Living the Fairy Tale: Life with a Nikon D70

Where I left off last post was that I had finally rectified my mis-steps into the world of "Super-Zooms" and had bought myself a D70 with a Nikon 18-200mm/f3.5-5.6 VR lens attached. I've had this camera for over a year now and have shot literally thousands of images with it. It has taken lots of kid pictures from the "spur-of-the-moment" to the family portraits that we've had printed out or put in our annual calendars that get sent out to everyone. It has also gone on vacations to Sea World, Harlingen and Alaska/British Columbia. And indeed, I can say unequevically, it's been a great camera for the money! $350 was money well spent (in fact you can get almost as much for it today as I spent over a year ago). Also, the "experts" were pretty much right on when they said that 6mp is basically enough resolution for most cases.

I've accumulated several accessories for it that are great "bang-for-the-buck" items. One is the flash. Apparently, either Ritz Cameras is going under or they are replacing a flash that Sunpak OEM'd for them, because all manner of people are selling new, dedicated for Nikon iTTL flash, CHEAP! I doubt I really have to tell anyone that you start buying Nikon, Canon or for that matter Olympus branded accessories, it's going to run into a lot of money. And further more, anyone who's has used the little dinky "pop-up" flash on consumer DSLRs can tell you; they are better than not having one, but not by much! They work after a fashion, but give "red-eye", terrible lighting and don't have much range. So it's common knowlege among photographers that you really need a shoe-flash that has bounce capability. The issue is that Nikon's current iTTL flash system is very good and quite sophisticated, but they start at $200+! So after some looking around, I saw that my old standby, Sunpak has a couple of models that will work with this system. Unfortunately, the model (PZ-40x II) that has good power and a bounce head was something like $150! After patiently waiting for my research to bear fruit (read, watching eBay religiously), I started seeing the Quantaray (Ritz Camera house brand) labeled Sunpak flash in question pop up ranging from $50-$100. Naturally, I waited till I could snag one at $50 and it's been a very nice flash indeed. Yesterday, I was able to get a generic (read, random Chinese factory) "soft-box" attachment for it at Micro Center for $11, so I'm really happy that I'll at long last be ready to do "fill-flash" when we do our family pictures at the Dallas Arboretum this fall! Now I'm working on adding remote flashes to the equation, but that's another topic.

Any other D70 success stories? I'm glad you asked; there is of course the 70-300mm/f4-5.6 ED Nikkor lens that I bought for our trip to Alaska. Remember that one of the reasons that I bought an older D70 instead of a newer D40 was that it had the built-in focusing motor? Anyway, that paided off when I decided that I really needed something longer than the 200mm (350mm, 35mm eg.) that was the max on my main lens. Besides, it tends to be a little soft at that focal length anyway (especially wide open). What I'd have bought if I were a rich man (sounds like a play, doesn't it) is either the Nikon 80-400mm (120-600mm, 35mm eq.) VR (very rich) or the Tokina 80-400mm (slightly less rich), but since neither one fit my budget (or lack there-of), I had to find something that would do. So I started digging around on the internet (otherwise called research) and found that the Nikon zooms that top out at 300mm (450mm, 35mm eq.) could be had fairly cheap (sub-$200) and they were really pretty nice performers. The issue was that there were 3 versions! The current "G" model, the older "D" model and the "ED" model. Different reviewers had differing opinions, but it looked like the current model faired the worse in performance and build-quality, while the oldest "D" model was the nicest build and had a built-in tripod mount (inconsequential for me) but hardest to find. However, the "ED" model had the best performance, was pretty easy to find and had some of the special ED glass elements in it's design so I snagged on off of eBay for about $150.

So, how'd it perform? It was a little slow focusing at times, but it allowed me to get some wildlife close-ups that I would otherwise not have gotten. So it was definitely worth the money (not that much) and the planning ahead to be able to have the option of using that lens. Score one for the little guys! Now, some day, I'll really want to get one of the 80-400mm zooms, but not any time soon, and in fact it may fall behind a 12-24mm (18-36mm, 35mm eq.) lens. That one could be a money-maker as hired out to real estate folks wanting interior shots that make rooms look huge!

Of course, there are some other little things like, buying filters on eBay which is much cheaper. I was able to get a Hoya Circular Polarizer for my main lens before we left for Alaska for $35 or so. I used that puppy a lot! I picked up a monopod at Walmart for $15 and didn't use it at all. In fact, I so rarely used it that I forgot it somewhere on our trip! Rechargeable Nimh AAs that you can get anywhere are awesome. I get the 2300-2400mah Eveready ones that you can find anywhere.

So is that the end of this post? Not on your life...read on.

I love the D70, but it has some warts that can't be resolved without getting into a different camera. That being said, if you aren't like me (and not many people are), then they may not be an issue to you and you'll happily go on this this camera for years to come.

One (and there are many) of the odd things about me is that I'd rather shoot pictures with a bigger/heavy camera and if it has buttons for vertical (portrait orientation) shutter release and control, so much the better. I find these "grips" (called motor drives or winders in the old days) help me to be steadier, especially with a bigger lens. And since I shoot the majority of my images of the kids, "portrait" or vertical mode is a pretty common form of shooting for me. This was a major deficiency of the D70 as far as I'm concerned; Nikon never developed a grip for it and since the model wasn't new, finding an after-market version was difficult and expensive. I did find a NOS (new old stock) one on eBay that wasn't too bad (and it's been nice to have 2 batteries in the machine), but it's kind of a kludge. You see, Nikon didn't just NOT design a vertical grip for it, but there was no electronic or mechanical means to couple exposure control or shutter release from it. The only "remote" release that it was designed for is an infrared controller. So these after-market grips did some of what I wanted, namely add mass and extra battery time, but in order to use the vertical release, you had to add a little fiber-optic cable from the grip that (sort of) attached to the IR receiver on the outside of the camera! Not really a very elegant solution. Anyway, it was nice to be able to put either 2 regular batteries, or 6 AA Nimh in it and go for days of shooting.

The other thing was that although, 6mp is OK for most things, I just spent 2 weeks in Alaska and BC which amounted to lots of images of SPECTACULAR scenery and I really would have liked more resolution. This is not something you can even sort of fix, without replacing the camera.

So, in the interest of gathering no moss, I've started looking at ways I can get my money out of my D70 and into a D200 (why D200? I'll get to that in another post later). In fact, I've already started that process. I noticed that there's a bunch of folks trying to upgrade their DSLRs on Craig's List. You can tell it's an upgrade situation when there's no lens sold with the camera. And in the low end of the market, those are hard to sell since beginners don't want to buy a camera and be confronted with the need to figure out what lens to buy for it! And since I just want to upgrade my camera and want to keep my lens, I'm in an awkward position. So, I've been on eBay yet again, and bought not one, but two lens to sell with the D70. Both of them are Quantaray (not great, but useable) lens, one a 28-80mm that basically would be the normal, and a 70-300mm that is typically a first step up for most people. Now I can sell the thing as a "ready to go" package for more money.

One thing I have learned about being frugal but trying to keep up technologically is that you have to keep moving and learn when to get rid of something, because holding on to something just a little too long can mean you can't get anything for it at all! You watch the people treading water and it doesn't look like they are doing anything, but under the surface is where all the action is!