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Well, not me, really, but the girl-friend. So I bought a Canon Powershot a few months ago to avoid carrying a SLR around. And guess who'll probably have to carry it around half of the time now.  Still, I won't complain, not at all. What a great new toy. .gif) edit: Oh, and guess what? It's raining like mad outside. Grrr. Edited by UncleLou at 18:35:06 21-08-2004 |
Bought a Nikon D70 today \o/
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Congrats, Lou and GF! It's an excellent piece of equipment. I did recently a comparision between its "bigger" brother the D100 and found much to my surprise that the D70 is a better camera in some aspects (flash sync time, fastest shutter time plus some more I can't remember). -
Cheers, valli. .gif)
We've read probably every review that's out there on the net somewehre in the last few weeks, I was lurking in a dozen forums, and I think it was the right decision.
The gf is a bit scared at the moment though, she hasn't quite realised yet what she's done today..gif)
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You mean she's agreed to having you stare more at the camera than at her? .gif)
Is she used to SLRs btw? It's quite something when you realize that it works just like a film SLR plus much, much more! -
cyk 306 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 18 years agoI wish I had a girlfriend who was into photography.... Tis a nice camera, comparable to the Canon 10D some say and the consensus is that its better than the D100 too. Nikon really did a good job with it. -
You mean she's agreed to having you stare more at the camera than at her?
I can now stare through the camera at her, giving me the best of both worlds.
Oh, and she doesn't know much about photography yet - but she wanted an SLR for a long time (but for various reasons, she never really had one), and after I bought the Powershot earlier this year and she (and me) got acquainted with digital photography fot the first time, it was pretty clear she'd buy one sooner or later. And it's risk-free for her - I told her if she regretted buying it, I'll buy the camera from her. I am afraid that won't happen though. ;-(
I know a little bit about SLRs, so I can help her out a bit here (in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man...), but all in all it is, of course, a big field opening up suddenly - getting to know SLR photography in general, plus all the digital extras, the post-processing (she's bought PS Elements), etc. etc. She has (and I have) got a lot to learn certainly.
We've spent the whole day outside today, taking hundreds of pictures, testing white balance settings (which isn't quite as satisfactory in auto-modus as I had hoped), experimenting with aperture and shutter auto modes, ISO settings, taking RAW pictures, etc. etc.
I tried to explain her a bit too much at once though I think, she'll have to experiment for herself a lot without me commenting all the time.
Great, great fun though, and, don't be surprised, I have to thank the two of you, cyk and valli - you and your threads here and the online galleries have certainly played a big part in my reawakened interest in photography!
Edited by UncleLou at 22:16:04 22-08-2004 -
UncleLou wrote:cyk and valli - you and your threads here and the online galleries have certainly played a big part in my reawakened interest in photography
Glad to hear you've become addicted again!
You are right about the white balance, it is a bit "jumpy" in auto mode. I sometimes leave it at that when I'm taking photos of different motives, but a series of exposures of the same subject will reveal slight colour shifts. Manually choosing a setting is much better in those cases. Or of course, if your memory card allows you, use RAW and decide later the exact ballance when you open the file.
Speaking about colour, here's two tips I've learned: use the sRGB colour space (the 2nd of the 3 available). It captures more colours than the other two, at the expense of the colours being a bit muted. The point is that you are supposed to change the curves of the picture slightly in Photoshop.
The other thing is the curves settings for the camera. The one called "more contrast" is a bit too contrasty for my taste and the normal (flat) one being a bit "dull".
The D100 has a known slightly underexposed default setting and they may have solved it with the D70. Take a look at this excellent page in order to download different custom curves to your D70.
Don't worry about forking up the settings, remember you have two banks of settings, so one of them is for experimenting! -
cyk 306 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 18 years agoUncleLou wrote:
Great, great fun though, and, don't be surprised, I have to thank the two of you, cyk and valli - you and your threads here and the online galleries have certainly played a big part in my reawakened interest in photography!
