Nikon D70 Review

Digital SLR cameras trigger a real (buying) frenzy among many enthusiasts. At the latest since Nikon has declared war on his arch-rival Canon and announced with the Nikon D70 his version of an entry-level camera with SLR and interchangeable lens compatibility, even people who have affinities to the Nikon brand or are already covered with Nikon products from the SLR range no longer have to look enviously at EOS 300D owners or even consider a system change.

Short evaluation Of The Nikon D70

Pros

• wireless (i)TTL control also with built-in flash
• Interchangeable lens system
• excellent workmanship for entry-level model
• hardly limited range of functions and settings
• DSLR-typical image quality and responsiveness

Cons

• “Economy” viewfinder (see under “Ergonomics And Workmanship”)
• AA/Mignon cells can also not be used optionally
• USB 2.0 not high-speed
• limited backward compatibility
• pronounced color moiré formation

With the Nikon D70, there is a whole philosophy connected in more than one respect. As with many philosophical questions, one can debate for hours whether the Nikon D70 is “the right one” for someone or not. We have tried to look at the camera from as objective a point of view as possible.

 

 

Ergonomics and Workmanship Of The Nikon D70

The D70 weighs in at 680 grams (without lens) with external dimensions of 140 x 111 x 78 mm and is therefore neither the lightest nor the most delicate entry-level DSLR on the market. But in spite of the plastic dress, it makes a very robust and high-quality impression; in the important places (bayonet, flash shoe, tripod thread) you find real metal instead of polycarbonate.

In general, the housing material used is nobler by classes than in the direct rival Canon EOS 300D; but the D70 doesn’t quite come close to the “look & feel” of the D100. Although there is (unfortunately) no optional battery or portrait handle for the D70, the camera lies well and firmly in the hand – at least as long as you stay in landscape mode. For a Nikon camera, the D70 is pleasantly reserved and beginner-friendly when it comes to operation: the otherwise typical Nikon mania of protecting almost every control element (switches, wreaths, buttons) from accidental adjustment by pressing an unlock button and making dangerous functions (exposure correction, formatting command, delete, etc.) accessible only by pressing a combination of keys is limited with the D70.

Only the reset to factory settings, the formatting function and the manual selection of the AF field via the navigation field are equipped with such security mechanisms; for everything else, there is either free access via the corresponding keys or one has to make a trip into the menu system of the camera. In any case, Nikon has managed to create a balance between controls and menu control in the D70, making camera control as intuitive as possible.

 

The exposure values for the D70 DSLR are typically entered via two dials (one on the handle at the front and one within thumb’s reach on the camera back) and displayed both in the viewfinder and on the monochrome liquid crystal display (which can also be illuminated at the touch of a button, e.g. for night shots) on the top of the camera.

Due to the system – like all DSLRs with oscillating mirrors – no visual control of the exposure in the viewfinder or on the LC color screen is possible; the latter is generally not in operation in the shooting mode and serves exclusively for the image reproduction and the function setting over four menu levels (with reminder of the last selected entry).

The screen size (1.8″) and resolution (130,000 pixels) is more than enough for displaying the menus, but to check the sharpness of the captured images in playback mode with the magnifying glass function, the screen is a bit small and the resolution a bit too tight.

Nikon has also made some savings on the optical viewfinder. Although it offers the usual comfort of an SLR viewfinder for focus control, there are also differences in quality among SLR viewfinders. The D70’s viewfinder is not only narrower and darker than the D100’s “peep box”, but is also not as comfortable as the big sister’s viewfinder in terms of diopter settings (only -1.6 to +0.5 dpt.) and interpupillary distance (18 mm).

Lens

The D70 has a huge park of hundreds of lenses to choose from. This also includes other brands (e.g. Sigma, Tamron or Tokina) and even older Nikkors. There are no or less serious incompatibilities with Nikon, e.g. when using some third-party lenses on (D)SLR cameras from Canon, at least with lenses of a newer design.

