I’ve previously written about the Nikon D70. As I seem to have some affinity for older Nikon cameras, and as my D70 is also pretty beaten up, I couldn’t resist a good deal on a Nikon D70s with an attached Nikkor lens that has long been on my list: the Nikkor 35-70mm 3.3-4.5 AF lens. First released in 1986, the 35-70mm is most definitely a lens made for film cameras of the time as a cheap walk-around unit.
Some detractors say the focal length of 35-70mm isn’t especially useful on an APS-C sized sensor, but I disagree – 35mm is a popular wide, not not too wide, focal length, and 70mm can most certainly get you close or give you a decent portrait. Even if you consider equivalence (and a 50mm lens is still a 50mm lens on any sized sensor), the lens gives us 35mm eqivalent focal lengths of 52mm, 85mm, and 105mm – all three of them very useful lengths on any camera.
Snapping plant monsters in the suburbs – Nikon D70s
As for the D70s, it was announced in August 2005 and came hot on the heels of the original Nikon D70. The differences between the two models are minor, with the back-screen of the S iteration being 2 inches rather than the 1.8 inches of the original. The other features remain the same really: a 6.1 megapixel CCD APS-C-sized sensor, a top LCD screen with settings information, and an array of useful external controls, including ISO and White Balance, among others. Though it’s an all-black-plastic affair and has that familiar hollow feel of Nikon’s cheaper offerings, it definitely has a prosumer feature-set. Sure, the Nikon D200 is the professional upgrade, with a solid magnesium-alloy skeleton that feels like a giant warm buttered scone in the hand, but the D70s still remains a competent DSLR even in 2025.
The old blue van – Nikon D70s
All the photos were made using the lens at F-stops 5.6 – 8. As you can see, the photos are sharp and punchy, even using a 6.1 megapixel sensor from yesteryear. Need I go on about the competent image-making capabilities of these older cameras?
Covered in cactus – Nikon D70s and Nikkor 35-70mm 3.3-4.5 lens
I was helped by heavy cloud-cover, as there wasn’t a lot of dynamic range for the old CCD sensor to manage. Even though you can print pretty large from a 6 megapixel camera easily without much loss, the lack of cropping room makes one slow down and compose deliberately – there’s no running and gunning here. No lazy composition and fix it in the edit mentality. Old lenses, lack of high ISO, and fewer megapixels is good for getting back to the basics of photography: seeing clearly, connecting to the world through imagination, subject choice, composing deliberately, correct settings to suit scene and intent, and good hand-held technique.
If you print a 1 megapixel photo at billboard size, it will look like badly made bricks up close. If you stand 50 feet away instead, where just about everyone will be viewing it from, that 1 megapixel image will look pretty good. Viewing distance makes all the difference, and this is what we also need to consider when it comes to resolution and print sizes. Are you standing two inches away to view your photo prints? Even so, I don’t want to needlessly toss pixels away if I can help it, especially on these old cameras. I slow down, look, reflect, imagine, think through settings, check the histogram for exposure, and adjust if necessary.
When I look in the cupboard, I see lots of cameras and lenses – some would say, rather too many! Plenty of my film cameras are still piled up in boxes, so they barely add to the shelved pile. Poring over my digital cameras and lenses specifically, I see a growing number of Nikon branded things. I wonder if I’ve become brand loyal? I’d certainly not describe myself as a person overly concerned with brands!
Coober Pedy – Nikon Z5
Identifying with brands
There are lots of people who adore certain brands. By identifying with a brand, we express something of who we are. We recognise some characteristics in the brand that strike a chord within us. We announce to the world: “This brand expresses who I am or who I want to be!”. Perhaps the brand expresses qualities we aspire to demonstrate in our own lives? Perhaps it reinforces a self-perception that we’d like others to notice? Brands are symbols that can be important to our identities, and the most successful brands resonante more strongly with larger numbers of people.