Edited by UncleLou at 22:16:04 22-08-2004
Glad to help RAW mode is very very cool, but does take up 4 times the space of a JPEG, but its sooo worth it. -
The D100 has a known slightly underexposed default setting and they may have solved it with the D70. Take a look at this excellent page in order to download different custom curves to your D70.
Cheers for the link, valli.
The D70 still has the same underexposed default setting - while I understand the reason for this (to avoid overblown highlights), I don't quite get why they don't include a custom setting that "fixes" this.
In all honesty, it won't be easy to explain the gf why she has to download custom curves for her brand new 1400€ camera from some "dodgy" website in order to make it expose correctly. :-/ I know it's not the same as a custom curve, but I guess we'll experiment with the exposure settings first.
Besides, Nikon Capture isn't included anymore, and I am not sure I can even transfer custom curves to the camera with their new Picture Project software that came with the camera. -
kdsh7 1,273 posts
Seen 7 minutes ago
Registered 19 years agoUncleLou wrote:
Well, not me, really, but the girl-friend.
So I bought a Canon Powershot a few months ago to avoid carrying a SLR around. And guess who'll probably have to carry it around half of the time now.
Still, I won't complain, not at all. What a great new toy.
edit:
Oh, and guess what? It's raining like mad outside. Grrr.
Edited by UncleLou at 18:35:06 21-08-2004
Sorry to wander off on a tangent, but I was looking at the Canon Powershot about a year ago, thinking it was the perfect camera for me (a compact with SLR features - I really wanted aperture control). What are your opinions on it, especially in comparison with the D70 - price, portability and function? Do you regret buying the compact instead of the SLR? -
cyk 306 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 18 years agokdsh7 wrote:
UncleLou wrote:
Well, not me, really, but the girl-friend.
So I bought a Canon Powershot a few months ago to avoid carrying a SLR around. And guess who'll probably have to carry it around half of the time now.
Still, I won't complain, not at all. What a great new toy.
edit:
Oh, and guess what? It's raining like mad outside. Grrr.
Edited by UncleLou at 18:35:06 21-08-2004
Sorry to wander off on a tangent, but I was looking at the Canon Powershot about a year ago, thinking it was the perfect camera for me (a compact with SLR features - I really wanted aperture control). What are your opinions on it, especially in comparison with the D70 - price, portability and function? Do you regret buying the compact instead of the SLR?
I started photography again with a Canon A70 which is a fantastic camera. Full aperature / exposure control which lets you take some fantastic shots. The D70 will have far more options, less noise on images and the whole changeble lens thingy, but for £150 the A70 series are amazing. -
UncleLou wrote:In all honesty, it won't be easy to explain the gf why she has to download custom curves for her brand new 1400€ camera from some "dodgy" website in order to make it expose correctly. :-/
You're right, don't even mention it to her then! It's a very very slight underexposure, something like 1/6th of a step so it won't be any problem in 99% of the cases. Just good to know.
You'll need Nikon Capture and it's a shame they don't include it. The D100 only gets the 30 days shareware version of it. Cheap basts... You mentioned 1400€, what lens did you get with it then? -
Gurgy 2,924 posts
Seen 56 minutes ago
Registered 20 years agoI didn't get Capture with my D70 either. Although I think you can download a 30 day trial version but I don't know if you can transfer custom curves with the trial version. I use PhotoShop CS with the updated Raw plug in. Haven't even looked at Picture Project - am I missing out ?
For my £950 I got the Nikkor 18-70 lens kit and bought a monopod and 1GB 40 speed CF card for £90 extra (already had 2 x 512k cards). Would like a bigger zoom lens but don't know enough about lenses to risk wasting my cash yet. It just annoys me a bit that my daughters digi camera has 10 x optical zoom and get's much closer to the action than the D70. (I appreciate I can crop and enlarge but you know...)
Also , don't let the number of Raw exposures figure put you off as it assumes a worst case scenario and I always get at least 1.5 times the number it says on a blank card.
