Summary: The nikon D70 is a great no excellent dslr camera that has a very good ergonomics lots and lots of features (now own it for more than a year and hardly know 1/3 of what is possible wtih this camera) . there are s lot of manual features (may be too many) though it is not as complicated as you might expect it to be.
it is a heavy weight camera and that weight and the size of it to keep it steady. it is a camera you have to get used to ( like a wetsuit you have to fit) but once you are using it more and more you will notice that in fact nikon helps you to get the best out of it.
most of the time i shoot in P mode and i use the widow and the child mode(RAW+JPEG BASIC) to always have a backup (RAW) to edit something that cannot be edited in the jpeg basic. The nef file is large and by using a image program for nikon allmost everything can be changed afterwards.
example :
you are taking pictures in the sun, see a church , forget to change the white balance , enter the curch and shoot and also forget the ev compasation .
well in nef those two things can be changed to the correct settings, the meanis is that you decide what needs to be changed and not the camera
the resolution might seem low but it still is 6 mega pixel on a large dx sensor and it is real pixels (not interpollated or so) the speed is fantastic , when compared to digital compacts but also the compatition dslr's .
the display is small but it is possible to zoom in on detail of the taken picture to see if ti is razor sharp, after a few days intensive playing you will have understood the basic of what this camera can , don't forget to buy a decent lens , because the lens and it's qualty is a great deal of the picture.
Strengths: great control
very good ergonomics
sharp and very good images
design and the brand
and many many more
Weaknesses: small lcd display (back) (oly the size is the reason for puting it here)
Summary: This was my first DSLR, but not my first Nikon. I've always had good luck with all my Nikon products. That's why I chose to buy a Nikon DSLR. I've had my D70 for a few years now and couldn't be happier with it. I purchased the kit lens (AF-S Nikkor 18-70mm 3.5-4.5 G ED) which has given me excellent results. I shoot just about everything: portraits, landscapes, travel, architecture. When new, this was a perfect entry-level DSLR, but a little pricey. You can now pick up a used D70 for only a few hundred dollars and at that price, it makes an excellent digital camera for the first-time DSLR user. Or, it could be used as a very reliable back-up camera for advanced users.
Strengths: Solid build, reliable, meticulous finish, (relatively) lightweight, easy menus, logical controls, good user manual. Battery life between charges is incredibly long -- I can go weeks without recharging (of course, it depends on how many shots I take).
Weaknesses: Compared to some newer DSLRs, I find the noise a little too noticeable. especially when shooting in dark settings (indoors or night shots) or at high ISO. User manual could have a better index... at times, I've found it difficult to find a page containing just the info/answer I needed. I find the built-in flash rather useless: it doesn't have much power and always gives a bluish/grey cast. I use it only for fill-in flash outdoors and have since purchased the SB-800 external flash.
Similar Products Used: None.
Customer Service: Never had to contact Customer Service.
Summary: Be careful about this camera. I have had it for two years, and I took very good care of it seeing as it cost quite a bit, a bit too much considering the camera. After it hit the second anniversary of purchase, things started to go down hill . If you buy this camera, please get an extended warranty. Do it for me! First, the flash stopped working at random. That I could live with. Then, to my woe, I turned it on one day, took a picture, and everything was pink and green. So i took it into my neighbrhood camera repair shop and it is going to cost a lovely $400 to fix. NOT WORTH IT! Please, please, please. Either a. switch to film and maybe help the price of color film stop rising or b. get an extended warranty.(!) These things are pieces of you know whats, they are computers. Ever have a hard drive crash? That's basically what happened. They can't be trusted to the elements or time and wear. Go buy yourself a nice metal, all manual tank of a film camera. Don't waste your money. Your results will be better with film anyway, and more satisfactory. The medium is being destroyed by these stupid consumerist plastic computer chips. AND you can't even use the digital nikon lenses on their film bodies if the damn thing breaks. i probably should have checked before i bought it.
Rating Reviewed by: c valle(Unregistered User)
(Expert)
Review Date August 29, 2006
Overall Rating 5 of 5
Value Rating 5 of 5
Used product for 3 Months to 1 year
Review 4 of 61
Price Paid:
$600.00
from cAMERA SHOP USED
Summary: Great camera
Strengths: Image quality and sharpness
Flexibility
Speed
Weaknesses: A major flaw is that older manual lenses cannot be used in any metering mode
Similar Products Used: FM, EM, FE, FE2, F4, F100 with many nikkors and sigmas
Customer Service: Only experienced the battery exchange fiasco which was accomplished with no problems or cost. I have never had any of my nikon gear repaired in my 30 years of experience using nikon stuff. I do most of my own minor CLA.
Summary: I bought my D70 outfit package on April. 2004. Before then I didn't have a digital camera, I shot film, usually used Nikon F100.
I waited for a DSLR like this from Nikon for a long time since I owned some Nikon gears.
I always shoot in RAW format. The image quality is really good at ISO 200, even in 12x18 prints. This is the most important factor, so I was pretty happy with the camera until it got problems. The battery life is excellent. With one backup battery I seldom have to worry about the battery. (It can be different if you use build-in flash a lot.). The speed is good enough for me. I feel pretty comfortable to hold the camera, the control and button layout in the camera works good for me. Auto focus is quite accurate, exposure is good when it works.
I don't understand why D70 does not support cable shutter release. I have ML-L3 remote control, but it does not work well. The supplied picture Project software is very slow and buggy, not very useful. You need to pay extra ~$100 for Nikon Capture for editing RAW files. LCD cover is easy to fall off. My original one got lost in Yosemite two months after I got the camera. The image is usually very noisy at ISO >= 800.
The real problem with me is the quality. My D70 started behaving irrationally after 18 months when I was in Death Valley. I had approximate 9000 shots in it then. Exposure never locks on any mode, numbers in LCD and viewfinder display jump around wildly.
Twice got memory card access green light blinking and nothing functioning. Viewfinder display alternates between dim and bright. It give wrong flash indication even under bright sunlight. A web search showed that there are quite a few reports about this problem. I sent my D70 to Nikon customer service for repair with a detail description about problems. NIkon Eventually fixed the problem for free though they sent me $200 + SH bill initially.
Strengths: excellent image quality at ISO 200
excellent battery life.
good speed.
Control and Button layout are good, and easy an intuitive to use.
Weaknesses: Quality issue.
no cable release.
LCD cover easy to fall off.
Extra $ for Nikon Capture software
Noisy at high ISO
Plastic feel
Similar Products Used: Nikkor 50mm f1.8D AF
Nikkor 20mm f2.8D AF
Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S,
Nikkor 70-200/2.8G IFED AFS
Nikon N60, Nikon F100
and other nikon stuff
Customer Service: The web service is easy to use. But eventually you have to talk some issue on the phone with service representtives.
Originally they sent me $200 + SH bill for repairing. I was really unhappy with that. I called Nikon service twice, they kept me waiting for long time, playing ads about Nikon products. The person on the phone was not really helpful, he just told me that free service does not cover my case, but cannot tell me what was wrong exactly, saying $200 is just the average cost for repairing D70. So I just paid the bill using their online service by Credit. After 3 weeks, I got my D70 back. To my surprise, Nikon waved repairing cost, even SH fee, it states as complimentary Service in the Bill. I'm happy with that, this earns back some my royalty. But I think that Nikon should be more forthcoming about the defect in the major component that are reported by users.
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