Digital Photography Notes » Nikon D70

Nikon D80 Compared With The Nikon D70 / D70s

David Chin — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 06:55:33 +0000

Nikon D70s/ D70 vs Nikon D80 – another favorite topic of discussion, especially among current owners of the D70 / D70s.

First, speaking from experience, the D70 is a camera that you'd need to coax and tweak to produce the type of pictures "the majority" would prefer, that is, bright and colourful. Images from the D70 in default settings tend to be on the "dull" side, a bit dark, with a slight greenish tint.

Good news then, that Nikon has tuned the D80 to produce much more pleasing images in the default modes.

Luxun54 upgraded from a D70 to a D80, and is happier with the better high-ISO images from the D80. He posted links to 100% crops from ISO800 and ISO1600 images, and talks about the test methodology.
Read this excellent article by Howard Sandler describing the improvements the D80 has over the D70
The 1/500 sec flash-sync capability of the D70 / D70s is sorely missing from the D80. It's not all bad news though, as absence of this feature is made up by an improvement: the D80 has less tendency to produce blooming in images – read this Imaging Resource excerpt for more details.
A laundry list of improvements in the D80 vs the D70 from a D70 owner's perspective: lower noise, better automatic white balance, more dynamic range, better infrared (IR) suppression (so black fabrics stay black), better dynamic range, ISO100. RGB histogram helps to tame reds, and green colors are better reproduced in the D80 than the D70 / D70s.
AlbieSky is happy to note that his decision to upgrade to the D80 was a correct one, as he's now enjoying better colors, white balance and high ISO performance.
Ex-D70 owner lists the positives on the new D80: 11-point AF, bigger viewfinder, better high-ISO images, 10MP resolution giving more detail in images, and the ability to set the maximum ISO value (eg ISO800) for the Auto-ISO function.
Teru has no qualms now shooting high-ISO images with his new D80, compared to his old D70. The D80 also allows the built-in flash to contribute illumination to a scene in commander wireless flash mode. ISO100 capability is also a huge bonus.
He enjoys the larger viewfinder and gets more vibrant exposures from his new D80 vs the D70
The larger LCD on the D80 vs the one on the D70 really makes for a more enjoyable photographic experience. View the LCD size comparison image here.

Superb Landscape Galleries by Steve Sieren

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:25:50 +0000

Enjoy viewing a gallery of truly amazing landscape photography, courtesy of Steve Sieren of SierenPhotography.com.

Click the screenshot thumbnail of the homepage of SierenPhotography.com to read the forum thread started by Steve:

Equipment Used:
Nikon D70 Digital SLR camera and Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 G ED-IF AF-S DX lens.

I never cease to be astounded by the quality of images obtained by gifted photographers using the photographic equipment listed above. My personal favorite is Steve's "Scenic California Coastline" gallery.

2 Sets of Nature Shots

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:55:27 +0000

Teru Rinshou shoots two fantastic series of nature shots, bursting with great color, with two different lenses on a Nikon D70.

With the Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G AF lens:

» View a larger version of the images.

With the Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 lens:

» View a larger version of the images.

Visit Teru's website for more stunning images.

Rob J shoots flowers with the Nikon 180mm lens

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:21:02 +0000

Here's some gorgeous tulips and cherry blossoms – just what the doctor ordered.

Rob J used the Nikkor 180mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF lens for these shots – I think the bokeh is outstanding! Colors are crisp and composition is spot on.

Click for a large version of Rob's flower images

Click for a large version of the tulips. At the time of this post, the pictures are in Adobe RGB format, which means that they may appear slightly dull on non-colourspace aware browsers. aRGB images can be converted into sRGB colourspace using Image > Mode > Convert to Profile in Photoshop with these settings.

Superb natural light images with the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:18:06 +0000

Mark does it again, with a stunning 4-image series taken under natural, diffuse lighting (no flash used), using the Tamron SP AF 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 lens on the D70.

Image information:

Large version of the images
EXIF data, and the snail is no slouch!
The Tamron can focus as close as approximately 6 cm

Bird photos with the Nikkor 18-200mm

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:13:31 +0000

Here are 3 images by Dave M of a starling perched on a cable; very nice and sharp!

Links

» Larger version of the images, and related forum post

» Equipment: Nikon D70 + Nikkor 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6g IF-ED AF-S DX VR lens.