Older lenses like the Ai and Ai-S lenses as well as the first generation AF lenses from Nikon are mechanically compatible, but due to the lack of a distance chip (more about this in the “Image quality” section) and/or electronic aperture transmission, they lead to more or less severe functional losses (3D measurement, matrix measurement, automatic program control, automatic timer). Also, the image quality of the D70 – as with most DSLRs – is more tied to the lens than with 35 mm SLR cameras, so that you can’t use every lens you might have at home without restrictions anyway.

The optimal combination of lens and camera has to be chosen correctly if you want to exploit the full performance potential of the D70, and you may not be able to avoid buying a new one. Of course, it is difficult to keep track of the entire confusion of designations for Nikon lenses. For example, the abbreviation AF-S stands for lenses with so-called “Silent Wave” technology (the Nikon counterpart to Canon’s USM lenses); VR stands for “Vibration Reduction” and reveals that an optical image stabilizer is built into the lens.

Furthermore, you should remember the terms DX (DSLR-“optimized” lens series from Nikon), ED (lenses with very low refractive index) and G (lenses without aperture ring that do not work together with mechanical Nikon cameras).

All you then have to consider is the focal length extension factor or the shortening of the image angle; thanks to the uniform sensor size of the Nikon D-series cameras, you only have to multiply the focal length indication on the lens by 1.5 in order to calculate the 35mm equivalent.

 

The AF module Multi-CAM 900, which is used in the D70, is already familiar to DSLR enthusiasts from the D100 and F80, so it’s no wonder that the autofocus of the D70 has the same features.

The sensitivity range of the autofocus system is from IL -1 to IL 19 at ISO 100, which means that the AF still responds even with brighter candlelight. If the light or the subject contrasts are not sufficient, the autofocus can fall back on the built-in bright white auxiliary light of the camera or an attached flash unit; a perfect function of the autofocus is only guaranteed from a lens light intensity of F5.6. Where the camera has focused can be determined by the corresponding markings in the viewfinder.

Five cross-shaped AF fields are available; they are selected either manually via the control field or automatically. You can set whether the camera is to find out the position of the main subject independently or whether the measurement field that corresponds to the nearest part of the image is to be selected.

The activation of the focus tracking function is also hidden in the settings menu. It would have been more convenient and faster to change the switch (e.g. with the D100); Nikon saved on the wrong end here. By the way, the D70 is a predictive sharpness tracking system; not only is the sharpness constantly adjusted, but the direction and speed of moving subjects are also taken into account in order to correct the focusing on the basis of the predicted movement. The bottom line is that the autofocus of the D70 DSLR is typically “extremely fast” (see measured value table).

For those who prefer to do their own work, AF-S lenses do not even require the AF switch to be turned from AF to M and can rotate the focus ring directly – both in single-frame mode and when focus tracking is switched on.

Camera Flash

As befits a beginner camera (which the D70 is in its class), the D70 has a built-in miniature flash. The “light dispenser” hidden in the viewfinder box jumps out of its resting position either automatically or at the push of a button and takes enough distance from the optical axis to avoid red “rabbit eyes” quite effectively even without the help of the not exactly discrete “spotlight” (lamp between lens and handle), which serves as a red-eye reduction device.

Due to the relatively high initial sensitivity of the camera of ISO 200, the “dwarf flash” sees itself slightly “doped”; however, the performance of 16.5, which we determined as the guide number, is still considerable even when calculated down to ISO 100. In general, the internal flash does not show any weaknesses: Shadowing effects only occur with lenses with a larger diameter, the flash cover is otherwise very good and the color temperature of the flashlight is absolutely neutral. Functions and settings are also available.

In addition to the red-eye correction function mentioned above, there is also a flash exposure correction setting and a long-term sync function – the latter of course with sync on the 1st or 2nd shutter curtain.

But the most impressive feature of the D70 flash is the i-TTL metering and control introduced with the D2H. This makes flash exposure more precise. Nikon has long included the distance information transmitted by the (AF-D) lens in the calculation of the optimal exposure, but until now a separate measuring cell was dedicated to the flash. With iTTL technology, the camera uses one and the same measuring cell to measure ambient light and flashlight. The result is a much more natural balance between the two light sources.

For this purpose, the camera emits an ultra-short (invisible to the human eye) measuring flash directly in front of the main flash. The 3D color matrix measuring cell, which is actually dedicated to measuring ambient light and which measured ambient light shortly before, then measures the flash reflected from the subject, determines the correct flash exposure and adjusts it to the exposure for the ambient light – all before the actual exposure begins.