Enjoy and let's hope we can share D70 tips etc.
Oh I've also upgraded the firmware. -
cyk wrote:
kdsh7 wrote:
UncleLou wrote:
Well, not me, really, but the girl-friend.
So I bought a Canon Powershot a few months ago to avoid carrying a SLR around. And guess who'll probably have to carry it around half of the time now.
Still, I won't complain, not at all. What a great new toy.
edit:
Oh, and guess what? It's raining like mad outside. Grrr.
Edited by UncleLou at 18:35:06 21-08-2004
Sorry to wander off on a tangent, but I was looking at the Canon Powershot about a year ago, thinking it was the perfect camera for me (a compact with SLR features - I really wanted aperture control). What are your opinions on it, especially in comparison with the D70 - price, portability and function? Do you regret buying the compact instead of the SLR?
I started photography again with a Canon A70 which is a fantastic camera. Full aperature / exposure control which lets you take some fantastic shots. The D70 will have far more options, less noise on images and the whole changeble lens thingy, but for £150 the A70 series are amazing.
Well, I bought it on recommendation of cyk, and I wasn't disappointed. I've found the picture quality to be very good throughout. Even comparing them directly to the Nikon pics now doesn't make them look bad all of a sudden - not at all. It's much more that a simple point and shoot camera.
One thing that did annoy me a little bit - but which is an issue with all compact digicams - is that you always have a lot of depth of field due to the small sensor - it's hard to make a decent portrait pic with a blurry background, for example. So the aperture control isn't quite as useful as one might think at first.
But I don't regret that I bought it - of course I probably won't be using it as much now as I had intended to, but I guess it would have served me well for quite some time if the gf wouldn't have upgraded. -
valli, she bought the bundle with the 18-70 mm.
Enjoy and let's hope we can share D70 tips etc.
Thanks, and I sure hope so!
Haven't even looked at Picture Project - am I missing out ?
Not as far as I can tell - it's a very basic organizer thingy with some very basic post-processing functions. I dare say it's not very useful at all, and though it hasn't got many features, it's incredibly meticulous to use.
It just annoys me a bit that my daughters digi camera has 10 x optical zoom and get's much closer to the action than the D70. (I appreciate I can crop and enlarge but you know...)
He, yes, you can't beat the con- and prosumer digicams for versatility. Macro mode at a few cms to incredible tele focal distances all in one little camera. But I told the girl-friend all about them, honest, but, alas, she wanted a DSLR. -
UncleLou wrote:it's hard to make a decent portrait pic with a blurry background, for example.
My Nikkor AF 50mm f/1.8 takes wonderful portraits when mounted on the D100 since it becomes a 75mm lens. My favourite portrait lens was a 85mm f/1.8 AI lens for my analogue bodies but I sold it recently together with my old Nikon FM.
I'd recommend the AF 50mm as the next purchase. It's small, very light (there is even a f/1.4 version but that costs more than the double) and very cheap. I payed around 200€ for it 4 years ago, and the link above says it costs 150€. I'm sure you can find it in Germany for even less, esp. 2nd hand. -
valli wrote:
UncleLou wrote:it's hard to make a decent portrait pic with a blurry background, for example.
My Nikkor AF 50mm f/1.8 takes wonderful portraits when mounted on the D100 since it becomes a 75mm lens. My favourite portrait lens was a 85mm f/1.8 AI lens for my analogue bodies but I sold it recently together with my old Nikon FM.
I'd recommend the AF 50mm as the next purchase. It's small, very light (there is even a f/1.4 version but that costs more than the double) and very cheap. I payed around 200€ for it 4 years ago, and the link above says it costs 150€. I'm sure you can find it in Germany for even less, esp. 2nd hand.
Cheers for the tip, valli, might be a good idea for a present for her! Though I think she'll might want to buy a tele next.