You could say that brand Nikon is doing something right after being so long in operation. The Nikon Corporation has been around since 1917 and has become a household name in that time. They know how to make great cameras, but that’s not to say that Canon or Sony don’t also make great cameras. They certainly do! And they have their own branding and marketing. Truthfully, I’ve often felt that Nikon have been pretty terrible at marketing their gear. It’s great engineering, but companies like Canon and Sony often seem to have had more attractive marketing campaigns over the years.
So, I guess I’m wondering why I open up my cupboard and see a growing bunch of Nikon cameras staring back at me – what does it say about me? Am I now a brand fan?
Through the pass – Nikon D70
How I got started
The truth is that I never thought I’d be much good with a big pro-looking camera. I was convinced that small and simple cameras would be my fate, seeming to fit better with my self-perception of not being very technically minded.
Despite this, I decided some years ago to push my limits, so I purchased a Nikon D5100 in hopes of finding a way to express myself more creatively. It was either the Nikon or the equivalent Canon, but the D5100 just seemed to have some better tech-stuff inside – a marginally bigger APSC sensor, a well-regarded sensor also featured in the D7000, and the fact that I could use so many F Mount lenses. For about the same price as the Canon, it seemed to be a slightly better camera.
Waiting after a tiring day – Nikon D5100 with Nikkor 55-200mm DX
I wasn’t at all disappointed with the D5100. On the day I received it, I set about educating myself on how to use a DSLR. I’ll be honest – it was a bit intimidating. It was a very different and more complex camera than I was used to. After reading a lot and watching a lot of how-to and exposure triangle videos, I went out and did some night photography. I can highly recommend this practice if you want to learn about the importance of light in photography. You very quickly learn that light is everything when you’re running around at night with a cheap tripod and a shutter remote that only works half of the time!
For the Nikonians and other interested parties
I don’t have the D5100 anymore, but I do have a growing bunch of Nikons that many Nikonians would be familiar with:
Nikon D40 – It’s an old and small DSLR from Nikon, featuring a 6.1 megapixel CCD sensor. I’ve written more about it here. Paired with Nikon’s older kit kens – the Nikkor 18-55mm – it’s a great lightweight camera.
Nikon D70 – My copy is a bit on the used side, but it still makes great photos with the CCD sensor. Some say it has a definite cool bias, but that can be perfect for many types of scenes.
Nikon D7100 – This was my workhorse Nikon DSLR for a long time. I upgraded to it at a good price after selling the D5100 and what a difference it felt like upon opening the box! Unlike the D5100, it has more external controls and solid ergonomics that don’t feel plastic. It feels like a professional camera when contrasted to the D5100 !
Nikon Z5 – After a long time, Nikon finally entered the mirrorless game. The Z5 is every bit a modern mirrorless camera for a good price, considering the 35mm digital sensor. After using my mirrorless Olympus OMD EM5 cameras for so long, this feels both familiar and a huge upgrade in capability. As much as I trust my D7100, the Z5 is my new workhorse.
Nikon D200 – Released in 2005, the D200 features a well-regarded Sony-made CCD digital sensor. I regard it as one of the best early DSLRs from Nikon, as the camera market was shifting from film to digital.
I know that my Nikons aren’t exactly heavy enough to bow the shelving. It just feels like they outnumber my other cameras by a long way! Maybe it’s because I use them a lot, so I feel like I’m a brand loyal Nikonian? I’ve used my share of small junk cameras over the years, so it’s nice to pick up a big-name camera that just works when I want it to. I’ve had a few cameras die on me now – I’m looking at you, Sigma DP1 and Sigma DP2M ! I still don’t think I’m a brand loyalist, but I do like my Nikons.
Moving to a 35mm digital camera requires some adjustment, especially if you’ve been using crop sensor cameras for a long time, as I have. I’ve mentioned these challenges recently, and the specific issue around choosing the right aperture for a depth of field that’s equivalent to what I’d get on a small sensor camera.
Not habitable – Nikon Z5, F8, ISO 100, 24mm
I purchased the Z5 with a well-regarded Z-mount lens: 24 – 70mm F4 S. The S designation that Nikon put on this lens means that it’s above average in performance – or Superior. Perhaps not one of the Pro quality lenses, but definitely exceeding kit lens quality. I also like the constant F4 aperture and the weather-sealing. Not that I’m often out in the rain, but it’s definitely useful when the clouds threaten.
