First sample photos from a production-level Nikon D70!
By
Dave Etchells
(Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 23:48 EST)
My eval sample of the new Nikon D70 arrived yesterday. I took advantage of a break in the clouds late this afternoon to shoot a few random "gallery" photos.
My eval sample of a production-level D70 arrived yesterday, and the weather finally cleared a bit this afternoon. I took advantage of the opportunity to go out and shoot some random photos with it, leaving the arguably more revealing but less visually interesting standardized test photos go for another day.
I have to say, this is one sweet-shooting camera. It was very fluid and responsive to use, very intuitive user interface, and produced *very nice* pictures. (!)
I've posted a smattering of sample images, including one series shot at a range of ISOs from 200-1600, using the new server-based "gallery" software we're playing with. Follow this link to see my initial Nikon D70 photo gallery . You can see larger versions of any image by clicking on its thumbnail, and clicking on the larger version will bring up the original camera file, straight as it came from the camera. (Some have been losslessly rotated, but the image data hasn't been disturbed in any way.) - Apologies for the speck of lint on the sensor that's visible in several of the shots - I'll be cleaning the sensor before I carry on with the rest of my test shots.
Overall, I was quite impressed, based only on this brief initial contact. I found the D70's color very appealing, and its resolution and detail rendition is first rate. Oh - and did I mention it's great to shoot with? A final conclusion will obviously have to wait until I've had the chance to really pick apart its images with my standardized tests, but at first glance, I'd say Nikon has a real winner on their hands.
Stay tuned for the *full* review in about another week, but in the meantime, enjoy this initial batch of images.
(BTW, Nikon reports that they'll be shipping "significant quatities" of D70s to US dealers starting March 18.)
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