CHANGE
OF SPEED
I
am back home and I just saw Nikon's new TV commercial for the
D70. A rhino is roaming through a residential neighborhood and
a lucky guy is capturing the action with "the fastest camera
in its class". I am getting ready to conduct a speed performance
test on my own. What better place to test AF speed and write
speed than New York City with its many parades.
I
am not looking for 8fps and 40 frame buffer situations. You
might want to grab a D2H and head out to a car or bike race
for high performance action.
Autofocus
-my only real issue with the D70. Regardless the fact that the
D70 is the best low priced DSLR currently on the market, in
my wish list the CAM900 autofocus system does not belong into
a $1,000 camera. Whenever -which did not happen often- I missed
a shot with the D100 it was either because the buffer was still
full or the autofocus failed to lock or was too slow. Both the
D100 and D70 come with the CAM900 AF system. Consequently I
am still missing the same small percentage of shots due to the
AF system. With my old F100 I nailed almost every shot. I am
amazed about the vast difference between CAM900 and the CAM1300
in the F100. For the most part, the AF on the D70 is not bad
at all, you just need to learn its limits in action situations.
Now
the even better news. I did not miss a single shot as
a result of a full buffer. I am absolutely thrilled about
the D70's write performance. And I am talking about raw
file format here. With JPEG file format you can keep going
and going.
Another
improvement on the D70 is reduced shutter lag. I never
considered shutter lag to be a problem on the D100, but
the first time I pressed the shutter release button on
the D70 I learned the meaning of almost no shutter lag.
Astounding! There could be a little more resistance from
the point of view of shutter release. But it took me just
a couple of frames to get used to it. Since it is digital
I did not have to pay for the learning curve. Startup
time is insignificant. Turn the Switch ON and you are
ready to go. |
 |
The
"remaining frames counter" in raw format causes some
irritation. It displays a very conservative number in the range
of half of the actual frames left.
Today
is Puerto Rican Day Parade -one of the biggest parades in Manhattan.
Loud, crazy, traffic jams, crammed with people, one big endless
party over the city. The floats keep coming and coming.
I
just ran into the situation where the CF card is almost full
with only 3 frames remaining and one of the next floats features
Miss Puerto Rico. Of course, I have to get that shot. In those
situations where every second counts you really appreciate the
love for detail of the Nikon engineers. The D70's CF compartment
is equipped with a nice big CF card eject button. Not like the
D100's little metal thingy you have to fiddle around with. In
addition, the compartment feels more solid and has some rubber
sealing. Got the shot.
Battery
life is excellent. When shooting raw format in combination with
the 70-200mm VR and VR ON, I get more than 500 frames. Another
neat feature is the "auto rotate" option for vertical
shots.
CONCLUSION
The
conclusion after more than 5,000 shots: The D100 is a
great camera and I loved using it until I picked up the
D70. Initially designated as backup body, the D70 became
my main body within a single day of shooting. With all
the minor and major improvements, Nikon pushed the envelope
even further towards perfection and -amazingly- at a much
lower price.
Congratulations. |
 |
|
