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A Personal Comparison of the D70 and D50
Notice that this is MY comparison of these 2 cameras. Just so we are clear, lemme say it now: IMHO+YMMV :thumb
Backstory
My mother made it into the DSLR world before I did. She picked up a D70 2 years ago. I stayed with my digital point and shoots and declared that you'd have to pry my Minolta X370 outta my cold-dead paws. Luckly, I didn't go that far with it. After getting abused over the cost of film and processing supplies, I went looking for a DSLR.
The controls on the Canon's didn't do it for me, and I'd made up my mind on either the Canon or Nikon. I've always had a soft-spot for Nikon's, and by the time I was in the market Minolta had been sold off to the evil empire (Sony). So that means that I was looking for the D50 or the D70. After reading Thom's review of the two camera's I went for the D50.
I've shot a few thousand pictures worth saving with the D50. Lately I've been looking at getting into for hire and stock photography as a side line. So before I booked any gig's I wanted to have a back-up camera handy.
My mother's D70 was quickly replaced by a Nikon CoolPix - so I asked to borrow that one for a while as a back up.
Comparisons after a week
Unexpectedly, I like the D70 better. :scratch The D70 is heavier, and larger - fitting into my hands a bit better then the lighter smaller 50. That tells me that the D80 might be a bit of a dissapointment when I get to take a look at one.
The D70 has a few different feature buttons on it that I THOUGHT I wouldn't miss. Coming to mind are the Bracket button, a second jog-dail for apature, a focus zone selection lockout, and a LCD backlight button. The second jog-dail and the LCD backlight button are just what I needed to get off better shots. I find that I foul up my focus less often with the lock on the selector.
The D50 has some high points... it may just be the size of the body, but the color LCD seems a bit bigger, and the viewfinder seems crisper. Also the D50 shoots more naturally - meaning there is less adjustement in exposure and WB between the readings and my eye. The D70 "see's" the world in a differnt light then I do - the D50 and I might just have more history - but I do less settings work with it.
The D50's P mode seems better thent he 70's - but the 70's portrait mode produces more pleasing images to my eye. I didn't think that the 1/2 a frame per second lead the D70 has on paper would matter that much - but oh it does. I'm not sure if it is the processor or the physical shutter control but it FEELS twice as fast as the D50.
The focus speed on the 50 seems to work just a wee-bit faster then the 70 using the exact same lens. I can't explain that one.
Memory - this is odd, I've gotta check the spec's to explain this one: My D50 has around 200 shots on RAW, full size with a 2G SD-Card. The D70 has 183 with 2G.
The next step
I intend to do some side-by-side work and post the results for comparison. Feel free to ask questions or issue comments. I'm not even sure WHY I'm doing this other then to document which of the 2 bodies is going to lead my efforts.
Backstory
My mother made it into the DSLR world before I did. She picked up a D70 2 years ago. I stayed with my digital point and shoots and declared that you'd have to pry my Minolta X370 outta my cold-dead paws. Luckly, I didn't go that far with it. After getting abused over the cost of film and processing supplies, I went looking for a DSLR.
The controls on the Canon's didn't do it for me, and I'd made up my mind on either the Canon or Nikon. I've always had a soft-spot for Nikon's, and by the time I was in the market Minolta had been sold off to the evil empire (Sony). So that means that I was looking for the D50 or the D70. After reading Thom's review of the two camera's I went for the D50.
I've shot a few thousand pictures worth saving with the D50. Lately I've been looking at getting into for hire and stock photography as a side line. So before I booked any gig's I wanted to have a back-up camera handy.
My mother's D70 was quickly replaced by a Nikon CoolPix - so I asked to borrow that one for a while as a back up.
Comparisons after a week
Unexpectedly, I like the D70 better. :scratch The D70 is heavier, and larger - fitting into my hands a bit better then the lighter smaller 50. That tells me that the D80 might be a bit of a dissapointment when I get to take a look at one.
The D70 has a few different feature buttons on it that I THOUGHT I wouldn't miss. Coming to mind are the Bracket button, a second jog-dail for apature, a focus zone selection lockout, and a LCD backlight button. The second jog-dail and the LCD backlight button are just what I needed to get off better shots. I find that I foul up my focus less often with the lock on the selector.
The D50 has some high points... it may just be the size of the body, but the color LCD seems a bit bigger, and the viewfinder seems crisper. Also the D50 shoots more naturally - meaning there is less adjustement in exposure and WB between the readings and my eye. The D70 "see's" the world in a differnt light then I do - the D50 and I might just have more history - but I do less settings work with it.
The D50's P mode seems better thent he 70's - but the 70's portrait mode produces more pleasing images to my eye. I didn't think that the 1/2 a frame per second lead the D70 has on paper would matter that much - but oh it does. I'm not sure if it is the processor or the physical shutter control but it FEELS twice as fast as the D50.
The focus speed on the 50 seems to work just a wee-bit faster then the 70 using the exact same lens. I can't explain that one.
Memory - this is odd, I've gotta check the spec's to explain this one: My D50 has around 200 shots on RAW, full size with a 2G SD-Card. The D70 has 183 with 2G.
The next step
I intend to do some side-by-side work and post the results for comparison. Feel free to ask questions or issue comments. I'm not even sure WHY I'm doing this other then to document which of the 2 bodies is going to lead my efforts.
--Kres
0
Comments
Another thing to keep in mind is as I understand Nikon's line up it's D50 -> D70 -> D200 -> D1 from entry level to flagship model. So the D70 is positioned above the D50, though it's older. So your findings make sense to me.
http://www.chrislaudermilkphoto.com/