Nikon D70 dSLR or Nikon CP8800 Non dSLR (Non-CCD Cleaning!!) ??

Hi everyone,

Could anyone please help me with a difficult decision I can't seem to make?

I'm stuck between the Nikon CP8800 and the Nikon D70.

Here is my difficulty: The whole CCD cleaning thing is putting me off buying
a dSLR. Every site you look at about cleaning the CCD, you are warned that
it's difficult to do correctly, you can easily ruin your camera and, you can
invalidate the warrenty. Besides, I want a camera to take pictures with, not
to be regularly cleaning it!

I would be grateful for your thoughts/experiences, AND opinions on the
CP8800?

Thank you everyone in anticipation of your help.

Darrell Burnett.

 

The dust issue is not as bad as most folk make out. It is just a fact of
life just like dust on an old vinyl record, you take good precautions and
cleaning is minimal, plenty of good products out there to assist. My D70 is
6 months old, I have changed lenses over 5o times at least in that time and
I can only detect one tiny speck of dust which only shows up on a pic of say
a clear blue sky or similar. Even then one can take it for a bird or
somthing. I wait till I have 5 or 6 specks then i'll think about sensor
cleaning. D70comes with Nikon view or Capture which has a clever program to
delete dust digitaly from the sensor- it makes some kind of allowance for
the dust. IMHO The advantages of the D70 system (True SLR) over a psudeo
like the 8800 are immense.
You will not be able to put on a 500 mm lens plus a 2x conv and get an
excellent shot of a pilot 'scratching behind his ear whilst awaiting taxi
instructions at an airport" for example.

 

FWIW, the D70 only comes with a demo of Capture which is required to use
the dust reference frame. Also, this is only available when saving toe raw
NEF format, not JPG.

 

My experience below. Not necessarily the "right" way of doing things, nor
the right answer for everyone, but just "for information":

When I started looking for a decent digital camera, I originally started
looking at the 8700 (initially for no other reason than I saw a second-
hand one in a window -- at that time, I hadn't done any research). As I
dug into things, I got to the stage of trying to decide between the 8700
and the 8800 (I liked what the 8800 offered, but it cost more etc.). I was
on the verge of getting one or the other a couple of times, but never got
to the "commit" stage.

Initially, I had not so much "rejected" a dSLR, as never really considered
one -- I wasn't a converting-SLR-film-user, and although I knew the basics,
"playing with lenses and all that hassle" was "too much bother" for what I
wanted.

However, as I put off deciding between the 8700/8800 for longer, I saw more
and more info/advice/dogmatism that led me to begin to consider a dSLR (and
specifically the D70). At first this was "if only..."; but as I read more
of the differences between the top-end (or, at least, 8MP) p&s cameras and
bottom-end (6MP) dSLRs, the D70 became more and more attractive.

In the end, I went for the D70 for a number of reasons, at least a couple
of which are I hope legitimate:

(a) Especially in difficult conditions, six million dSLR pixels should give
better photos than eight million p&s ones;

(b) Although it's not a situation that will crop up that often, I'd
recently been to a Formula 1 training day at Silverstone, and couldn't get
the shots I wanted with a compact film zoom camera nor an old/cheap digital
p&s. While the D70 body isn't "professional sports standard", better
shutter-lag, shot-speed and buffer-speed, plus not having an EVF that
blanks between shots should be of benefit if I am ever in a similar
situation.

(c) The general "expandability" of a dSLR... while I wanted to be able to
take good photographs, I'm certainly not a "keen amateur", nor really is
photography a "major hobby". As such, whatever I chose would likely be my
main camera for several years to come. While I probably won't push against
all the limits, I felt my options would be limited less with the D70.

(d) While sometimes useful/fun, I didn't/don't see the lack of live preview
nor the ability to take video clips as a major drawback.

(e) If I'm honest, it appealed to the "techno-head" in me a bit...

(f) Although I hadn't intended to spend what the D70 cost, I _could_ afford
it (and didn't have to justify the extra to anyone).

(g) I'd seen references to dust, but decided that _in_the_main_ it was one
of those issues where you get the most noise (as in postings to usenet/the
web) from people for whom it has become an obsession, and that for the
(nearly) silent majority, it wasn't too big a problem.

Did I make the right decision (for me)? I think so. I'm very happy with
my D70. I probably don't yet _need_ all the D70 has to offer, but it's
there if I do, and I think I'm less likely to think "if only my camera
could..." than with the 8700/8800.

If I _did_ have to make the choice again, I'd probably not make it between
a 6MP dSLR and an 8MP p&s, as I don't think the extra 2 million p&s pixels
are probably worth it for the price difference. Instead, I'd probably look
for a good 4/5MP p&s. There's less compromise from packing so many pixels
into a small sensor, more portability and a greater price differential.

