D70 vs D100

[willamette44]

Hi Everyone,

Reading up on the D70 I find one criticism that seems to be prevalent: That the viewfinder is too confined -- smaller than it should be for good composition. Therefore, I suspect that Nikon will soon improve the D70 to answer this complaint. I like a good viewfinder. I guess I was spoiled by the Leica M3 and my Nikon film SLRs. So I'm keeping my money dry until Nikon improves this basic feature in an otherwise very deisirable DSLR.

Does anyone have an opinion about where the pricing of the D70 with its lens is at this point in time?

Bob R

 

[alan_russell]

Bob,

The D70 with or without the kit lens is still in great demand...$999.00 - $1299.00
I got lucky and purchased the last D70 body from Canoga Camera in Los Angeles. (along with a Sandisk 1gb Extreme FC and a 24mm-85mm ED "G" Nikon Lens. The Extreme FC is warrantied for life.
I would assume that the D70 price will remain the same a bit longer than one can expect here. It's a supply and demand issue for now.

Alan Russell

 

[Kkwyeung]

Guys and girls,

To the D70 users and digital camera users in general. I want to know about your approach to white balance. Is it something that you put on automatic, or something that you meter manually, or select daylight or tungsten?

I suppose if one was professional they would meter articulately, with a color temperature meter or a grey card, but for say travel or wedding photography where there is a lot of getting in and out of buildings, how would one approach WB?

thanks for all responses in advance.

Kevin

 

[tomsteffan]

I've been changing it manually. I'm trying to get the nerve to try auto but I haven't been too impressed with auto on my two D1s or the D1x I still have. Many D100 owners have used the cloudy setting for daylight to warm things up a little. I tried it on my D70 & everything was a very pretty orange. So bad that PS couldn't correct it completely (jpg not nef). I also used the strobe for fill flash with the WB set to daylight (subject was very, very close) and ended up with a "smurf" looking person. I now know the manual WB works very well. I'll try the auto settings in the next few weeks & report back if someone else doesn't answer more completely.

Tom

 

[roman]

It is against my nature to trust auto settings on any camera, but with the D70, I just set the WB compensation to -1 and leave it in auto and that takes care of about 80% of my shooting situations. If you are takig critical shots, by all means....do your manual thing.....but the D70 is actually quite impressive in the WB arena.

I have been following a few forums and most other experienced users are experiencing the same results.

Roman

 

[lnbolch]

Kevin

It depends upon the situation. With my CP5000 in normal outdoor shooting, auto works fine, compensating for moving from direct sunlight to shadow, clouds passing over and so on. It is limited in its range so it won't neutralize a sunset. However, for a sunset, I would certainly switch to "Fine"=daylight balance and possibly crank in a bit of warming as well. I have heard complaints that while inexpensive point-and-shoots handle a much wider range, they make it impossible to shoot a sunset.

Due to its limited range, auto does not work for incandescent, most fluorescents, mixed light and most high intensity lights.

The Incandescent setting gives excellent balance with 3200K photofloods. With household bulbs one can dial in a bit more coolness and pretty much nail it for the specific room. Incandescent at +3 does a reasonable job with the ubiquitous toxic-orange streetlights, though the best I have yet achieved is with the Incandescent setting and an 80B colour conversion filter. One can use fine tuning to get even closer.

For mixed light, light in a room with strongly coloured walls or other reflective surfaces, a manual preset white balance is necessary. Read off a white or grey card at subject position with the card pointed at shooting position. An incident reading through a neutrally coloured plastic diffuser at subject position works well too. I use the top of a Pringles potato chip can for very accurate balance.

Fluorescents and high-intensity lights also require a manual white balance. I have not found the fluorescent settings matching any fluorescents I have ever tried. Results of shooting under light sources with discontinuous spectra are similar to that of film. Since the spectrum is made up of peaks and valleys, quality of colour depends entirely upon how well the spectrum of the light matches the colour response curves of the sensor. Unlike film, a preset manual white balance will likely result in better colour than any attempt at balancing a film with decamired or other colour correction filters unless a custom filter can be created to match the specific unit's spectral characteristics to the film. In essence, this is what the manual white balance attempts.

