Cheese mentioned DP Review. Here is a link to the D-70 forum. I find it useful as I'm still learning what I can do with the camera.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1034

 

I've been reading the D70 forum on and off. Sometimes it's a little esoteric though (at least based on where I'm at right now). I suppose some people could say the same thing about NAM too.

 

Welp. I experimented a little tonight. Only one decent picture and its still
overexposed... practice practice practice.

Here's my EXIF for the pic.

Make - Hewlett-Packard
Model - HP PhotoSmart C850 (V05.32)
YCbCrPositioning - Centered
ExifOffset - 454
ExposureTime - 263847/100000 seconds
FNumber - 2.80
ExposureProgram - Normal program
ISOSpeedRatings - 100
ExifVersion - 220
DateTimeOriginal - 2004:07:22 21:55:15
DateTimeDigitized - 2004:07:22 21:55:15
ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr
ShutterSpeedValue - 3 seconds
ApertureValue - F 2.89
BrightnessValue - -3.33
ExposureBiasValue - 0.00
SubjectDistance - 1.01 m
MeteringMode - Center weighted average
LightSource - D65
FocalLength - 7.60 mm
FlashPixVersion - 100
ExposureMode - Auto
WhiteBalance - Manual
GainControl - High gain up
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - Normal
Sharpness - Normal

 

That's gorgious man...I would stick that on my wall...almost looks like a painting

 

I can't add *anything* that you can't learn at dpreview.com. I'd disagree with the earlier poster and say that Phil has the most complete digicam reviews anywhere. If you haven't check out his links section, as this is one of those rare areas on the net where competing sites still link to each other (remember Yahoo having links to lycos, etc.?)

To the earlier poster who inquired about the 8700 you'll be happy to know that this is a no-brainer. The d70 is a far, far better cam than the 8700. (If you want a self-contained camera like the 8700--look at Oly's c8080. Much better.)

I've played with a D70 that a friend bought and it's very nice. Very responsive and noise-free at every ISO I happened to try.

Finally: check out Pbase.com where you can search for pics by camera. It's another good data point about which cams are good and which aren't.

--Jeff

 

I use a D70 - you'll love it.



http://www.pbase.com/image/31505102

This isn't a MINI - but I'll describe the technique I was playing with... I took shots with the shutter open 25 seconds at a time and I ran around the car with a flashlight.. yes that's what you see on the right side of the image. I was camping and had the camera on a stack of books.. with a tripod I would have stopped down and done a much longer exposure.

Anyway... a couple daylight MINI shots in motion (used D70) to redeem myself for the Mercedes...

http://www.pbase.com/image/30434962/medium


http://www.pbase.com/image/30434963/medium

You'll love the D70.

-Dave Quick

 

I just took some pics tonight. Some friends on roadfly wanted to see my new wheels. In both pics I had the ISO set to 1600 which is way to fast, I did have the camera set to M and was at f25. The camera gave me 30 sec exp. for each pic. I was using the Nikor 18-70 dx linse. I think both pics would have been better if I had set up the camera a little more to the right. In the frist pic I just let the camera take the shot. In the second I painted the car with the flashlight that I used to hilight the wheel in the first pic.

 

D70 with Tamron 28mm-75mm F2.8 XR Di
Shutter Priority
30 second / F18
Focal Length = 75 mm

First attempt at this. Suggestions welcome.

 

Wow, I can't believe I stumbled into this area of NAM tonight and found this thread! It's awesome that there are so many photographers on here. I'm a huge photo nerd (been into film SLR stuff for 5 years now, but now I've got no darkroom access so I've got to go digital) and I'll be getting a D70 in about 2-3 months. My 3mp Canon PNS is decent but when it gets down to stuff where speed is an issue its just downright painful. I've fiddled with D70s on a few occasions and I'm absolutly amazed by the camera. I can't wait to get mine and comapare shots with all you guys.

 

Dave, in that pic above, although you've got the lovely trail of the car passing by and a very steady shot for a 30 second exposure (well done there!), the scene is still a touch too dark. An alley way is going to a be tough seel for some good lighting I would think. Although, perhaps I'm reading the pic wrong. Contrast this by shooting a well lit building at night. I'd be curious to see the results. I will say though that for 30 seconds, you did a good job of not overexposing the two well lit areas in the middle of the pic.