Machines we once used – Nikon Z5
I’ve no issue at all with the sharpness, but the left corner seems to be mushier than the other corners, as though one of the elements is slightly out of position. It seems to happen mostly when at 24mm and possibly at other focal lengths. Not a deal-breaker (not that I could return it anyway), but certainly irritating at times. I keep this in mind when I pull it out and will opt for the 40mm F2 instead if I don’t need the extra width, as that lens is even sharper.
Moving to mirrorless was a wise move for Nikon. I’m not loyal to the brand, but I’ve had a D5100 previously, and still have a D70, a D40, a D3100, a D7100, and the Nikon Z5 in the house, so they must be doing something I like. The Z5 is definitely a fantastic camera to handle and use, as I’ve found with all Nikons. I just need to break some old habits.
In the quest to sell cameras, companies convince us that the latest features are things we need to have. Have you ever heard that more megapixels are better, for example? You may think that the latest 42 megapixel beast is better in every way than your trusty old 12 megapixel compact, but this isn’t telling the whole story.
Ruins of the old school in Wirrabara Forest – Sony RX100
My old Nikon D70 only features a 6.1 megapixel sensor, but that’s more than enough for web viewing. It’s overkill for viewing on a phone screen. It can be printed at 4×6 inches, 7×5, and even 8×10 (possibly a little more too) if cropping hasn’t happened and you don’t use a magnifying glass to examine details.
This is where more megapixels has advantages: recording finer detail and the ability to crop the photo without losing too much of that detail when viewing at larger sizes. Six megapixels can stretch over a forest scene and pick up plenty of detail for small sized prints, but 24 megapixels can be halved in cropping and still print quite large without significant loss of detail across the image.
Sony RX100 outputNikon D70 output
Consider the two photos above. The first is from my Sony RX100 – a 20.2 megapixel compact camera from 2012; edited from Raw. And the second photo is a straight JPG from my Nikon D70 – a 6.1 megapixel DSLR from 2004.
Ignoring the different white balance settings and the aggressive sharpening on the D70 photo, both images look quite detailed don’t they? But the RX100 file contains a lot more tonality and detail, and this can be seen when zooming during the editing process.
When output to compressed JPG – where finer details are lost and pixels discarded – and resized to the same dimensions, the two photos aren’t noticeably different. At small print and viewing sizes, 6.1 versus 20.2 megapixels is not significantly different to the eye. Print large, and all of a sudden, the detail of the 20.2 megapixel image will become apparent, as the D70’s admirable but comparatively humble resolution struggles to stretch to these sizes and details look blurry.
Rusting out in the green field – Sony RX100
Buckets of photons
Even though it’s best to be careful when framing photos with a low megapixel camera like the Nikon D70, it allows one to slow down and consider the scene. There is another variable at play here too – largish digital sensors with a low megapixel count have bigger pixels, and will usually produce less digital noise. Packing 20 or 40 million pixels onto the same sized sensor will produce more digital noise.
I remember my first digital camera – a grey plastic Kodak with an awfully tiny LCD screen, 1 megapixel, and batteries that barely lasted 12 shots. I did enjoy it though, as the colour profile over-saturated the colours and the JPGs looked nice to my eyes. It made some decent looking 6×4 inch prints, but anything larger and you’d easily see the pixelation on any lines that weren’t straight.
Every pixel on a sensor captures photons. The best analogy I’ve heard is to think of each pixel as a bucket, and each photon as a drop of water. You can put more buckets onto a large sensor but the more you cram on there, the smaller the buckets have to be. You can’t fill those small buckets with too much water without spilling it over to neighbouring buckets. And if you put 40 million buckets on a small sensor, those are going to be tiny buckets that can’t hold much water at all!