» Dave M's website

Images From Afghanistan

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:10:46 +0000

I received an email from Will Hall, a USAID Field Program Officer, about the pictures he shot while living in Afghanistan for three years, and to say that the pics are AMAZING is an understatement!

Related links:

» Will Hall's website, showcasing an amazing variety and depth of images, from Southern to Eastern Afghanistan, from Nomads to Gunmen with interesting tidbits and notes accompanying each photograph

» Rave reviews of Will's work at this forum post

Equipment used:
Nikon D70 Digital SLR

Fly Portrait, Super Macro

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 02:07:04 +0000

This is an outstanding macro image of the head of a fly by Eric aka Cerumen, taken with a bewildering array of paraphernalia.

Related links and notes:

» Forum post, and a larger version of the image

» Eric shares his technique for capturing this macro in the forum post, and a summary follows:

The Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro lens was manually focused to minimum distance » connected to 72mm of Kenko extension » connected to a 1.4 teleconverter » connected to the Nikon D70
Eric chose a lens <| extension <| TC <| camera configuration for maximum magnification effect (reproduction size was approximately 3x) from the extension tubes, although this leads to a very short working distance.
The fly was chilled in the fridge in a Tupperware container for 25 minutes, and flew off after nine shots were taken. The fly was placed on a piece of glass.
Illumination was with an SB-800 through a Lumiquest lightbox at twelve o'clock, and a slaved old flash firing through a red gel and aimed at the fly from the side and below
Shop for Nikon-compatible Kenko extension tubes and 1.4x teleconverters.

» See a picture of Eric's macro setup with explanatory notes

» Eric's website – there're tons of superb photos there and even some tips on postprocessing in 30 seconds

Ultra-wideangle Yosemite Photographs

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:14:15 +0000

After seeing this series of superb Yosemite images by Kenn Hwang, I sit at my computer with feelings of envy welling up in me.

Why? Well, he visited Yosemite (Kenn wuz here), and I wish I could do the same, again; my first trip there in mid-2004 was just too brief – I reached there during the late afternoon hours and had to leave by night …. that's just not the way to enjoy Yosemite.

Oh btw, has anyone ever tried driving through the tunnel (can't remember which one) at night with the headlights switched off? The tunnel has no lights, and I'd never been in a darker place (as in totally black) in my life.

The other source of my envy is the great pictures taken with the glass he used, the Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM lens – this lens seems to be making its way into the hands of many, and I'm seeing fantastic imagery taken with it.

Anyway, on to Kenn's images …

Links:

View a larger version of the images
A circular polarizer (the filter thread size is 77mm – shop for 72mm circular polarizers) was used for all the shots
Postprocessing work was needed for the shots
Visit Kenn's Photo Galleries

When To Use An Off-Center Focus Bracket

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:09:09 +0000

It truly is a matter of personal preference whether you prefer to always use the center AF bracket on your D70 / D70s all the time.

There are situations, however, where the use of the other 4 autofocus brackets might prove to be helpful, for example, when capturing a photograph of a running cheetah with the D70 / D70s in AF-C &/or continuous shooting mode..

10 Shoreham Airshow Images

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:05:59 +0000

A great effort by Zheka at capturing aircraft in flight gave this set of fantastic results.

Truly beautiful variety of airshow pictures to look at.

Links

View a larger version of the images
Zheka made use of airshow shooting tips by Sonny Red on the shutter speed to use and the recommendation to use continuous focus (AF-C) mode.
Equipment used: Nikon D70 + Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO lens
For more Shoreham Airshow information and schedule, go here.

Macros With Stacked Lenses

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:46:23 +0000

I decided that it's about time I wrote a brief post on how I captured a "portrait" of this jumping spider, as I have received several queries about the technique behind it. Click the thumbnail to view a larger version of the image.

It turned out that writing this was a little more difficult than I first thought, because I did not know the proper terminology behind the technique. Browsing through my copy of The Complete Guide to Close-Up & Macro Photography by Paul Harcourt Davies, I note that I was using a technique of macro photography called "Stacked Lenses".