So the answer is "all of the above" dictated by the environmental factors of the shot.

A reasonable follow-up question might be, "Would it not be better to do this in processing?" All colour balancing in Photoshop or other programs is somewhat destructive. Shooting RAW and processing within 48-bit workspace exclusively, will do the least harm. However, starting out with a well balanced exposure is by far the most desirable.

larry!
ICQ 76620504
http://www.larry-bolch.com/

 

[algo_rithm]

Good answer Larry. To confirm, gray card is the best way to go if you want to start out as close as possible to the most accurate white balance. (I think we should get used to calling it gray balance, technically speaking white balance is a function of high end video cameras, but at the same time we are balancing to white...so) Once again, I don't use the D70, I use the D100 which for all intents and purposes is nearly identical. The presets as Larry indicated rarely get the balance dead on, you need to compensate one way or the other (- for cooler and + for warmer tones).

In a mixed light situation, I decide with my eye which light I want the main balance toward. e.g. If I'm shooting in a mixed environment like tungsten and florescent, I have three choices. Balance to tungsten and have a green cast or balance to florescent and have a reddish cast or balance to both (gray card) and have a little of both. It takes experimentation to determine which one is more pleasing to you and your eye. Post processing any one of the three can yield fine tuning to taste, but at least you started out closer to what you want.

I'm also going to concur with the "all of the above" as Larry states

In my experience with digital, namely DSLR's, 30-40% of the time you can get the [white balance] dead on [with gray card] without the need to change it post exposure. The other 60-70% of the time you are going to need to give it some changes with software. But if you start out very close to what it should be, then you can get away with just giving it one quick click and the color is perfect, vs. having to make large changes. Furthermore, if you use a preset (gray balance or camera preset) and your lighting does not change, then you can use batch processing in Nikon capture to apply all of the settings to the entire series of photos, instead of doing them one at a time. Auto white balance makes this nearly impossible and in the long run creates more workflow.

One other important point to bring up. Monitors. You MUST calibrate your monitor to have consistent results. Otherwise, you will have one thing in the file, one thing on your screen and something completely different on print! I'll look at my bookmarks to see if I have any good links that explain the calibration and ICC profile.

Bo

 

[Kkwyeung]

Having had the D70 for a few weeks now I can say that the white balance in digital photography is crucial. It appears to be more sensitive than slide film (I took a shot of a shaded building and street, and got overwhelmingly blue results with the daylight WB setting. In that respect it's like Fuji Sensia. I do enjoy shooting with Kodak Elitechrome and Ektachrome G/GX which I thought is less blue so the D70 has also helped me understand film photography.

I find the exposure for D70 to be good. There are various postings on the net regarding underexposure of 1/3 to 1/2, tone curves that lifts the mid-tones by 1/2, etc etc. It's obvious that the D70 meter protected highlights. There are virtually no blown highlights with the metering.

Thanks to Larry and Bo for their thoughts.

I do want to get the slide film vivid look in my pictures. I have tried the vivid setting in the camera and found that it only makes slight improvements but not as substantial as between negative and positive film. I find the D70 colour accurate.

Is the adjustment for slide film look, an adjustment at the tone curve level, or a post-processing level? I have tried various tone curves but they seem to only make marginal differences. I am looking at this program called Digital Film 1.6.5. Is my pursuit a manual process or can be automated with programs and algorithms/scripts?

Thanks in advance.

Kevin

 

[algo_rithm]

Kevin,
To answer this question
>I do want to get the slide film vivid look in my pictures. I have tried the vivid setting in the camera and found that it only makes slight improvements but not as substantial as between negative and positive film. I find the D70 colour accurate.

My technique with the D100 is, White balance with a grey card. Use the Fotogenetic tone curve white wedding V3.5 (newest). Use Nikon capture to post process. With NC you can give it any look you want. I'd spend the money on NC 4.1, it's made to work with your camera.

I really can't comment on the settings in your camera since I don't have a D70, but, with, once again, NC 4.1 you can assign whatever you want after the fact. Assuming you shoot in the NEF (RAW) format.

Hope this helps,
Bo