This, of course, requires a perfect synchronization of camera and flash as well as a fast processor, which is able to evaluate all information milliseconds before exposure. This opens up even more possibilities and so the D70’s iTTL technology also opens up flash metering storage and wireless TTL flash control (compared to SU-4 technology with distribution of flash power and triggering on different channels). A similarly powerful flash system is only available from Canon in the form of E-TTL-II technology, which is currently only supported by a single DSLR (the EOS 1D Mark II). Unlike Canon, the wireless TTL flash control in the D70 even works with the built-in flash as the control flash – Canon, on the other hand, relies on expensive accessories (EX550 system flash or ST-E2 transmitter as control device).

The only drawback of the iTTL technology is that the electronic requirements of the flash unit are also very high and only the integrated miniature flashes and the new SB-800 and SB-600 plug-in flashes meet the technical requirements. In TTL mode, the D70 persistently rejects any flash that is not an SB-800 or SB-600. If you already own another system flash unit from the Nikon SB product family or a flash unit from a third-party manufacturer (e.g. Metz or Sigma), you will inevitably have to operate the flash in its own automatic mode – which means that you not only have to make certain settings manually, but also no longer benefit from the precision of iTTL technology. Finally, it should be noted that the maximum flash sync time for the D70 is 1/500 s; this does not even require a high-speed flash sync function (which lowers power).

Picture quality

As expected, the D70 delivers first-class images. Of course the image quality, as with all digital SLR cameras with interchangeable lens systems, is strongly dependent on the lens used, but in general it demonstrates quite impressively the superiority of large-area sensors over the fingernail-sized image converters of the best compact digital cameras – especially with regard to low noise. Thanks to 8-megapixel CCDs and relatively high-resolution optics, the compact digital camera models from the prosumer league can certainly keep up with a D70 in terms of resolution, but they have to throw in the towel as soon as you turn the sensitivity screw or play with the ISO setting. Even at the ISO 1,600 level, the D70 still produces excellent images without post-processing; noise generally occurs at a low, very good level and is particularly noticeable as brightness noise independent of the color channel.

The only drawback of the iTTL technology is that the electronic requirements of the flash unit are also very high and only the integrated miniature flashes and the new SB-800 and SB-600 plug-in flashes meet the technical requirements. In TTL mode, the D70 persistently rejects any flash that is not an SB-800 or SB-600. If you already own another system flash unit from the Nikon SB product family or a flash unit from a third-party manufacturer (e.g. Metz or Sigma), you will inevitably have to operate the flash in its own automatic mode – which means that you not only have to make certain settings manually but also no longer benefit from the precision of iTTL technology. Finally, it should be noted that the maximum flash sync time for the D70 is 1/500 s; this does not even require a high-speed flash sync function (which lowers power).

Picture quality Of The Nikon D70

As expected, the D70 delivers first-class images. Of course, the image quality, as with all digital SLR cameras with interchangeable lens systems, is strongly dependent on the lens used, but in general, it demonstrates quite impressively the superiority of large-area sensors over the fingernail-sized image converters of the best compact digital cameras – especially with regard to low noise. Thanks to 8-megapixel CCDs and relatively high-resolution optics, the compact digital camera models from the prosumer league can certainly keep up with a D70 in terms of resolution, but they have to throw in the towel as soon as you turn the sensitivity screw or play with the ISO setting. Even at the ISO 1,600 level, the D70 still produces excellent images without post-processing; noise generally occurs at a low, very good level and is particularly noticeable as brightness noise independent of the color channel.

With the zoom lens included in the D70 kit (AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED from the DX series), the D70 shows a very high resolution and sharpness of detail. The resolution is good both in the center and at the corners of the image and the edge drop is minimal.

However, this does not necessarily apply to every combination of lens and camera. With the lenses of the DX series, however, Nikon has very carefully adapted the image circle to the uniform CCD/image converter format of the in-house DSLR family (D series) and optimized the optical imaging performance accordingly. This even succeeded so well that it beat the Canon kit (EOS 300D + EF-S 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6) to the head and in some cases even degraded the necessity of lenses with telecentric lens architecture to theory.