I'm not handy at drawing diagrams, so I hope the following illustration is clear enough:
[spider] <-- [reversed Nikkor 50mm f/1.8] [adapter ring] [Nikkor 28-200mm G] [Nikon D70 + SB-800 flash]

Let's get to the notes on the setup. One thing to bear in mind is there are tons of different ways in which you can configure the setup, and mine is by no means the best or only way. I'll add some links to some well-known macro photographers and their technique as soon as I have my to-do list sorted out.

Jumping Spider

The spider was placed on a white card. The poor fella wasn't feeling in tip-top condition, so I had no trouble with it jumping all over the place; it just remained at the spot for the entire duration of the shoot. The "scene" was illuminated by incandescent lamps at my dinner table, but these lamps were only to aid in autofocusing, as the main source of light at image capture would be from the SB-800 flash mounted on my Nikon D70.

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D AF Lens

The 50mm was opened up to an aperture of f/1.8. Since this lens has a mechanical aperture ring, it's a cinch to do this. I also turned the focusing ring to infinity. This shortens the barrel length of the lens and produces a lower degree of vignetting.

Yup – before I continue, just be aware that photographing macros using this setup will produce vignetting, also know as dark corners, which you will have to crop away in an image editing program. The bonus is you are able to get some serious magnification with cheap hardware.

Adapter Ring

The front end of the 50mm lens has to then be, how shall I say this, pressed against the front end of the Nikkor 28-200mm lens. I did not (and still do not) have an adapter ring that would make this operation a little safer, and had to use my left hand to hold the 50mm in place, but there you go. I took extra care to make sure that glass did not come into contact with glass, only the rims touched.

Without the adapter ring, I guarantee that the muscles in your left hand will feel cramped before long.

Nikkor 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF Lens

You'll note from the EXIF data that the Nikon 28-200mm lens was zoomed to 135.0mm. Using the formula: Magnification = [Focal length of main lens] / [Focal length of supplementary, or reversed lens], this combination results in a magnification of 135 / 50 = 2.7x – much greater than what you'll get with any of the stock 1:2 or 1:1 macro lenses. At 135mm, autofocusing and holding the camera steady becomes a difficult feat – I found it much more easier to use my cheap Sigma 18-50mm at 50mm focal length rather than the 28-200mm at 135mm – the magnification at 50mm wouldn't be as impressive, though.

A magnification of 2.7x gets pretty scary when you shoot a spider's portrait – depending on the size of the bug, either its whole body, or just its face will fill up your entire viewfinder. The formula also shows that if you use a supplementary (reversed) lens with a shorter focal length, say 28mm (some VERY nice Nikon lenses come with a fixed 28mm focal length), you get very much higher levels of magnification.

The aperture of the 28-200mm lens was stopped down to f/16 to give as much depth of field as possible, which, as you can see from the photo, isn't much. Well, just call it a portrait and suddenly a shallow DOF makes aesthetic sense.

By the way, you could use almost any lens in place of the Nikkor 28-200mm – some suggestions would be your 18-50mm or 18-55mm lenses, 55-200mm, 18-70mm, 18-135mm, 18-200mm, Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 or Nikkor 105mm Micro lenses – you name it. I guess the only thing to keep in mind would be that the focal length of the primary lens has to be equal to, or greater than the focal length of your supplementary or reversed lens, otherwise you'd end up with reverse magnification based on the formula given above.

Nikon D70

Given sufficient lighting from the dinner table lights, the camera managed to acquire a lock while autofocusing the 28-200mm lens. I know that many advocate manual focusing for macro photography, and if you were to reverse the 50mm lens directly to the camera lens mount (also known as the traditional "reversed lens" technique), then manual focusing is all you can do. With this setup, the camera is able to AF the 28-200 lens, which suits me just fine since I pretty much hate to focus my lenses manually.

I have to emphasize again that sufficient lighting is a must in order for the camera to perform its AF operation with this type of setup.

My D70 was also put into M mode, and Auto ISO turned off, so that I could manually have the camera settings at 1/250 sec shutter speed, f/16 aperture and ISO 200. It's also advised to shoot the images in NEF (RAW) mode. I strongly believe that all photographs shot with equipment set up to this extent and with so much effort have to be shot in RAW mode.

Nikon SB-800 Flash

The last apparatus in the setup is my Nikon SB-800 Speedlight. This was totally necessary considering that the 28-200mm lens was set at f/16, 135mm and that it was night time. With stacked lenses, it seems that the D70 was not able to relay accurate information to the SB-800, and it was impossible to get an accurate flash exposure; in fact the pictures shot at TTL or TTL-BL modes were all but overexposed. So, the SB-800 had to be put into manual, and flash intensity manually selected the trial and error way.

