incredibly liberating. At long range of the zoom, the lens somehow retains its brightness unlike the old stuff, though the result can be slightly soft. Those nasty things such as chromatic aberration, light fall-off, soft corner…etc are virtually non-existent. On top of that, the SilentWave motor focuses fast and silent, even under low light. Amazing.

Image quality is almost on a shooter’s mind, so let’s talk about it. It’s good; darn good. What more needs to be said?

Now, I understand some people have a need to drone on and on about noise levels, sharpness…etc. Even worse, these turkeys will pour over test images and compare the D70 to say, a EOS-350D, to no end. Frankly, this is a waste of time. Fact of the matter is, image quality of top-tier cameras from top-tier manufacturers are all darn good. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Pentax *istD, Canon EOS-30D, Sony Alpha100, I haven’t heard a complaint about image quality of DSLRs in ages. Digital cameras are consumer products, not religions. Ultimately, what makes one purchase one camera over the other comes down to either personal taste or previously-made investments in lens and gear. I chose Nikon because there was a deal going on, and my brother uses the same camera, so we can share some gear. That’s all.

Is there a downside to the D70? Oh yes. I foam at the mouth whenever I get into a rant about the D70’s sole Achilles’ Heel. It’s the automatic white balance. Dpreview calls it “mediocre”. The word “mediocre” should sue. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the D70, with all of its superior optics and image processing, can be so wrong at times when it comes to white balance. You take two shots of the same subject with the same lighting, and it’s entirely possible the color balance of the two shots will come out different. It boggles the mind. In contrast, I shot thousands of images on the cheap Canon A70 before I encounter a single white balance error. And yes, I have the most up-to-date firmware loaded on the camera, so it’s not an old firmware issue. There is not a day gone by I didn’t pray that the geeks at Nikon HQ will one day release a new firmware that will fix this issue for good. Still praying.

Annoying as the white balance problem might be, it’s not so bad that it’s a deal breaker. Two reasons. First, when the D70 hits the target, which happens all the time, the result is a gorgeous photograph. When I see a picture that the D70 nails in the head, I sorta forgive it’s auto white balance funkiness. Second, the D70 works real hard to preserve the details of each image (more on this later), so when it botches the white balance, it can be easily corrected in Photoshop.

Now, what do I mean by D70 working real hard to preserve the details. Well, it’s not uncommon that one hears newbies complain Nikon DSLRs underexpose horribly. Yes, it’s true that if you are shooting backlight, anything in the shadow will be darker than a black cat in a coal mine. My old Coolpix 990 also exhibit the same characteristic.

In the old days, this behavior drove me nuts. It’s multi-segment metering, I thought, why is the camera assigning that much weight to the light segments while ignoring the dark segments completely? Poor software programming, I concluded. Wrong! The geeks at Nikon HQ weren’t poor programmers. Tom was being a poor photographer.

It wasn’t until I got my Canon A70 that it dawned on me that the Nikon cameras are smart little devices. If you take a picture of a backlighted subject with the A70, it will muster everything it’s got to get the shadows to stand out. This behavior is direct opposite of Nikon cameras, and I loved it. After awhile, however, I came to realize that in order to get the shadows to come out, the highlights are usually horribly overexposed. No big deal, just use Photoshop, right? Sadly, no. I found out that certain highlights, once overexposed, is gone for good. It will forever remain a white blob, and no software written by man can bring it back.

So, apparently, Nikon engineers know something I don’t. Nikon cameras will work hard to retain the highlight details, knowing perfectly well that in default, the shadows on the output image will look dark. But since the details are still there, the end-user simply bring’em back with a little Photoshopping. Canon’s approach, however, obliterates the highlights so that they are gone forever. But the upside is that the images are more pleasing straight out of the camera.

So, in conclusion, if you are willing to lug 0.7Kg around, you will have the in your possession enough firepower and flexibility to meet all sort of shooting conditions. The stock 18-70mm unit is fantastic, although supposedly the 18-200mm VR is even better. However, at my old age, I try to lighten up whenever I can. The only downside is the white balance, which annoys me to no-end, but it’s far from a deal-breaker.

As I write this, Nikon will soon EOL the D70 and the D70s. The reign of D80 is at hand, and I doubt you will be able to get a D70s once the D80 hits the stores. With the kind of track record Nikon has with the D70, D50, and D200, I wouldn’t hesitate to speculate that the D80 will be a worthy successor. And if, by some miracle, the D80 fixes that annoying white balance problem, I’d suggest you preorder yours now.