Hey guys, Well I finally made a dream come true and orderd a Nikon D70 Digital SLR today! I will be on vacation in Lake Tahoe for march break, so i got it shipped to the people's house that we are staying at so I can use it out there. I was just wondering if there are any tips or tricks that you could offer on this camera? I have read many reviews, but I would love to get some feedback from actual owners. Here is the link to the package I got off E-bay http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt...3879413033&rd=1 Thanks alot! Lucas
I can not view the eBay listing as it is for Canada. What did you get? The D70 is a great camera. I have had mine since November and love it. It is a very capable camera and there are many great lenses for it. Read the manual and take a lot of pictures. The camera can do so much it can get to be overwelming. What kind of photography will you be doing? I would suggest visiting the photo forums. Two that I visit are http://www.dpreview.com and http://www.nikonians.org. Also this is another good site with reviews: http://www.kenrockwell.com/index.htm. If you visit http://www.pbase.com you can do a search and see pictures taken with the D70 to get an idea of what it can do. Hopefully 'fastautos' will respond as he shots with a D70, takes great photos and gave me some help before I bought mine. If you like bird shots take a look at the thread that I started about a nest in our yard, all the shots were done with a D70: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46936
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3879413033 That is the correct link to check it out Just helping out.........
Although I personally do not own the D70 I do, however, have a lot of experience with Nikon DSLR cameras. The best tip of all would definitely be to read the manual. Yes, I know that manuals are a pain in the butt most of the time but they are a big help in learning all of the terminology, and are very helpfully getting to know the basic understanding of how the camera functions. After you read the manual its basically trial and error and lots of practice. A good Website to look into for helpful information would be www.fredmiranda.com . I too, wouldnt mind at all answering any questions that you might have. Tyler
Congrats Lucas!! Nice camera..I know you will put it to good use. Probbaly the best money you will spend..think of it as an investment for your future!
Here are my tips in reverse order of importance: 1. Ditch the "AUTO" mode. 2 of my current favorites are the night scenic mode and the night protrait mode. 2. White balance on the manual modes is good to mess with. Really can affect colors 3. Most important IMO... take tons of pictures. It's a digital camera so go nuts. Just when you think you've taken enough, take more. I've had my camera for about 3 months and I get better every week I use it.
I would reccommend P mode, it allows you to change settings, but limits you slightly to keep the pictures looking good in the eye of the camera. Nikoians is an excellent site for asking questions, and is like FChat for Nikons! I would reccommend getting a second battery,Bruce sells them and has a pretty good price, and a second Flash card. 1gb will give you about 189 pictures in the RAW format which is the best for post editing, or about 263 I think in the large JPEG format, but it is nice to have a backup incase one breaks, or if you are taking pictures and can't dump onto a computer. Feel free to ask me any questions, I have had mine since December and love it. Congrats Craig
I DONT recommend either the battery or the card. The camera comes with an adapter so you can purchase some off regular brand batteries to use in the camera (LR2 or something). Ive seen these at walmart. Ive run several hours in a single charge with the factory battery. Keep in mind the CCD and the LCD are not active when your not taking the pictures, the only thing thats running when your "on" is the lightmeter, which doesnt consume that much power. Two batteries is an overkill. The bigger card is a waste as well. You can shoot 2-300 pictures with a 512 meg card in a mixed large HQ / mid HQ modes. I WOULD recommend a FAST card, like the lexar 20x cards (anything with fast writes). This is one of the few cameras that can shoot about 15 shots in a row which makes for GREAT action shots, but the memory card is the bottleneck and will quit shooting after 6 or 7 if the card cant keep up. Invest in a good tripod. Overall Im super happy with my camera. I have cheapo sigma lenses on mine, and Im still blown away by the quality. More then enough for my personal needs.
Ok, Here is my take on the previous comments- As for the battery, I have killed mine more than once on a full day of shooting. At the North American International Autoshow I killed my first battery and went halfway through the second one. In a day of shooting at the autoshow my friend and I shot roughly 2100 pictures in RAW format and this took us 11 full 1 gig cards(I believe, it may have been 10, I don't remember). In a weekend, I could definatly drain two batteries and shoot two gigs of pictures no problem. As for the multiple shot thing, an 80x lexar pro card I have shot 189 RAW's in a row.. just to test the camera and see what it would do. I stopped because my finger was tired, not because of the camera. I guess to each his own, but for me, when I go out for a day I always have the potential of stumbling on something that is worth taking pictures of, and would like to be able to do so. If I go for a weekend trip camping or biking or boating, the laptop doesn't come with me so there is no place to offload pictures, also usually not a place to recharge batteries either. If you are using the camera in a studio, or close to home where you can offload pictures and charge on a daily basis, then I guess you can just stick with one battery and card, I usually shoot out of my house and often far away from power or computers so I want enough power and memory to get me through. Why you would ever shoot in medium is beyond me, I shoot in fullsize, and resize afterwords if necessary. If you spend $1100 on a camera, you can drop $60 on a 1 gig Lexar 80x Professional card and maybe $30 on a battery so that you can shoot for a weekend if you want to. Lucas, I assume that you have a tripod judging from some of the other shots of yours that I have seen. I am not sure. One other item you will want is an external USB2 compact flash card reader if you don't have one. Unloading the pictures from the camera is damn slow and will kill your battery. Hope this helps. Craig
I just purchased this camera a few weeks ago and agree with the additional battery and memory cards. If you have a failure on a memeory card and do not have a backup you are out of luck for the shoot. I bought these and the card reader for my computer on Amazon. They had the best prices I could find. There is also a very nice soft case specifically made for this camera if you are so inclined again get it off Amazon.
My Lexar media card came with a short USB adapter and some software that let me do memory card restores/formats/recovers. Shooting RAW is an overkill for me. I cant tell the difference between a huge JPG and a RAW to be honest with you. I have never spent an entire day shooting with the camera, Ive spent several 2-3 hour sessions in a row shooting, with never going to half on the battery meter. I also dont shoot with the flash. Im guessing if you fill up two 1 gig memory cards full of raw photos with full flash, your going to have battery problems. I would go with the basics first, if you run out of juice or space, then upgrade, dont be blowing money on extras if your not sure you need them yet. Just my input. Have fun!
Well, yesterday was one of the better days of my life. I got home from school to see a huge box with a whole bunch of goodies in it, including my D70! This camera is AMAZING! The shutter is instant and powerup is the same is the same as a normal SLR. I took a few pics outside today (sorry, no Ferrari's running around in -10 weather!). I was really surprised on how well they came out. Thanks again for all your help, and enjoy the pictures! Lucas http://givemealook.com/ipw-web/gallery/album345
CONGRATS MAN! I got mine this week too! (Wednesday). Amazing camera. You'll love it. GET THIS: http://www.bythom.com/d70guide.htm It will teach you everything about the camera and is well worth it. Its 500 pages long and i'm going to print my copy off at the weekend and get it bound as a paperback at Kinkos. I'm a member of Nikonians and go on the dpreview forums too (have to be 18 to register though). They are great places and there are TONS of knowledgeable people there to help you out PM Me if you want to talk/share tips/tricks Best Chris