Thinking about D70... Need advice

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 20:56:15 -0700, "Sheldon"
wrote:


I'm seriously thinking about getting a D70, but when I look at comparison
photos on the Net I'm not impressed. Most of the photos from the D70 look
kinda fuzzy to me,

Don't look at photos on the net! Look at photos out of the camera... I
can
Email you something if you like... un-touched...

Well, I used to work with all black and white and do all my own processing
and printing of 16x20 and 20x24 prints, so I was definitely a camera geek,
and miss the "hobby" part of the equation.

Me 2!! I shut down my darkroom and went digital a few years back... the hobby
has changed but it's still fun and creative!

I also did a lot of my own color
processing and mixed up my own developers for pushing film speed. I'm going
to call Nikon and see if my older lenses will fit, that will probably make a
difference, but what I like about the D70 is the fact that I can take action
photos with it (one of the few digital cameras that will), and I used to do
that professionally. I also don't mind getting out a light meter now and
then.

I would love to see a jpeg image from your D70. Could you send me a macro
of a flower or something that has a lot of detail in it?

I don't have a macro lens, just a close up filter... but I can send you
something with 'detail'... I'll 'cut' out a section of a photo and Email you -
it would be too big to send an entire picture through my Email...

That would be
great. I'll also try to hit the camera store and see if they'll let me fire
off a few shots with a D70 and some high-end P&S cameras I've been looking
at.

If you are going to test P&S cameras... don't forget to test them at high ISO...

Thanks for your insight.

Sheldon

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:47:19 -0700, "Sheldon"
wrote:

I'm seriously thinking about getting a D70, but when I look at comparison
photos on the Net I'm not impressed. Most of the photos from the D70 look
kinda fuzzy to me,

Here is a shot of a Day Lilly in our yard last Summer.
http://www.rogerhalstead.com/DayLilly.htm
this was a hand held shot.

There is a link to a crop to show the limits of that particular shot.
It would be sharp even if 2 or 3 screens wide and mine is set at 1280
X 1024. Again the crop was from the TIFF saved as a JPG.
I see no remarks as to post processing so this should be pretty much
an unretouched, or post processed image. It was shot with the 18-70
kit lens.

There are also links to a lot of shots with on Oly E-20N.
BTW, I do normally use the E-20N in the JPG mode (highest quality) as
I now use it for most ly recording images for my "builder's diary".
That and when used with TIFFs the files from the 5 megapixel E20N are
several times larger than those from the D-70. And...that e-20 N is
unbelievably slow compared to the D-70 which is almost like shooting a
35 mm SLR. It's instant on and is almost instantaneous when shooting
except for the focus time.

For the price, "I think" the D-70 is a very good value. OTOH I also
like the new Canon 20D. I happen to have a pretty good set of Nikor
lenses and the 20 D was not available when I purchased the D-70 to
that made it an easy choice. The D-70s are now available at a pretty
good discount which makes them even more appealing. The new DX lenses
appear to be of good quality as well.


and the reviews all say you can do this or that to sharpen them up, and
that's what a digital SLR is like. I've also heard complaints about dust
getting on the CCD. Yet, this camera is very highly rated. (I used to be a

Dust on the sensor is a problem with any dSLR. You learn to be
careful when changing lenses. I shoot a lot of action, outdoor
photography and often around crowds which creates a lot of dust. I
have only had dust on the sensor once since I purchased the camera and
I took delivery the first week or two they were available.

professional photographer, so the idea of trading up to a digital SLR seems
like a great idea since I have a bunch of Nikon lenses.)

Convince me why I should by the D70, as it seems to get rave reviews even
though other fixed lens cameras get better marks on picture quality.

I guess what scares me is that when you look at the reviews in PC World they
love the D70, but they give the picture quality a "very good," while they

I'd read some reviews from dpreview and others. Just do a search on
"Nikon D-70 reviews". You should find lots of them. Remember there
are reviews and then there are reviews.

give
fixed lens (zoom) cameras, costing far less, picture quality reviews of
"outstanding." Why would someone "settle" for lesser quality at that price?
It
makes no sense. Shouldn't the Nikon blow away the lesser cameras?

I think you will find it pretty much does (in most cases) with the
larger sensor and larger lenses.

There are only two things I'd change if I had the choice. I'd prefer
to be able to lock up the mirror for shooting and to have a cable
release.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Thanks

Sheldon

mc wrote:
[]
You can't put a 6-megapixel image on a web page (or a computer
screen) at full resolution.

