Nikon D70SNikon updates its midrange SLR with improved focusing, larger LCD, a new menu interface, and more.<<Video, Power, Software and Storage :(Previous) | (Next): Reference: Datasheet>> Page 15:Test Results and ConclusionReview First Posted: 06/30/2005 |
Test Results
In keeping with my standard test policy, the comments given here summarize only my key findings. For full details on each of the test images, see the D70S' "pictures" page.
For a look at some more pictorial photos from this camera, check out our Nikon D70S Photo Gallery.
Not sure which camera to buy? Let your eyes be the ultimate judge! Visit our Comparometer(tm) to compare images from the Nikon D70S with those from other cameras you may be considering. The proof is in the pictures, so let your own eyes decide which you like best!
- Color: Generally good color. Camera oversaturates reds, but other colors are quite accurate. Auto white balance works well, but has trouble with incandescent lighting. Manual white balance covers a very broad range, very accurately. The D70S generally delivered quite pleasing color, its one quirk being that it really likes red hues, rendering bright reds, pinks, and magentas with quite a bit more saturation than in the original subject. It slightly undersaturates greens, yellow-greens, and yellows, but by a relatively small amount. Other colors, and less-saturated shades of the problem colors are rendered quite accurately. Caucasian skin tones are rendered well. Indoors, the camera's auto white balance setting had trouble with household incandescent light, leaving too much color cast in the images, but the D70S' manual white balance option was very accurate, and produced good results across a very wide range of lighting conditions. All in all, the D70S' images looked good, and I suspect that most consumers will find them very appealing.
- Exposure: Generally good exposure, a slight tendency to underexpose. High default contrast, low contrast option helps only somewhat. The D70S handled my test lighting quite well, and was for the most quite accurate in its exposure determination. Shots that typically require exposure compensation adjustment generally required the average amount, although the indoor portrait shot needed a good bit more manual exposure boost than is the norm. I did feel that the camera tended to underexpose very slightly, perhaps about a third of an f-stop relative to my personal preferences. (This behavior is similar to that of the D70: I very commonly find myself shooting at +0.3 EV with my D70, when taking routine snapshots.) The camera's default contrast is a little high, and its contrast adjustment control didn't help with harshly-lit subjects as much as I would have liked. The contrast adjustment seemed to affect shadows much more than highlights, but even making the corresponding downward adjustment of the exposure on the "Sunlit Portrait" test (which has deliberately horrible, contrasty lighting), I found relatively little benefit from the low-contrast setting. Not a huge strike against the camera, but nonetheless an area where I'd like to see some improvement. Despite the high native contrast, dynamic range was good, with depth of detail in the shadows somewhat compensating for lost detail in the highlights. All in all, good results.
- Resolution/Sharpness: High resolution, ~1,400 lines of "strong detail." The D70S performed well on the "laboratory" resolution test chart with its 6.1-megapixel CCD. It didn't start showing artifacts in the test patterns until resolutions as high as 1,200 lines per picture height vertically and horizontally. I found "strong detail" out to at least 1,400 lines horizontally, and about 1,350 lines vertically. (Some reviewers may argue for higher numbers, but I tend to be a bit more conservative than in these ratings than some others.) "Extinction" of the target patterns didn't occur until about 1,800 lines.
- Image Noise: Generally low image noise. The D70S generally showed low image noise, but as always, the key is how high-ISO images appear when printed at various sizes. As is the case with most digital SLRs, high-ISO images from the D70S can be printed at much larger sizes than those from consumer-level digital cameras at the same ISO. Judging from 8x10 inch prints made on the Canon i9900 printer in our studio, noise really didn't become an issue until ISO 1600, and even there I suspect that a majority of users would find the resulting prints entirely acceptable for framed display on a table or wall. If your images are likely to be scrutinized up close, ISO 800 will probably be about the limit for an 8x10 print. Bottom line, the D70 is a camera that you can blithely use up to ISO 800, and in many cases to ISO 1600, without worrying too much about noise. (Depending of course, on your own personal tastes.)
- Night Shots: Excellent low-light performance, with low noise overall. Excellent autofocus performance under dim lighting. The Nikon D70S' low-light performance was quite good, as it produced good exposures with good noise levels (relatively speaking) at all ISO settings all the way down to the 1/16 foot-candle limit of our test. (That's about 4 stops darker than typical city night scenes.) Most impressively, its autofocus system managed to focus all the way down to the 1/16 foot-candle limit, even with the AF-assist illuminator turned off. (!) Bottom line, the D70S is a very competent low-light shooter.
- Viewfinder Accuracy: Better than average viewfinder accuracy for a digital SLR. The D70S digital SLR viewfinder was about 97.5 percent accurate. This is better than average for SLRs, most of which come in right around 95% frame accuracy.
- Shutter Lag and Cycle Times: Excellent shutter response, excellent shot to shot speed. Relative to the already-excellent performance of the D70, the D70S slightly improved shutter response times and continuous-mode shooting speeds, but seemed to have slightly less buffer depth, able to capture 15 large/fine JPEGs before slowing (slightly) for the card to catch up, vs the 21 shots we managed with the original D70. This is probably largely academic for most users, it's unlikely that the most non-pro shooters will ever find a need for more than 15 sequential shots in continuous mode. (That's five seconds of flat-out motor-drive shooting.)
- Battery Life: I couldn't measure actual power drain, but battery life is excellent. Not having access to the external power adapter, I couldn't perform my usual direct measurements of the D70S's power consumption, but Nikon claims battery life of between 500 and 2500 shots, depending on the lens used and flash usage. My own experience seemed to thoroughly support Nikon's battery life claims: The D70S/EN-EL3a combination provided excellent battery life, letting me shoot literally hundreds of photos without draining the battery. Despite the long battery life though, I still do recommend purchasing a spare battery pack and keeping it charged for long shooting days or for shooting in cold weather (which can greatly reduce battery capacity). As noted earlier, Nikon says they will not be offering an external battery pack/vertical grip for the D70S.
- Print Quality: Good prints to 13x19 inches. High-ISO shots look great at 8x10, usable at 11x14 and even larger. Testing hundreds of digital cameras, we've found that you can only tell just so much about a camera's image quality by viewing its images on-screen. Ultimately, there's no substitute for printing a lot of images and examining them closely. For this reason, we now routinely print sample images from the cameras we test on our Canon i9900 studio printer, and on the Canon iP5000 here in the office. (See our Canon i9900 review for details on that model.)
Prints from the D70S hold together very well at large sizes, and its ISO 1600 shots can be printed surprisingly large before the image noise becomes objectionable. At low ISOs, 13x19 inch prints look just fine for wall viewing, and can actually be scrutinized at fairly close range without looking overly soft. I was very surprised when I printed an ISO 1600 shot at 13x19: It looked a bit softer than ISO 200 ones, and the image noise was in fact visible, but the bottom line was that I wouldn't have any qualms about sticking it in a frame and hanging it on the wall. This really is a camera that most users will find perfectly usable at ISO 1600.
While I didn't make much of it in the review itself, a lot of readers may be wondering whether the D70S's 6-megapixel resolution represents a limitation relative to that of the 8-megapixel cameras on the market. I have to say that I really don't think so. If you look at the difference in pixel dimensions between the D70S and Canon's 8-megapixel Digital Rebel XT, the differential really doesn't amount to a whole lot: The D70S's images are 3008 x 2000 pixels vs the XT's 3456 x 2304 pixels. That's a difference in each direction of just a bit over 15%. I won't argue that there's no difference, but to my mind it's not enough that pixel count should be much of a consideration in deciding between 6- and 8-megapixel d-SLRs.
Conclusion
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