Oh, and I was referring to my Canon A70, not the Nikon, with my remark about the depth of field! -
templar-wizard 3,153 posts
Seen 10 years ago
Registered 19 years agocome on then. give us a look at her. and her. -
kdsh7 1,273 posts
Seen 7 minutes ago
Registered 19 years agoThanks Cyk/UncleLou for the replies. I've been reading the reviews and at that price it's a bloody bargain. I can't believe I paid £500 for my Finepix40i 4 years ago! It's a pity about the poor DOF but I guess I'm not going to get anything better sub £300.
One question I hope you guys can answer though. Why are the Poweshot 'S' series so much more expensive when it seems the A70/A80/A85 give you more control? And why is the A85 discontinued? -
cyk 306 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 18 years agokdsh7 wrote:
Thanks Cyk/UncleLou for the replies. I've been reading the reviews and at that price it's a bloody bargain. I can't believe I paid £500 for my Finepix40i 4 years ago! It's a pity about the poor DOF but I guess I'm not going to get anything better sub £300.
One question I hope you guys can answer though. Why are the Poweshot 'S' series so much more expensive when it seems the A70/A80/A85 give you more control? And why is the A85 discontinued?
I'm not sure really The A85 is being replaced by the A95 I think. Generally any in the range will be a great camera. -
Why are the Poweshot 'S' series so much more expensive when it seems the A70/A80/A85 give you more control?
I would think it's because they're smaller and offer more megapixels.
You'll find an excellet review site here, though it's sometimes a bit tough to find out how good they think a camera is in absolute terms, rather than just in relation to their price. -
templar wizard wrote:
come on then. give us a look at her. and her.
He, I'll see what I can do, but I guess her answer will be a decisive "no way!". Talking about the gf, not the camera. -
templar-wizard 3,153 posts
Seen 10 years ago
Registered 19 years ago -
Nikon released a firmware upgrade for the D70 today. It's a very small bug fix, but still, it's an upgrade. -
Oh, thanks a lot, valli, hadn't seen this yet! -
Hurleybird 1,381 posts
Seen 9 years ago
Registered 17 years agoI bought a Canon EOS 300D at the end of last year. Why did you get the Nikon over the Canon?
The 300D cost me £500 brand new. Just wondering what the Nikon has over the Canon as I bought the Canon purely on PC Pro A-List recommendation and crazy price! -
reflux 1,804 posts
Seen 1 day ago
Registered 20 years agoI bought the Pentax *istDS instead of the Canon 300D and Nikon D70 mainly because it's a bit smaller and well, I didn't have any lenses anyway. It uses the same sensor as the D70, has a smaller and slighty lighter body, takes AA-batteries and besides that I like to be different Almost like buying Macs (or sticking to PCs when you know it would make more sense to use Macs).
Oh, the grey 300D is butt ugly IMO -
otto wrote:I bought an SB-600 speedlight yesterday, delighted with it so far.
Don't you mean SB-800? Looks like a very solid piece of kit, I've borrowed an SB-80DX and plan to buy it.
What's the shortest sync time on it otto? -
Hyoushi wrote:
Heh, well, the D7 may be worth a bit more too though... The antishake function seems very cool and the display is huge. Also, the D7 feels much less plasticky than the D70 does ^_^
Antishake, eh? Wuss.
I am not sure the Minolta lens lineup is all that though - haven't they been more or less out of the SLR business for years, with most of their engineers wandering off to other companies? -
disc wrote:
Smaller sensor and higher resolution than the others (D70, 300D and *istDS) => probably more noise. Also, new lens mount standard I think => few lenses and no second hand market for buying them. I'd think twice (I did and that's why I didn't get one).
They havent done a proper review of the Olympus E-300 which is Olympus new response that they just started selling and does seem like a really good choice.
update: Actually dpreview just published their take on the E-300 and it pretty much shows that it has more noise than the other DSLRs.
Edited by reflux at 21:39:30 11-01-2005
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Is she used to SLRs btw? It's quite something when you realize that it works just like a film SLR plus much, much more! Sometimes posts may contain links to online retail stores. If you click on one and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. For more information, go here.