I used the supplied diffusion dome and built-in wide-flash adapter to diffuse and spread the light from the flash as much as possible.

Final Thoughts

Shooting macros this way is a major pain in the derriÃ¨re, and I'll have to admit that most of the time, the thought of setting up the equipment dissuades me from shooting the many colorful bugs that can be found in my garden.

If you haven't tried it though, you owe it to yourself to give it a go – I can tell you that it's immensely satisfying if you manage to capture shots like these – you'll feel that the effort was worth it.

Go here for a list of links to other macro photography techniques. Or read this post on why macro lenses with a longer focal length makes photographing bugs a bit easier. And here's a discussion thread on reversed lens macros with photo samples.

Archive of comments from the old Nikon D70 / D70s blog

Luis Says:

March 14th, 2008 at 8:30 pm

Hi, I bought a new Tamron Di 90mm macro lens for my Nikon D200. In regards to the aperture ring can it manually be selected because I tried it but I get a message error "FEE" on my viewfinder. I can only take pictures on the minimum 32 aperture setting.
Hope you can give me an advise since I`m new to macro lenses.

Thank You,
Luis Rodriguez.
David Chin Says:

March 14th, 2008 at 8:58 pm

@Luis – it's meant to be this way. When you mount modern lenses on Nikon digital SLR cameras, you must rotate the aperture ring to the smallest opening (largest value). You then set the aperture directly via the dial on the camera in Aperture priority or Manual mode – the aperture is stopped down to the correct value when the shot is taken.

Low Light Theatre Images

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:57:34 +0000

Challenging situations such as these call for the use of lenses with large apertures, and Michael McCreary shares these photos from the play "Importance of Being Earnest" staged by the theatre department of Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah GA, and shot with the Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D AF lens mounted on the Nikon D70.

Links:

View a larger version of the images and read the forum thread. Note that the pics were shot handheld, with the D70 set on JPEG Fine, Aperture priority, apertures f2.8-3.2, center weighted metering, shutter speeds ranging from 1/60-1/125 seconds, exposure compensation of +0.3 EV, incandescent (tungsten) WB (white balance), and ISO640 to ISO800. Michael remarks that he had ten times more keepers with the Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 than with other lenses.
The price of a used Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 might cost around USD300.
More shooting, bracing and breathing techniques are shared here.
The images were postprocessed in Photoshop Elements 3.
More notes on the advantages of using the Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 in low-light situations
More theater images can be seen at Michael's gallery on PBase.com
Additional Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 images shot in a dimly-lit school auditorium, contributed by Victor

Fungi Macros

David Chin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:41:08 +0000

Alex shot this very nice series of fungi images with his newly-acquired Sigma APO MACRO 180mm F3.5 EX DG IF HSM macro lens.

Click here to view a larger version of the images and read the related forum thread.

Also note Alex's mention of the greater working distance due to its 180mm focal length.

Macro lenses with long focal lengths are ideally suited for bug photography because you needn't get as close to the bugs to get the shot, as compared to, say, a Nikkor 60mm macro lens.

Hopefully, we'll get to see bug shots with his lens when the weather gets warmer.

Digital Photography Notes » Nikon D70

Nikon D80 Compared With The Nikon D70 / D70s

Related Posts

Superb Landscape Galleries by Steve Sieren

Related Posts

2 Sets of Nature Shots

Related Posts

Rob J shoots flowers with the Nikon 180mm lens

Related Posts

Superb natural light images with the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro

Related Posts

Bird photos with the Nikkor 18-200mm

Related Posts

Images From Afghanistan

Related Posts

Fly Portrait, Super Macro

Related Posts

Ultra-wideangle Yosemite Photographs

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When To Use An Off-Center Focus Bracket

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10 Shoreham Airshow Images

Related Posts

Macros With Stacked Lenses

Jumping Spider

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D AF Lens

Adapter Ring

Nikkor 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF Lens

Nikon D70

Nikon SB-800 Flash

Final Thoughts

Archive of comments from the old Nikon D70 / D70s blog

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Low Light Theatre Images

Related Posts

Fungi Macros

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