 

What ISO setting did you use?

 

200

 

Ok I got inspired. I hope these count as night photography. They were shot at night, but I did use 1 controlled light source. Controlling reflections on such a large object are difficult. These were shot with my lowly Nikon 4300.

 

The light look a bit warm on my monitor (iBook, resolution- 1024x768, millions of colors).
My first question would be, did you reset the White Balance for this type of scene? You might try experimenting with the Nikon's different White Balance modes, you know, sort of like bracketing the same scene using the D70's prefab settings.

(My preference is warm light anyway.)

Here's at link that might be useful: http://www.apogeephoto.com/july2004/...en7_2004.shtml

-J/C

 

I'm pretty sure you're right about that being the problem. I have a little time tonight so I may try to reshoot this.

 

That'd be cool.

Hey, you might try including a dynamic subject in the pic, like yourself ambling across the frame maybe. (should make for interesting ghost images)

-J/C

 

1st: OctaneGuy That's much better than I ever did with my 4300 at night. Nicely done.

Here it is reshot tonight with the white balance set to incandescent


D70 with Tamron 28mm-75mm F2.8 XR Di
Shutter Priority
30 second / F18
Focal Length = 75 mm
ISO 200
incandescent WB


The other one for comparison


D70 with Tamron 28mm-75mm F2.8 XR Di
Shutter Priority
30 second / F18
Focal Length = 75 mm
ISO 200
Auto WB


Here's the next one I started to play with.

 

I'm torn on the white balance issue. Yeah, you could get white to look white even when it's illuminated by a sodium lamp. But, do you want to?

Alright, I'm just too lazy to learn how to correctly white balance my camera when shooting at night with all kinds of different lights around.

Here's one I shot using plain old auto white balance. I did use the iPhoto "retouch" button, which darkened the car a little bit. I think this show would look less interesting if the wall behind the MINI looked white (it was painted white, but lit with very yellow / orange lights).

 

My take on white balancing is, you do it to get the look you want, and not let the camera arbitrarily achieve the look because it has the color temperatures confused.

Correctly white balancing isn't difficult. Take a white card, put it in the light of your subject. Even if it IS a mix of color temperatures. White balance to that. Check the preview image. If it's what you want cool, if it's not, try moving the card to a different area of mixed lighting and balance to that.

You can also warm up your images or cool them down by placing a gel over your lense before white balancing. A blue gel will warm up your image. You can also buy white balance cards that are precolored---called Warm Cards. They help you achieve different color effects.

Richard

 

Some sparkler images and lightning images.

 

I went out to Malibu last night to take a picture of the pier at night. Jeez, I'm going nuts with this night photography.



Here are the settings
D70 with 18-70 kit lens
F5.6 for 126 seconds
ISO 200
Incandecent WB

I also took an exposure for around 5 minutes, but it's even more blown out than this one. In the preview this one looked pretty good, but once I got home and saw it on the monitor it was definitely over exposed a bit. I'd like to reshoot it sometime, maybe for 90 seconds or so.

 

Thanks for the comment DiD about my bonnet shots. This new pic of yours of the pier is very cool. While it is blown out from a technical standpoint, I like the effect. Very ethereal (uh gotta spell check---dreamy like!)

As far as I can tell, it's devoid of any noise as well. That D70 looks clean! Compared to any of the cheapies I've played with anyhow.

Hmmm, seems you're MINI obsession is now a D70 obsession.
Good work! Gotta enjoy life! Have fun!

Richard

 

Dave - are you shooting these in JPEG format? Does the D70 allow you to shoot RAW files? If you can shoot RAW, you will have far more control over highlights & shadows...it's night & day (no pun intended)

 

That was shot in RAW + JPEG. The picture below is right off the JPG file. I was planning on installing the Nikon Picture Project software that came bundled with the camera tonight to edit the RAW file.

What are you using to edit RAW? Photoshop CS?

 

Great shot of the pier - although still overexposed in parts. I think your assumption is correct in thinking a 90 second exposure would work better.