HTH

Regards,
Graham Holden (g-holden AT dircon DOT co DOT uk)

 

Sorry for sounding stupid, I have never owned a DSLR, so what exactly is
Live Preview? Is it the ability to freeze the photo for 3-5 seconds like my
Powershot G1 to see if the photo is well taken? Or is it the button to
review Photographs? Or is when you switch settings like White Balance, Spot
metering, the LCD instantly shows what it would look like "live" even b4
you press the shutter?


Thanks
CJ

 

As others said, the dust isn't a big issue. It's only visible in very
high f/stop number shots. Lots of good solutions for doing it yourself
once a year or so.

The biggest issues are size, complexity, cost of necessary lenses and
the lack of live LCD preview. Consider that you will want to have a
collection of expensive lenses to get full performance. The kit lens has
nice wide angle but very little telephoto & not spectacular macro, no
image stabilization, not a particularly fast (low f number) lens, etc. I
miss the live preview. In general the D70 is more demanding to operate.
It does have auto settings but you will want to learn all the controls &
shoot in raw and get sucked up into a pretty darn geeky technical hobby.
That's a lot different from point & shoot. Not only is the body bigger &
heavier but when you start craving more lenses, the nice ones can be
HUGE. Are you willing to get into all that?

 

With DSLR's you have to hold the camera to your eye and don't see the
image until after it's been shot. I used to love the live preview on the
LCD of my P&S. So easy to see the exposure & composition as I move
things around. But the DSLR viewfinder is easier to see detail, I used
to miss little things that couldn't be seen in the LCD like a piece of
trash in the corner.

 

Hey!! Who you callin a Geek!! ))

 

So, what exactly is the LCD on DSLR for? Playing with menu and settings?

 

You can inspect the exposure after shooting, trial & error style. It is
quite a different technique from live preview. Big difference.

 

Dang. Thank you for clearing this up. I have been considering a DSLR to
replace my P&S thinking that since it comes with the LCD, all the
convenient features(live preview, AV priority, Spot metering) must be
universal. I have had little success with film-SLR in my student's day due
to limited skills and budget, i'd probably have to reconsider my decision
since it didn't seem such a technological leap in terms of features from
film-to-digital SLR.
In another word, I see the quality of my pictures taken improved moving from
P&S film to P&S digital because of certain features, but I am unlikely to
see an improvement with SLR-DSLR with my current skill. Is that a fair
statement to make?

 

The DSLR will push you to study & learn more technique so it could
improve your skills in that way. I'm not familiar with high end P&S
cameras but DSLRs have lots of easily accessible manual controls. My old
P&S was impractical to adjust things manually, the DSLR is easier to
adjust. The optical viewfinder is very nice, it's just completely
different from LCD shooting. You can get better results but it takes
more work to actually keep track of shutter, aperture, ISO, check the
histogram on the LCD after, more work converting RAW files, larger
files, more expensive lenses. If you don't want all that, the P&S is a
better choice.

 

The Olympus E-1 and E300 both have an automated cleaning system that
cleans the sensor everytime you switch on the camera, takes decent
pictures too!

 

One of the windshield wipers got stuck on my Oly E-1, and I kept on
forgetting to re-fill the sensor-cleaning fluid reservoir (it's too
small really) so I swapped it for a D70.

Cleaning dust of the D70 sensor is easy - just give the camera a good
shake every morning. That does the trick.

<g>

 

"You know it makes sense Rodney"

 

My first few photos from my new D70 had dust spots.

Ben

 

Graham Holden wrote:

This is a superb, well though-out post, and I was especially interested
in the last paragraph. I have been going through exactly the same
problem: dslr or Nikon 8800. After months of thinking about these two,
I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a Panasonic Z20. What I did was review
all the shooting I did in the last year with a 5 Mpix camera (Canon
s500)and ask, what did I wish I had most. It was a much longer zoom
range and vibration reduction always at hand. Next was a faster and
better lens at the corners. Next was a lot more flexibilty. What did I
want to retain as much as possible? Small size and portability.
Reasonably fast shutter response. I realized that the Panasonic was
much closer to what I wanted than a dslr. Since it can be had for under
$500, it is not a major investment. When I start sensing that I am
missing shots or not getting as good shots as I should be, then I'll
seriously look at a dslr. With my S500, I feel that over 90% of the
pictures could not be improved if I had taken tham with a fine dslr. The
other 10% weren't any great loss either. I also carefully compared
images with the Panasonic and dslrs, and while the latter were better,
they were not that much better for normal use. I decided I liked the
idea of owning a dslr more than i would actually benefit from having
one. And I've owned fine film slr's for decades.

Joe

 

You beat me to it. That's the biggest issue between DSLR and nonDSLR
if lens variety isn't that important.

CCD cleaning is not so bad with SensorSwabs.

 

IMO the best deal on a 5MP P&S is the Nikon Coolpix 5400, under $300
after a $200 rebate (until Mar 31)

 

With the P&S the live preview of what the actual photo size will be.
Their viewfinders are completely inaccurate rel to the DSLRs.