THE
FIRST DAY
Beep,
beep, beep. I hit the snooze button on the alarm clock and check
the time. it is 4 o'clock in the morning. There is no mercy
for landscape photographers. After five minutes the alarm kicks
in again and I somehow manage to get out of bed.
Checking
and preparing your gear in the evening before will save valuable
minutes early in the morning. I grab my photo bag and tripod
and drive the few miles from Furnace Creek Ranch to Zabriskie
Point in Death Valley, USA.
It
is only a short walk from the parking lot and I set up my
tripod at the viewpoint. The Gitzo G1228 with the Markins
M10 ballhead is a great combo for my lenses, ranging from
the Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 AF-S to the 70-200mm f/2.8 AF-S VR.
To start with, I pick the D70 with Kirk L-bracket and the
17-35mm lens.
The
D70 arrived in the mail as backup for my D100 just a
few days before I left for the Southwest of the United
States and I am planning to give my new camera a serious
workout over the next couple of weeks.
When
I took the D70 out of the box I felt immediately at
home. Before the D100 I used a F100. The transition
was no problem at all. No more memorizing of custom
functions. The D100 has the custom functions nicely
organized in a menu accessible via a help button. Initially,
I preferred the smaller, more elegant and "pro"
looking font of the D100 menus, but I soon discovered
that the D70 font style is easier to read in bright
sunlight. A little problematic is the superimposed picture
data in the preview function. The D100 font is cleaner.
It
is a while before the sun is going to rise. The moon
is low on the horizon and the stars are still shinning
in the sky. I live in the New York City area and visiting
death Valley is always an amazing experience. On a moonless
night, the Milky Way appears much closer, brighter and
more populated with stars. It is very peaceful out here.
Absolutely calm and quiet. The air feels nice and cool.
But I know that it is a treacherous peace. In a few
hours the wind is going to pick up and blast the area
with speeds up to 25mph (40km/h) and temperature is
expected to hit well above 100°F (38°C) later
in the day. |
.. |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
The
file sequence counter on the D70 shows only 21. I did not
have any time to test the D70 before I left for the photo
trip, but I was confident that Nikon would have delivered
another great camera. All the buttons appear to be very intuitive.
CUSTOM SETTINGS
I
flip through the menu and make sure the custom setting menu
(CSM) is set to detailed, so that all 26 custom settings are
available. I make a few changes to the default settings. I
turn ON the File No. Seq.
One
thing I noticed when I first powered up the D70 is that it
beeps to indicate "in focus". I do not like beeping
cameras. Especially not in the outdoors, when I like to enjoy
nature without calling the attention of predators. CS1 OFF
takes care of that 'problem'..
.
|