A part of the high-resolution impression and the sharpness of detail is certainly also due to the aggressive sharpening of the images. But here Nikon has obviously done too much of a good thing. In order to counteract moiré effects, the CCD sensor of the D70 is also equipped with a so-called low-pass or anti-aliasing filter. If this is too strong, the moiré effects are almost completely suppressed, but unfortunately, this also results in a drastic deterioration of the image sharpness, which can partly be compensated by sharpening the images again.

If the camera sharpens the images too much, however, the low-pass filter loses its effect and the moiré effects regain the upper hand. And that’s exactly what happens with the D70. The high detail sharpness of the D70 is paid for with a pronounced color moiré – unless you take the pictures in RAW/NEF format and use the included conversion software, which offers a more balanced relationship between moiré suppression and sharpness. Further, more or less visible, image disturbances still exist in the form of brightness artifacts. Color fringes (blooming and/or chromatic aberrations) and compression artifacts are not recognizable.

If the set lens makes a good impression in terms of resolution, the distortion and vignetting are different. The barrel-shaped distortion at the wide-angle end is similarly pronounced as with the integrated zooms of the compact digital camera fraction (DSC-F828, Dimage A1/A2, Pro1, C-8080 Wide Zoom, etc.) and vignetting also has some prosumer camera fixed lenses better under control.

But these are object-specific issues and so the result can be better or worse from lens to lens. More camera-specific is the exposure, the dynamic range, and the color rendering. There is the least to complain about in terms of exposure precision. No wonder, since the D70 uses the same measuring cell as the professional 35 mm SLR camera F5 and numerous other analog and digital professional bodies from Nikon. Thanks to 1,005 pixels, the Mini RGB CCD, which is responsible for the exposure measurement, not only has a larger number of metering “fields” than conventional multi-field metering cells but is also able to roughly consider the color of the subject or color dominant in addition to the usual information (light distribution).

Together with the distance information provided by a chip in the D, G and DX series lenses, the “artificial intelligence” of the camera can create a “profile” of the subject, which is compared with the information in a kind of “subject database”. This form of “scene recognition”, which is called 3D color matrix measurement at Nikon, is already eight years old and can now be described as fully developed. The quality and stability of the exposure is beyond any doubt and the result can also be seen in the most perfectly exposed images. Even the slight underexposure (approx. 1/3 aperture) is absolutely normal or DSLR-typical, as digital SLR cameras tend to expose a little more tightly to reduce the risk of corroded lights. The CCD of the D70 can cope with a contrast difference of approximately 8.6 f-stops and is also quite capable of bringing it across in the images.

In principle, there is also nothing wrong with the color rendering and/or the precision of the white balance (of course, the manual white balance provides the best results); one did not expect anything else from a digital SLR camera of Nikon.

Miscellaneous And Special Functions For The Nikon D70

The functional range of the D70 is limited to the essentials – there is no room for “gimmicks”. Due to the system, there is no video function (only a playback option for the recorded photos via the video output); there is also no voice memo or dictation function as with the D100 due to the lack of a microphone.

As a starter camera, however, the D70 has a fully automatic mode and six scene modes (portrait, landscape, close-up, sports/action, landscape at night, portrait at night) and advanced shooting functions, including in the form of an exposure bracket function, a grid that can be displayed in the viewfinder, selectable metering characteristics (matrix/multi-field, center-weighted integral, spot), variable light sensitivity levels (ISO 200-1.600), various white balance settings (automatic, presets, manual) and a remote trigger function.

Of course, the D70 has a continuous mode (see table of measured values); at low resolution, the camera processes the images so quickly that there is always enough space left in the – generous and efficiently managed – buffer memory for new images and one can thus practically speak of an “endless continuous mode”.

Very useful are the special functions for adjusting and/or selecting the image parameters (sharpening, image contrast, image brightness, color saturation, color balance, hue, color space), for creating a JPEG image when shooting in RAW/NEF format, for personalizing the camera via the 25 individual functions, for linking the spot measurement with the active AF field and for switching on the noise reduction.