This is partly why smartphones with small sensors and 100 megapixels aren’t so good at making finely detailed photos. The light spills from tiny buckets and causes loss of detail, blown highlights, and noisy interference with neighbouring buckets. A larger camera sensor with less megapixels and bigger pixels can produce less noisy images with good detail. It’s also part of the reason why my Nikon D70, with an APS-C sized sensor and only 6.1 megapixels, produces practically noise free images up to ISO 400. That, and the fact that those CCD sensors seemed to produce a finer grained digital noise pattern that lends itself well to black and white conversion.
If only old walls could talk – Sony RX100
Glass, perceived sharpness, print size, and viewing distance
The quality of a lens also impacts the perceived detail in images. A sharp lens at the optimal F-stop, with good camera technique, can make even an old sensor with single digit megapixel counts shine. Likewise, poor optics can cause even 24 megapixel images to look mushy.
What constitutes a sharp photo? Lots of fine detail is important. But what about contrast? How about focus and blur? Big megapixel count cameras will punish average lenses and bad technique at the pixel level, as they’ll look less sharp than expected.
Here’s another thing to consider: viewing distance. The further away you are from a printed image, the less fine detail you’ll see. For example, I could print a photo from my D70 at 8×10 inches, 300 dpi, and while it would appear less sharp close-up, it could hang on my wall and look sharp enough at a normal viewing distance. I could even print at twice that size and as long as the viewer wasn’t close, the photo would look OK and certainly be recognisable. Up close, the edges would look blurry and other digital artifacts would show up. But it’s also wise to remember that there’s more to a good photo than whether you can see edge blurriness or not. An arresting image will always trump some loss of detail.
For optimally sharp prints at 8×10 inches and 300dpi, 7.2 megapixels is the minimum requirement. But remember, these are numbers for optimal sharpness, and 6.1 megapixels will still look OK when printed a bit larger because our normal viewing distance isn’t pixel peeping up close. The same applies to other megapixel counts: optimal sharpness versus actual viewing habits.
Lovely rust on blue – Sony RX100
So, what does it all mean?
If you’re looking to buy a camera, ask yourself this: what am I going to use it for? If you’re only going to share photos on the web, any digital camera since 2003 will serve you well. If you want to print the occasional photo, but you’re not looking to go much bigger than 8×10 inches, then look at cameras of at least 8 megapixels. Want the sharpest photos possible, with the most detail recorded, and you also have access to the best printers available that can actually print all that detail at poster sizes? Then you’ll be looking at cameras with at least 24 megapixels. You’ll probably need even more if you really want images with as much fine detail as possible. And that’s not to mention the cost of top quality glass!
The Flinders Ranges in South Australia is an incredibly ancient place. Fossil evidence of some of the earth’s earliest life has been found in this area. The Nikon D70 might be old, having been released in 2004, but the rocks in the Flinders could tell impossibly old stories about the formation of life! That’s some perspective!
All that’s left of the Bangor township
The Flinders Ranges is also home to many ruins and old towns that are mostly abandoned. There was once a time when settlers in the area thought that the heavy rains of the time signified that the area would be prime farming land, but they were mistaken. The rains were unusual, and the area soon returned to dryness and low annual rainfall. Disaster befell the towns and the people who had tried to carve out a life. Today, old weathered shop signs are barely readable, dust blows down quiet streets, windows reveal the dark innards of abandoned buildings, and rusty padlocks prevent entry through old doorways.
The Nikon D70
The Nikon D70 was released in 2004 and represented great opposition to the Canon 300D. It has a 6.1 megapixel CCD sensor and features a top LCD, and dedicated buttons for Bracketing, WB, Exposure Compensation, and ISO. As with most Nikon cameras, the D70 has great ergonomics and feels good in the hand.
My D70 is a recent purchase from eBay, and though I don’t know how many shutter activations it’s had, the price I paid doesn’t make it especially crucial. It came with three Compact Flash cards, a charger and battery.
Upon arrival, I noticed that it was showing the dreaded CHA error on the top LCD. After some online research, this could mean a range of things, but most often relates to a communications issue with the Compact Flash card. In my case, I’m pretty sure that the copper pins have lost much of their gold plating. As the copper oxidizes, connectivity between the camera and the Compact Flash card degrades.
