Filter
Top Products
Nikon D70/D70s User’s Guide
BASICS:
CAMERA
Many of these adjustments require you to be in be in the P, S, A or M exposure modes. You set that
on the top dial. The cute preset modes often lock out some adjustments.
I leave most settings at their defaults and use the Program exposure mode. I never use the cute little
preset icon modes because I prefer to set anything special myself.
ISO: I use 200. If the light gets dim and my images would get blurry from slower shutter speeds I
increase the ISO to 400, 800 or 1,600. I never bother with in-between settings like 250 or 640. The
D70 looks fine at ISO 1,600 if you need it. I'd much rather have a slightly grainy but sharp image than
a less grainy but blurry one. Unlike film, the D70 looks great at high ISOs, so I use them anytime I
need them.
I would love to use ISO AUTO, but usually don't because it also remains active in Manual exposure
mode. This firmware defect defeats the purpose of the manual exposure mode. Using menus to
deactivate AUTO ISO for manual exposure mode takes more time than AUTO ISO saves. Rats.
White Balance: I use AUTO -3 and use an 81A glass warming filter on the lens. I prefer warmer
(oranger) images. See more details about how to set these on my D70 Back Panel Controls page and
details on why you care at my general White Balance page.
QUAL: I shoot JPG NORMAL. This is called NORM and L on the top LCD, which stands for NORMal
JPG compression and Large (3,008 x 2,000) image size.
I've made 12 x 18" prints of the same shot made in BASIC, NORMAL, FINE and raw. I saw NO
difference! Seriously, if you saw these prints you wouldn't be able to sort them out either. I can see
only the slightest differences on my monitor enlarged to 100%, which is similar to a 20 x 30" print,
and my digital LCD monitor has 100% MTF pixel-to-pixel, which prints don't. Don't worry: if you need
space, shoot BASIC and no one will see the difference. The only way to tell is by looking at the file
size.
I'll use BASIC for parties and sports when I'm shooting many hundreds and hundreds of images at
once. In these cases I'm more concerned with time wasted for the files to transfer, copy and archive.
Basic looks 99% the same as FINE, even blown up big.
I'll use FINE on rare occasions where I'm shooting just a few images and expect to peer at them very
closely. In these cases the extra size isn't significant if I expect to be spending a lot of time analyzing
each image.
I don't use raw, as you can read on my Raw vs. JPG page.
I avoid FINE JPG because NORM gives me the same results, with half the file size. If I shot FINE I
might run out of room on a card and miss a shot. Missing a shot is a very visible defect, and I see no
defects in NORM. Nikon knows what they're doing. That's why they call it Normal and that's why I
normally use Normal JPG.
OPTIMIZE IMAGE: I prefer the vivid color I get from Fuji's Velvia 50 film, so I tweak my D70 to give
color as vivid as I can get. To do this go to MENU > Shooting Menu (camera icon) > Optimize Image
> Custom > (set Saturation to + and Color Mode to IIIa) > - - Done > OK. If you forget to select "- -
Done" and hit OK it won't remember these settings! Details are on the Shooting Menu page.
© Ken Rockwell 3 of 3