I just bought a D70 as a backup to my D100. After a few informal tests, the D100 may become the backup to the D70. The D70 seems sharper, and more competent in color management (bigger sensor for that, I believe). It also enables the Intelligent Lighting System, which intrigues me, as I'd rather work with flash than under lights. I'll conduct some controlled tests over the weekend. I've also read just about everything I can find on the Web comparing the two, and talked with two real professionals, who said they're using the D70 for news coverage, rather than older professional Nikon digitals. I'm just wondering if anyone out there on Trainboard has any insight? (Yes, I'll go haunt the Nikon forums!)
I for one would be interested in your conclusions, Pete. We're looking at getting a digital SLR as a farewell UK! parting gift for ourselves. The D70 is high on my personal list, though a Fuji S3 Pro at the 'right' price would definitely tip it off.
Hi Gary, Well, I did some "controlled" tests today. That is, I went out back and shot a series of of shots on a tripod with the D100 with three lenses (12-24, 24-85, 70-300); then I repeated the same series with the D70. I put controlled in quotes because the sky does change a bit in the ten or so minutes it took to mount cameras and switch lenses--but not very much. So it's not a lab setting but a good field setting. I shot RAW, and used Photoshop CS (with the most recent raw camera plug-in) to view results. I used the Program setting (P1) for uniformity. Both were set to Adobe 98 RGB. The results from both cameras are pretty spectacular, but the D70 won. It is just a little sharper, and the color rendition is better on my main monitor. The D100 seemed to render things a bit reddish and less contrasty, while the D70 was spot on. The D100 consistently interpreted scenes at 600 to 800 C. higher in color temperature than the D70. That is, when the D70 saw a shot at 4700 C., the D100 saw the same shot at 5500 C. Even when I backed the D100 readings down to the D70 temperatures, the D100 was still redder. I attribute this to the far more advanced color and exposure sensor in the D70. I don't have the specs on hand, but it's far more advanced that the D100 sensor. Only at 300 mm did the D100 deliver slightly sharper results--but at this focal length (35 mm equivalent 450 mm), that's probably due to camera shake, as I didn't use a cable release or a timed shutter release (the D70 doesn't have a cable release, though the D70S due this summer does). But it was still redder! This surprised me a little as the D70 uses a compressed 12-bit RAW file of about 5 Mbytes per images, while the D100 RAW file size is about 9.5 Mbytes. When expanded into Tiffs, the file sizes are the same. I haven't looked into this discrepancy. I suspect that Nikon has just gotten better in file management. It's a huge deal to me, although I'm puzzled: a 1 Gbyte card stores about 100 images on either camera. Shouldn't it be closer to 200 images on the D70? I will look into this puzzle. The D100 will shoot TIFFs, which I used before discovering the potential of shooting RAW. The D70 won't, by itself shoot TIFFs. TIFFs are the easy way out for publication; some people will not want a D70 because the in-camera processing has been crippled. Now that I've switched to raw, I've realized just how long it took a D100 to do the in camera processing to TIFF! (The D70s, I've heard, removes this limitation, but will be at least $200 USD more). I had a huge problem with Nikon software, which overwrote the raw camera plug-in on Photoshop, and essentially crippled it. I had to reload the Photoshop plug-in to restore full functionality--grrr! I've had the same problem with Nikon software since I bought the D100 three years ago! Maybe the $100 Nikon Capture is better--I'm not sure I want to go through another round of rebuilding software on a G5! Download speeds from the cameras to my computer were almost exactly the same: 650 Kbytes/sec. Now, I was under a typical load while downloading: email up, browsing the web, Photoshop active. Still seems pretty slow for a USB 2 connection. But my cards are not very fast, and are probably the limiter on speed. That's it for now. The D70 wins for most shooting situations. The D100 will remain my "studio" camera--and probably my model railroad camera. But, as I get into Nikon's Intelligent Lighting System, that may relegate the D100, which doesn't support it, to a backup role even there. I hate working under lights. In the field, I'd probably put a 12-24 lens on the D100, and a 70-300 on the D70, with a 24-85 in my vest. My wife has a 28-200 lens on a Nikon film camera, and her Sony pocket digital--believe me, she's saved my butt a number of times. I'd go with the D70 as a gift--I even like some of the modes (landscape, portrait, close-up, etc) on the main dial.
More tests. The D70 doesn't do as well at higher ISO settings (i.e., film speed). With the D70 I can detect a degradation beyond ISO 400; with the D100 this happened at ISO 800. I'm guessing this has something to do with the CCD gate: sharper at ISO 200 means more drop-off at higher speeds? This was useful to me. I'll stick the telephoto lens on the D100 and shoot at ISO 800, and use the D70 for shorter lenses. With a telephoto, color balance (a D70 strength) is not a big issue, as the field of view is small. I still haven't determined which color balance is actually correct between the two cameras. The D100 performed remarkably under difficult situations in Alaska; if I get back this year, I'll have a chance to compare. The D70 seems more real, but what is reality in color perception?
Pete, with the imminent launch of the D70s, at the same price as the D70, is there any reason to pick the 70 over the 70s?
William, If I could have waited, I would have, but I needed a backup for a photo trip. The new version has some improvements--more accurate auto-focus, a bigger diplay on the back, wider flash angle on the built-in flash, better battery, and a few other minor things. The only one that mattered to me was the auto-focus, but I've never had any detectable problems there. I find the D70 display just fine. I rarely use the built-in flash, perferring an SB-800 Speedlight. I've never had problems with battery capacity--it's impressive as is. The image rendering is identical between the old and the new, and that's what's important to me. The one sacrifice I made was the addition of a cable release to the D70S--you basically have to use the self-timer on the D70. That's clunky, but OK by me. I can't remember if there were other refinements. Apparently the D70 is Nikon's best seller of all time. I was having trouble getting one on-line (back-ordered three places), so I bought it locally (they had one body left). I did have a chance to shoot the pro 12-megapixel D2X this week, with pro lenses. The results utterly blew me away! I've also shot the Kodak 14-megapixel SLR--unimpressive compared to the D2X.