I found that wiggling and pressing firmly on the inserted card fixed the error, but it may return at any time. I’ll deal with it if it happens, but the camera worked without a hitch when day-tripping around the Flinders Ranges.
Nikon D70 settings
The D70 can record Raw files, but I decided to set it to the Fine/Large JPG output only. I wanted to see what kind of processing the camera applies and how the out-of-camera JPGs look. The day was cloudy, so I left the Nikon on the Cloudy White Balance setting all day. Old user reports suggest that the AWB setting tends to be a bit inaccurate and the D70 also underexposes to protect highlights. To offset this, I set the camera to +0.3 Exposure Compensation much of the time.
I used a custom picture setting for most of the day: +1 Sharpness, 0 Tone, Adobe colours, and Enhanced Saturation. Even at a sharpening level of +1, I find that the D70 applies it too aggressively. Better to leave it at zero and then sharpen in post with a lot more control. Late in the afternoon, I chose the Vivid setting and this seemed to produce less aggressively sharpened results, but was a bit dull in terms of colour output, apart from over-saturated reds. I’ll chalk that up to the overcast day and even lighting conditions at this point.
Long-forgotten and disused – Yacka, SA
The photo above was made using the Vivid setting with Cloudy White Balance. I sharpened only a little in post, with some added contrast. I think it looks pretty good for a 6.1 megapixel sensor from 2004, and as long as you don’t crop too much, good clear prints up to 8×10 inches, and possibly 11×14, could reasonably be expected at 300 dpi.
I used a Tamron 17-55m 2.8 lens, which is a pretty good match for the old sensor. I’ve often had issues with this lens on higher resolution camera bodies, but on the D70 it does an admirable job. There were no auto-focus misses and sharpness is pretty decent across the frame at most focal lengths.
I took along my trusty little Sony RX100 as a back-up camera, just in case the D70 presented with the CHA error again. I’ll process the Raw files from it and post some examples. Needless to say, there’s a big difference between the 20 megapixel output from the Sony versus the 6.1 megapixel output of the Nikon. That said, having minimal megapixels to work with does encourage better framing and composition, since there’s not much room for cropping.
In my current, seemingly endless and potentially dull, blogging about the little Sony RX100 Mark 1 camera, I’ve realised that I really enjoy using old cameras. Not exclusively old cameras, mind, but just older cameras when the mood strikes. The very idea that I’d upgrade as soon as the latest fancy-glitter-megapixel thing hits the shelves is tedious. The whole thing is exhausting, really. It’s also why I’m excited to receive an old Nikon D70 in the post.
The sunny edges we miss
There’s some science behind the nurturing properties of spending time in nature, with reports that subjective well-being is elevated, even for people with depression and anxiety. Many people report feeling recharged when they spend time in nature, be it walking through the local forest or walking along the beach. The Biophilia Hypothesis posits that humans are innately attracted to natural places and living areas filled with biodiversity. By seeking out this connection, we truly get back to who we are as living beings.
A world of green
Have you ever wondered why stress levels are so high in urban environments? The further away we are from nature and our natural selves, the greater our risk of developing a wide range of physical and mental health problems. Even something as simple as exposure to natural light each day can promote better sleep and improved subjective well-being. And the addition of green spaces to urban areas is linked with lower levels of stress.
Bamboo in the sun
We all need connection
What would it be like to see our planet from the deep cold of space? Some astronauts report their lives being significantly changed and their views transformed after seeing earth from this unique angle. The Overview Effect is a transformative state of mind that affects some astronauts. They report that after viewing our planet suspended in the depths of space, they develop not just a new appreciation for beauty, but a deep connection to all life.
Our small blue planet, from this point of view, is incredibly fragile and special – an oasis in a cold, black vacuum. There may indeed be billions of planetary star systems out there, but we’ll likely never reach them as even the closest is impossibly distant, and beyond the reach of the best rocket science, unless there’s a sudden shift in our understanding of time and space. So, rather than pollute the sea and soil beneath our feet, we should imagine our planet as a tiny blue speck, teeming with life, finite and fragile.
The Rusty Ruin Journal 