[Pavel]

Hey guys, I had D 70s and I loved it. A big step from my 4 mpixel little Canon. One thing I did not like it the noise in contrasty situations or when you go above ISO 400. In my view that camera had a lot of chroma noise anywhere north of ISO 400 and at the time I did not know how to clean it up in a and b channels. The luminance noise meant that night or contrasty photos were out of question above ISO 400.

1. What camera do you currently have, and why did you choose to purchase it?
I now have D 300 camera and it is a lot more of a camera. With careful exposure and in not too contrasty situations, you can often shoot at ISO 800. The LCD display is a lot brighter and has more detail, but outdoor, you still need Hoodman viewer to see the LCD display in bright sunlight. D 300 is more solidly built - and since I am not always careful enough, that is a blessing. The colours from D 300 are better, especially in extreme highlights - there seems to be more resistance to bending. In general, the dynamic range is better. But shooting at ISO 100 you can coax an extra 1/2 f-stop of extra dynamic range over ISO 200. Also active D-lighting extends dynamic range a little, although the differences are not large. I find D300 to be a more forgiving camera than D70s was. Somebody said that they want more mpixels than D70s offers. I wonder why - are you printing posters? The more Mpixels you have the more you have to contend with noise. I printed a number of 13"x19" from well exposed, not too contrasty photos taken with D70s and the resolution did not seem to have been an issue. It of course is not with D300. For 8x10, even my 4 Mpixel Canon was OK.

2. What camera would you like to have, and why?

D 700, mostly because of the larger sensor, which means less noise at the same resolution. That is a real blessing in contrasty situations, which are very familiar to the landscape photographers among you. Will I buy it? No. Most of my lenses are for small sensor only, so even if I could afford the camera (which I can not), the need to buy Nikon 24-70 and 70-200 would certainly mean a divorce. I do accept donations of D 700 hower (with the two lenses of course)


I was thinking of Canon G10 as a backup camera/spouse camera, but they so packed the little sensor with Mpixels that the camera is noisy. What possessed them I do not know. DP Review properly criticises them for it. If this is a camera destined for serious photographers, than they should know that serious photographers will shy away from noisy cameras. Casual photogrphers will rationaly buy a cheaper camera, as G10 is nice and compact and comes with a nice sweet zoom lens and a real viewfinder and RAW, but it competes with the intro SLRs on price. Given the noise, I would rather carry the extra weight of a SLR and know that I will not have to conend with noisy photos every time I have to increase ISO.

Pavel