Does the D70 have a tendancy to underexpose?

[Ed-Gein]

Hey folks!

Picked up a used D70 off ebay, $200 bucks with 3957 shutter actuations. It i in excellent shape, i plan to use this for time lapse work to keep the extra shutter releases off my D7k (yes i know the D70 lacks a shutter cable i have a way around this before i bought it)

I took it out, played around for a few, we got some snow last night so everything has been blanketed, i noticed that the D70 is underexposing by a full stop. it seems the tons of snow sort of confuses it a little.

Any other characteristics or behaviors that i should be aware of?

it seems so simple compared to my D7k. lol

 

[Jeff Lee]

Make sure that someone did set exposure comp to -1, with the D70 that was common as it tended to blow highlights. I loved mine but new with the D200 & D7000 it would just sit.

 

[Gordo]

As Jeff suggested, check the exposure comp. I ran with mine set for a bit under-exposed.

Other things to be aware of? Well, dynamic range isn't as good as the newer cameras. Doesn't do higher ISO well (one of the main reasons I recently picked up a D700). The battery will last a long time - very frugal if you don't run the LCD much. Be careful with inserting CF cards - bent pins are sometimes an issue. There was the BGLOD issue that some D70's seem to have (Blinking Green Light Of Death). Mine was bought July 2004 and never suffered the issue, so your's may be GTG.

Good camera - I still enjoy using mine.

 

[Mike Buckley]

Considering that you were taking pictures of snow, the exposure compensation would have to be set to +1/2 to +1 to get a reasonably "correct" exposure.

 

[pcrit]

I had a D70S as my first DSLR and don't recall it underexposing at all and it was usually fairly good about exposure.

 

[WillyS]

Mine overexposes a lot when outside. I often dial -0.7.

 

[Robert S]

The D80 had exposure problems, but to my knowledge the D70 did not. I have a D70S, and it performs so well I'm buying another body for $250 with 1000 actuations. I love the color accuracy right out of the camera.
I set -0.3 on all my cameras including the D70S.

 

[TOLady]

Considering that you were taking pictures of snow, the exposure compensation would have to be set to +1/2 to +1 to get a reasonably "correct" exposure.

+1 I would never recommend that you determine correct exposure of a new camera while shooting snow.

 

[Ed-Gein]

My d90 and d7000 always look fine with images with the same amount of snow. They may just have more advanced metering. I'm so spoiled by the big screen, lol, that 1.8 inch screen kills me. Hopefully all this stupid snow will go away soon. I'm ready for summer!

 

[Commodorefirst]

In matrix mode, the newer cameras have algorhythms that recognize snow scenes and patterns. Smarter Computers. The older cameras require meter snow scenes as most cameras have done for years and years, as grey, so they will need exposure compensation.

 

[robboh]

Ive got a D70, and now a D300 as well.

The D70 and I just never really bonded. I used to shoot E6, and I often didnt get the results from the D70 that I was used to. I find it produces very flat looking pics OOC, and typically find that just about every pic needs a levels adjustment, and a mid-curve ramp. Conversely, the D300 is behaving much more like my cameras of old in terms of the 'look' of the pics out of the camera (RAW into Aperture).

I also used to find I often struggled with getting sharp picutres from the D70, whereas again with the D300 things are back to how they used to be. I am finding with the D300 that I can often handhold critically sharp shots at 1/focal-lenght or even 1/(focal/2) whereas D70 would typically be much more in the realm of 1/(focal*2). Possibly I have a bad sample of a D70, or else it suffers from excessive mirror slap or something. Pass. All I know if that Im enjoying my photography again with the D300; I often didn't with the D70 as I was often very disappointed with the results.

Regards exposure. I found that the D70 would commonly under-expose in any light situation less than fully bright sunlight. In full bright sunlight, it would often slightly blow highlights. But still always with that really flat looking gamma curve.

HTH
Rob.

 

[Naptown]

My D70 is now with my daughter, but as I recall I did set the EV comp -.3 to .7. Nice and light, high flash sync speed. Quite a nice camera.