Hi, I had the D70 in my hands for several hours on Monday thanks to friendly Nikon rep. (although their service - different company part - is about as abysmal as Pentax service here - that is, none of the socalled nikon professional service is here, even if you are pro).
Sorry for being OT, just few quick notes for those interested in comparison to IstD and BabyD when it comes (if). 1) plastic. But at least it doesn't creak or sqeak when gripped tightly. I can live with that. What I am concerned about is in plastic bodies (including IstD which is part plastic) a heavy pro flash might tear off the pentaprism housing. Especially if the flash has a metal foot (!) like the new nikons. And I don't want a bracket, no thank you! My gear is heavy enough now. I will have to see a cross-section photo of the D70 someday, to see how much the inside is plastic as well. 2) ergonomics are nice. EXCEPT metering mode and drive mode and AFC/AFS mode, these get changed by single buttons, which is HORRIBLE! On D100 you could change all three without looking, just by memory (it was changed by switches, not buttons). What's worse, metering mode is NOT displayed in the viewfinder, so you have to look it up on the status LCD. Phew! AFC/AFS get changed in custom f. menu, but with the possibility of assigning AFL/AEL button as "AF-ON", I wouldn't miss the swtich to change AFC/AFS. AF-ON button and continuous AF are best anyway. 3) Viewfinder is horrible. And that's from Nikon whose viewfinders in Fn series were always very fine. It's only 0.75x with 95% view, and that 0.75x is for the D_APS format of course... And what's worse, it's pentamirror not pentaprism - so it's darker too. I don't understand them. Somebody should hang the product designers! So, the viewfinder is even worse than on D100. Big thanks to Pentax to actually making DSLR with usable viewfinder! On the D100 and D70, there is no manual focus. You just don't see what's in-focus and what's not. Everything looks infocus with a wider lens, so small the finder is. 4)the digital part seems pretty good. Specs are impressive, the image quality at iso 1600 in the few samples looked very nice, the grain was more film-like. 5) crippled. Less crippled than 300D, BUT: and I am sure this will make any existing nikon owners white with rage: the D70 doesn't have under-the-mirror flash TTL multisensor. It measures flash with something supposedly better, 1005 pixel RGB sensor incorporated in the viewfinder lightpath. HOWEVER, all existing flashes for DSLR except the recently announced SB800 and SB600 _need_ the TTL multisensor. So the new D70 will not work with just one generation older flash! Just imagine - getting a digital nikon - you have to change flashes at least twice - this is camera doesn't work with flashes designed for previous digital SLRs! 6) Overall, it's a much better camera than the 300D canon. Still, it's not exactly a pro or semi-pro tool because of the build. I just wouldn't much believe it won't crack. At the price, however, I could buy it to last one or two years only... Damn the digital age! Buying a camera to last two years only... Phew! 7) All this just shows, how the digital age crippled good cameras. Technology moves so fast that there is no time to hone the design into a timeless one like Spotmatic or Nikon F or Leica. To perfect the camera features. Everybody focuses only on the digital "features", which are meaningless. I don't need newest sensors, biggest megapixels, least noise, highest buffer... I need a camera that's easy to use INTUITIVELY. And that means long perfected design, ergonomics that do not change with each new model (ie Pentax, where they redesigned the user interface every time), hard switches which are easy to "read out" even in the darkness by touching (=metering switches on F4/F5/Dx/D100 nikons are perfect), uncomplicated controls, good viewfinder (like *IstD), etc... Most the current semi-pro DSLRs are very good on the "computer" or "digital" side, but with their smalling viewfinder, I can't see the details of what I am photographing... "Is it a smile or a crooked expression on the model's face?!?" What is worse I need a DSLR, and I need it now. And I don't have money for the super best models, 8000$ is quite a lot... Enough. I hope I didn't bore you :) Frantisek