You can with the right display - IBM make some approaching that
resolution.

David

"David J Taylor" wrote in message
...
mc wrote:
[]
You can't put a 6-megapixel image on a web page (or a computer
screen) at full resolution.

You can with the right display - IBM make some approaching that
resolution.

David

if you ask me it's a bw issue rather than one of displays...

sid

sid derra wrote:
"David J Taylor" wrote in message
...
mc wrote:
[]
You can't put a 6-megapixel image on a web page (or a computer
screen) at full resolution.

You can with the right display - IBM make some approaching that
resolution.

David

if you ask me it's a bw issue rather than one of displays...

sid

Oh, a 6MP image could easily compress down to under 1MB - I've downloaded
plenty of files that big! I would make a point of avoiding any Web site
that had such an image as a regular feature of its pages, though.

But it was the computer screen to which I was referring. The IBM T221-DG5
22.2 inch Flat Panel Monitor is 9.2 megapixels!

http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/st...3DG5&storeId=1

Cheers,
David

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 19:39:35 -0500, "mc" wrote:

"sid derra" wrote in message
...
"Sheldon" wrote in message
...
I'm seriously thinking about getting a D70, but when I look at comparison
photos on the Net I'm not impressed. Most of the photos from the D70
look
kinda fuzzy to me,

You can't put a 6-megapixel image on a web page (or a computer screen) at
full resolution. Anything you see on the Web has been downsampled to less
than a megapixel.

That's a very over-simplified sweeping statement, to the point where
it's wrong.

Many good camera review websites have full-sized samples for you to
download and see for yourself.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_...0_samples.html

--
Owamanga!

"David J Taylor" wrote in message
...
sid derra wrote:
"David J Taylor" wrote in message
...
mc wrote:
[]
You can't put a 6-megapixel image on a web page (or a computer
screen) at full resolution.

You can with the right display - IBM make some approaching that
resolution.

David

if you ask me it's a bw issue rather than one of displays...

sid

Oh, a 6MP image could easily compress down to under 1MB - I've downloaded
plenty of files that big! I would make a point of avoiding any Web site
that had such an image as a regular feature of its pages, though.

But it was the computer screen to which I was referring. The IBM T221-DG5
22.2 inch Flat Panel Monitor is 9.2 megapixels!


http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/st...y?catalogId=-8
40&langId=-1&partNumber=9503DG5&storeId=1

Cheers,
David

i suppose you have broadband? i had to live out in kansas for a year and
there was no cable provider - you would be surprised how many areas still
have to go with lo-speed internet - and those folks have a helluva hard time
downloading 1mb files on regular sites.

sid

sid derra wrote:
[]
i suppose you have broadband? i had to live out in kansas for a year
and there was no cable provider - you would be surprised how many
areas still have to go with lo-speed internet - and those folks have
a helluva hard time downloading 1mb files on regular sites.

sid

I keep trying to remind people about this, but I still find many slow Web
sites due to graphics which are too large or needless. I try and keep my
own downloads down to a few hundred KB for just the reason you mentioned,
and graphics down to 10 -30KB.

Presumably, people in Kansas could use a satellite connection?

Cheers,
David

Ed Ruf wrote:

Yes, but only as the absolutely last resort for the severely addicted. :-)
Even though DirecWay finally went to true two-way satellite ops a while
back it still isn't anywhere as quick as a good cable modem, expensive and
still there is a quota on your dls under their "Fair Access Policy" You're
limited to 169 MB after which your connection can get throttled to 47 kpbs.
http://hns.getdway.com/fap.html Cost is U$600 up front for hardware and
U$60/month for 15 months or U$99/month. Pretty steep.

What I find odd, is that as the years go by, my cable modem service is getting
faster (not slower due to subscriptions as the ADSL proponents would have it).

In 1999 when I got cable-modem, I was getting long DL's at 300 KBytes/sec tops.
Now it is not unusual to get 500 KBytes/sec sustained for 30 seconds or more
and some movie clips have sustained over 600 Kbytes/sec. Upload has gone from
20 Kbytes/sec to over 100 Kbytes/sec. Monthly DL limit is 20 GB, UL limit is 10
GB. DL'd Mandrake 10.1 a couple weeks ago at a sustained 275 KBytes/sec from
U-Indiana ... eg: 2 hours for a 2 GB iso file. No checksum errors.

--
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-- e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.