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Kitsune · 10-13-2004, 12:34 PM

So with your Nikon D70, how easy is it to get the camera to do what you want?

The controls are pretty much the same as a normal film SLR -- the body and controls are just a conversion from one of the older film bodies that I don't remember the model of at this moment. If you know P/A/M/S and can rotate two wheels, thats it. And, of course, its got all the funky "running man", "mountain and tree" modes, but I don't use them.

I had a Sony F717 before this as my main camera (which I still use and love), so I know how you feel. It was reasonable in that you could change the apature, shutter, etc, all manually, but it "felt wrong", maybe "kludgy", and sometimes you had to go through the menus to change stuff. The only complaint I have on the D70 is that it does not have the switch on the front to select to continuous focus like the D100 does, only manual and auto. Continuous is selected in the menu or with the, ugh, "running man" setting.

I'm not a fan of the "creative modes" on cameras.

Overall, I'd say that the D70 shoots and feels just like film, but you still have the be conscious that you're shooting in digital for other reasons entirely. Mainly the aspect ratio and focal length conversion for the CCD size. Drop by a camera place and pick one of the digital SLRs up and play with it -- I was surprised how well digital has adapted. For the graduation photography company I worked for, they said two years ago they didn't see themselves moving to digital anytime soon. One year later they had replaced all their FM2s with D100s, streamlined their process, and saved quite a bit of money. The change simply involved them dropping the film processing and switching to a another print shop.

10-13-2004, 12:34 PM	#14
Kitsune still eats dirt Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Tampa, FL Posts: 3,031	So with your Nikon D70, how easy is it to get the camera to do what you want? The controls are pretty much the same as a normal film SLR -- the body and controls are just a conversion from one of the older film bodies that I don't remember the model of at this moment. If you know P/A/M/S and can rotate two wheels, thats it. And, of course, its got all the funky "running man", "mountain and tree" modes, but I don't use them. I had a Sony F717 before this as my main camera (which I still use and love), so I know how you feel. It was reasonable in that you could change the apature, shutter, etc, all manually, but it "felt wrong", maybe "kludgy", and sometimes you had to go through the menus to change stuff. The only complaint I have on the D70 is that it does not have the switch on the front to select to continuous focus like the D100 does, only manual and auto. Continuous is selected in the menu or with the, ugh, "running man" setting. I'm not a fan of the "creative modes" on cameras. Overall, I'd say that the D70 shoots and feels just like film, but you still have the be conscious that you're shooting in digital for other reasons entirely. Mainly the aspect ratio and focal length conversion for the CCD size. Drop by a camera place and pick one of the digital SLRs up and play with it -- I was surprised how well digital has adapted. For the graduation photography company I worked for, they said two years ago they didn't see themselves moving to digital anytime soon. One year later they had replaced all their FM2s with D100s, streamlined their process, and saved quite a bit of money. The change simply involved them dropping the film processing and switching to a another print shop. Last edited by Kitsune; 10-13-2004 at 12:39 PM.