Nikon D70 Review - The digital camera I was waiting for

I have owned several digital cameras over the last 5 years. The last before the D70 was the Nikon Coolpix 995. I loved the versatility of the 995, but despised the delay between pictures. You learn to live with this little fault, but it does cause you to miss certain shots.

With the D70, I can use all my Nikkor lenses, I get superb images (that I cannot tell from film 99% of the time) and I finally get the speed that I was used to with my Nikon 8008s. A comment that I read in another review was a good one - keep the manual handy for the first few weeks. It will prove invaluable.

Some reviewers on the web have mentioned the "soft" quality of the pictures taken with the D70. This can be controlled by setting the sharpness setting via the menus on the camera. If you have software that allows you to manipulate RAW images, you can also control the sharpness via the software controls without much reduction in quality.

The camera has a very good ergonomics, with the minor exception of the aperture dial, which is on the front of the handgrip, the multi-directional pad, and the exposure lock button which is easy to hold, but also easy to slip off of before you take your shot.

Battery life is exceptional, even when using flash 40-50% of the time. I keep an extra battery charged at all times, but rarely need it in the field. With a 1 gb compact flash card I get over 90 shots while shooting both a RAW image and a basic JPEG one at the same time. I do this so that I can have a shot to send away quickly via email if needed. Nice feature.

Overall, I love the camera. Friends who see the printed images are blown away when they find out they are from a digital camera. If you have Nikon system lenses from the last ten years and were waiting for the right digital SLR to use them with, look no further.

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