Exposure
Control Mode Dial
When
using the Digi-Vari Program modes, the Nikon D70 automatically
optimizes white balance, sharpening, tone (contrast),
color, saturation and hue depending on the specific
mode chosen for great results. For example, select Portrait
for beautiful skin tones and soft background focus that
highlights your subject. To activate, the user simply
turns the Mode dial to select the appropriate Digi-Vari
Program from the seven listed below.
-
Auto:
The camera automatically adjusts settings to match
the shooting conditions.
-
Portrait:
For beautiful skin tones and soft background focus
that highlight the subject.
-
Landscape:
Creates sharp images with depth and highlighted plant
and sky colors.
-
Close-up:
Bring out the reds and greens of flowers while adding
soft focus to the background.
-
Sports:
Uses a fast shutter speed to freeze action cleanly.
-
Night
landscape: Captures nightscapes with minimal noise.
-
Night
portrait: Uses the built-in Speedlight to capture
beautiful portraits with sunsets or night scenes as
a backdrop.
Combined
with the user friendly auto program modes, the Nikon D70 offers
photographers full manual override control with the flexibility
of selecting from Program shift (P), Manual (M), Shutter Priority
(S) and Aperture Priority (A) exposure modes. Shutter speeds
ranging from 30 to 1/8,000 sec. and Bulb (time) exposure can
be set.
Improved
real time noise reduction
Noise* is
minimized in the Nikon D70 by utilizing a newly developed
digital front end and high performance analog signal processing.
The D70 employs a two-stage Noise Reduction (NR) process with
a combination of real time processing and mapping out noise
by shooting again while shutter is closed.
Although
activating this feature (turn on/off in menu) extends the
amount of time required to record the image, the NR processing
on the Nikon D70 is very fast, outperforming cameras like
the Nikon D100 or Canon's Digital Rebel. (No exact timings
available, although the difference in write time is noticeable
faster on the D70)
*
Randomly-spaced, brightly coloured pixels that appear at slow
shutter speeds, particularly in the shadows.
Metering
The Nikon D70 offers four types of exposure metering options,
including; 3D 1005-segment Color Matrix (full
area), Centre Weighted*
, Spot
or Spot AF** area metering .
*
Through the custom settings menu, the user can set the weight
of 75% towards a 6, 8, 10, or 13-mm circle (8mm set to default)
in the center of the frame, or weighting based on an average
of the entire frame.
** Meters 2.3mm circle (about 1% of frame) centered on active
focus area
I am happy
to see that Nikon has included their acclaimed 3D Color Matrix
1005-segment Meter in the D70. This is the same 1005-pixel
RGB sensor found in the professional Nikon D1 series and the
D2H D-SLR's, assuring accurate auto TTL white balance.
Six different
manual white balance modes (Fine tuning possible +/- 3 steps
for each setting), preset white balance, and white balance
bracketing are also available for extended creative control.
WB
options shown in the setup menu
Other
exposure control options include: exposure compensation
(+/-5 EV), flash exposure compensation (–3
to +1 EV in increments of 1/3 EV)
and auto exposure bracketing.
(Two
or three frames ±2 EV in 1/3 or 1/2 steps).
The Nikon
D70's ISO sensitivity can be set between ISO 200 to 1600 or
controlled automatically across the same range of settings.
The camera also features Auto ISO (not found on the D100),
that can be used in any of the exposure modes. Auto ISO can
also be employed with the shutter speed or aperture locked
to a fixed setting.
Recording
options
JPEG and
RAW (NEF) Combination Filing System: The system enables simultaneous
recording of RAW (NEF) and JPEG data for the same shot to
optimize and accelerate workflow operations.
Images
that are needed immediately can be downloaded in JPEG format,
while high-quality images needed for printing can be converted
from NEF at a later time.
 |
Image
quality settings
Image
quality settings on the Nikon D70 include: RAW (NEF),
Fine (JPEG Fine), Norm (JPEG Normal), Basic
(JPEG Basic), RAW + B (NEF + JPEG Basic)
Image
resolution size settings on the camera include; L (3008
x 2000), M (2240 x 1448), S (1504 x 1000)
Image
resolution settings
Nikon's
original NEF (Nikon Electronic Format) helps you make great
pictures even greater. Each NEF file stores the RAW image
data captured by the D70's image sensor, a thumbnail image,
and an "Instruction Set" that contains the camera's
original settings. Changes made never affect or degrade
the quality of the archived RAW data. The original 12-bit
data is processed by Nikon Capture 4.1 software (optional)
and displayed using a full16 bits per channel, so tonal
and other color corrections can be made with smoother fidelity.
You can
save any changes as a new Instruction Set, as a 48-bit TIFF
file, or as a JPEG file when easy sharing via the Internet
is the priority. Another advantage is that NEF files are designed
to ensure forward compatibility, so they can take advantage
of any new features added to future versions of Nikon Capture.
Image
enhancement options
Easy to set image enhancement options optimize sharpening,
contrast, tone, color, saturation and hue while using Auto
Multi Program [P], Shutter-Priority Auto [S], Aperture-Priority
Auto [A], or Manual [M] exposure modes to best match the scene
or intended use for the picture. Choices include; Normal,
Vivid, Sharp, Soft, Direct Print, Portrait, Landscape or Custom
optimization.