Since the technical possibilities are quite limited in recording mode due to the SLR architecture, most of the functions are available in playback mode. An almost stepless playback zoom allows closer viewing of certain image areas; the captured images can also be rotated (automatically if desired), deleted, protected, displayed as a slide show, labeled (via a virtual keyboard) and printed or pre-marked for printing.

The D70 supports the USB direct printing standard PictBridge, so you can connect the camera directly to a compatible printer and control printing from the camera. Furthermore, in playback mode, various image information (recording parameters, histogram, highlighting of lights/shadows) can be displayed on the LC screen and – also via the virtual keyboard – folders can be renamed.

Finally, it should be mentioned that the D70 recognizes the FAT16 and FAT32 file systems (and thus can handle storage capacities of more than 2 GByte), supports Lexar’s Write Acceleration technology and, thanks to PTP and USB Mass Storage Class compatibility, does not require a driver installation on computers with a reasonably up-to-date operating system.

What a pity that the full speed potential of the USB 2.0 interface is not exploited when connecting to the computer. Nonetheless, the D70 has a wide range of functions and features for a beginner DSLR and, especially with regard to the possible interventions, it makes a much less “castrated” impression than its direct competitor Canon EOS 300D.

Bottom Line For The Nikon D70

The Nikon D70 offers a high level of technology, excellent expandability and a wide range of system accessories, familiar handling, especially for 35mm SLR converters, the image quality and performance (e.g. AF speed) that DSLRs are known for, and a price that brings the dream of a digital SLR camera within reach. These are many attractions that can tempt you to buy a DSLR like the D70.

But do not forget to mention that compact digital cameras and other DSLR systems also have some virtues and that the price you have to pay to enter the DSLR sky can be significantly higher than the price for a naked camera. If you want to make full use of the technological performance potential of the D70, you may have to make expensive new purchases, as the D70 does not perform at its best with every lens and/or flash unit and does not guarantee full functionality. So to answer the question in the introduction: Yes, Nikon D70 receives our blessing! But as so often in life, one should only give the adored one the yes-word after careful consideration, in order to then enter into the covenant of life (or product cycle) without regret …

PowerGrips from Hoodman for Nikon D70/D70s

Nikon does not offer battery handles for its entry-level DSLRs D70 and D70s. In contrast to owners of Canon beginner models, Nikon-freaks had to do without the power capacity and handling improving PowerGrips. The US manufacturer Hoodman Corporation, Torrance/California, has recognized this handicap and for the first time is launching vertically operable battery handles for the Nikon D70 and D70s models under the name “PowerGrip”.

The timing of the US manufacturer Hoodman’s offer (also applicable in the European Union) is not wrong either: Just in time for Christmas, the vertical battery handles that many digital photographers had longed for and that Nikon did not offer itself are now available from a third-party supplier. In particular, customers of the popular D70, the first digital entry-level SLR camera from professional manufacturer Nikon, have been left behind so far: The longed-for multifunctional battery parts are still not on offer from the Japanese manufacturer. Many photographers consider them indispensable. Not only because it doubles the battery capacity of the notoriously hungry appliances. Also, the better camera balance when using flashes and telephoto lenses, as well as the additional vertical handle, are appreciated plus points.

The American accessories specialist Hoodman is now filling the gap: His “PowerGrips” are professional battery parts with integrated vertical release, which have been available worldwide for all Nikon D70s and D70s since the beginning of October 2005.

Measured values

Measured values
Switch-on time	approx. 0.3 s
Focal length adjustment Number of stepsTime Wide angle to Tele	manually on the objective–
Autofocus speed	min. 0.2 s / approx. 0.5 s / max. 1.2 s (depending on subject and shooting conditions)
Shutter release delay	< 0,1 s
Flash measured guide number	16.5 (at ISO 200)
Battery runtime	> 500 shots
Storage times RAW JPEG TIFF	approx. 2.9 s (5.2 MByte) approx. 1.8 s (2.3 MByte) -triggering  possible during storage
Serial pictures Used Resolution Speed Count with Flash	3.008 x 2,000 Approx. 3.1 images/sec .10 pictures with external flash

Nikon D70 Datasheet