D-70 ISO200

[dabitz]

D-70 has a minimum ISO setting of 200. Other digital cameras,

especially p&s go as low as 50. If this a disadvantage in someway? I

know it goes up to 1600, but most of us will never shoot at that

setting. What limitation does the D-70 has by not having a lower ISO,

if any? Thanks in advance...

[dan_brown4]

It puts a bit of a limit on daylight fill flash use, where lower ISO can be helpful. On the

other hand, you've got 1/500 flash sync, and there are always ND filters. Basically, it's all

good.

[walterh]

"If this a disadvantage in someway?" As Dan said - only under certain conditions. But its really very rare that there is tooooooo much light :-)

 

 

"I know it goes up to 1600, but most of us will never shoot at that setting. " Well i dont know - I certainly used it quite a few times. Give it a try.

[dan_brown4]

I also find myself dialing up to ISO 1600 (and even 3200) when shooting indoor available

light. It's one of the really nice things about digital, the ability to dial the ISO up and down

as needed.

[tony_cabrera]

The D70 is generally under-exposed to begin with compared to other DSLR's. So I see it as a wash.

[hemen_oza]

Well I don't own a D70, but certainly has thought about buying and have done some research on this topic.

 

You need lower ISO setting to get less grain as a rule of thumb. That's true for film and for digital. Now D70 has got very little grain/noise at ISO 200 - there would not be a need to go below that level. I do not know the technical reason why Nikon chose not to go below 200, but I feel like people are not complaining about grain/noise at that level. Besides you get a couple of extra stops compared to ISO 50.

 

Do you compare D70 with a p&s. They probably need a lower ISO to get the noise reduction they need.

 

My $0.02.

[andrew_kendall]

The D70 is such a well-designed camera in most respects that we could almost conclude that the engineers must be right in deciding that anything less than 200 ISO was not necessary - it does such a good job at the range it's been given.

 

Then again, perhaps it's a marketing decision. As we know, features are deliberately excluded from a camera to avoid eating into sales of higher-priced pro models.

 

I tend to default to 200, though I confess that I never like using the extreme end of a scale for some reason. I would prefer a minimum of 25 ISO, even though I'd hardly use it, because that is what I've come to expect on SLRs.

 

My biggest misgiving is less control over depth of field and would like the option of as least 100 ISO.

 

I'm of the opinion, at this stage, that as the DSLR evolves we are going to be gradually led away from some old film-based conventions and, inevitably, this will be dictated by the engineers.

[benoit_deshaies]

<p><em>My biggest misgiving is less control over depth of field and would like the option of as least 100 ISO.</em></p>

 

<p>The D70 has a top shutter speed of 1/8000s. So under bright sunlight (f16-1/200s), you can go down to f/2.8. I think that this is sufficient for the vast majority of situations.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

Some dSLRs reportedly produce better results at the higher ISO settings, for some odd reason. With at least one dSLR I was reading about earlier this morning the tester reported better results at 1600 than at 1000. Others have reported better results at 400 than the minimum 200 or 100. So the slowest setting may not necessarily be the best.

[beno_t_marchal]

<p>P&S have smaller sensors that are more prone to noise so the ISO must be as low as

possible to minimize the noise. The D70 with its larger pixels has less noise at 200 ISO

than a P&S at lower ISO settings.

<p>BTW a French magazine (Chasseur d'Images) did a measurement and found that the

D70 sensibility is closer to 160 than 200 for what it's worth...

<p>--ben

[walterh]

@LEX - this does not apply to the D70. The curves are easy to find and there is nothing odd about them. 200 is prictically noise free , 400 still very good and I prsonally use 800 quite often without too obvious noise except for darker areas. 1600 is really noisy but still better than neg. films I tried.

 

 

cheers

walter

[jpbarilguerard]

<i>The D70 has a top shutter speed of 1/8000s. So under bright sunlight (f16-1/200s), you can go down to f/2.8. I think that this is sufficient for the vast majority of situations.</i>

<br><br>

I personally try to avoid speeds above 1/500, except when absolutely needed, such as when I need to freeze motion. Grid pattern noise is especially noticeable above those speeds, and it can look rather ugly. That's why a lower ISO would be useful.

[michael_matsil]

ISO is relative, just like many 'standards of measure' in photography. One camera's 100

ISO is another camera's 200, just like with films (was Velvia50 really 50?....I don't think so!)

Only testing against an absolute standard will tell the absolute truth. I'll bet that the D70's

200 is pretty much in the neighborhood of an absolute 100 (or maybe 160.) The rest is

marketing. Nikon wants this camera to be a mass market success. The pro's psychology

is that we want slow and medium speeds which represent smooth and grainless looks. We

use faster pricier lenses to cope. The consumer's psychology is that we want faster speeds

so we can shoot anywhere in our travels and sacrifice little in smoothness of tone (we also

want cheap as dirt slow zoom lenses as part of the deal.) Faking your minimum speed

upwards creates an illusion. "gee, my 200 ISO on my D70 looks as good as the 100 ISO on

my

friend's Canon. It must be a better camera. Tell all your friends!" This is at least the way I

beleive Nikon see's it. The fact is, the speeds are pretty much the same.