Torn, D70 or 8800?

[gcherke]

I'm getting a digital camera for my girlfriend for the holidays and am kind of torn between the D70 and CoolPix 8800. Below is what I could gather from information on websites and hoping you can help assist me. Unfortanetly, I was unable to find a complete good review on the 8800, as I've found only reviews on pre-production models which do not talk much about picture quality or show samples.

First of all, my girlfriend will be upgrading from a point and shoot digital camera. However, she did take a photography class a long time ago. So I say this because she will have to learn how to make all the manual adjustments again to take good pictures but hopefully it will come back easily for her, and mainly because she is starting from nothing (no current lenses which can be used on the D70, etc.).

Key Points of 8800
- Has D-Lighting feature (do pictures actually turn out well with this feature, will it actually be useful?)
- Has image stablization, which the D70 would require additional lense for that feature, and from what I understand, at a high price
- Is an 8 megapixel camera compared to 6 on D-70, which will allow larger prints
- From what I've seen on websites, looks like the colors in the pictures on the 8800 would be better than the D70 (when comparing the D70 to 8700 sample pictures)
- Has telephoto, fish-eye, wide-angle, and filter options

Key Points of D70
- Can take better pictures in low-light conditions
- Able to take more pictures in burst mode (how much faster is it than 8800)
- Much better selection on lenses and filters

So again, I'm thinking the 8800 would be better for her to start using for now, and then upgrade later once she starts using all the features. Please let me know if I'm wrong in any of the assumptions above or missed anything. I'm sure I missed QUITE a bit on the D70, since I'm kind of biased to the 8800 ;) Thanks again.

[Nick]

I'm not sure if your comparison of the two is completely accurate :)

However if she's coming from a complete P&S, the 8800 is better for her... perhaps. To get good photographs out of the Nikon D70, you have to work for 'em. Put in in auto mode, and put the 8800 in auto, the 8800 will probably give you better looking photographs right out of the camera. Heck, point and shoot, I feel my Sony 717 has given me better photos then the Nikon D70 sometimes. But the Nikon D70 isn't meant to be used as a p&s, therefore you'll have to learn a lot to get great results, be prepared to mess with things you've not messed with before; curves, CCD cleaning, relying completely on manual modes, understanding different flash settings, just the start of it etc.

But work with the Nikon D70, read a book on it Thom Hogan's e-book ( almost mandatory ) (http://www.bythom.com/d70guide.htm) practice much, and you'll never want to go back again on anything. BTW, you forgot to mention that focus speeds with a Nikon D70 and kit lense are unexistant.

To be completely honest though, I think for her, the 8800 is a good choice. If I didn't go from point and shoot, to advanced digital, to dSLR, life would be even harder ;)

[Terracotta]

Well either camera will do a good job, that's something common to both of them. So yeah, the 8800 will give you better out-of-the-box results than the D70 but it doesn't take much manual intervention for the D70 to surpass the abilities of anything in the 8800 class of camera. To pick up on some points in your 'Key Points ' -

The 8800's image stabilisation system can to some extent be compensated for by the D70's lower noise levels at high ISOs affording faster shutter speeds.
In resolution I found that the 6MP dSLRs yielded higher resolving power than the 8MP compacts, and it's the resolving power that gives you the ability to print bigger.
The colours of the dSLRs are much more natural than all the compacts I've used I tend to find that the compacts over saturate & are to vivid leading to unnatural looking prints.

But really these are side issues, compared to the really big difference, the creativity of them, try and get creative with the 8800 and quickly you'll hit a brick wall with the D70 you've got so much more scope to take an ordinary scene and turn it into something completely unusual and different. Sure the 8800 can do this but the D70 gives you more options. I'm not going to tell you what the answer is you've just got my feeling on the subject... I've got a D70 btw ;)

[Rhys]

I was looking at DSLR v megazoom compact. In the end I went for the Canon S1 IS. I was biassed toward the VGA video it offers - not just the 10x zoom.

I looked at my SLR kit and decided that my max lens was 300mm and my minimum was 28mm. The S1 gives me 38 - 380 approximately. More often than not with my SLRs I used 50mm and 135mm lenses. So, I went for the S1. I have not been disappointed other than in the lack of a decent macro feature but I have my Nikon 995 for that.

As far as megapixels go, my (and several other noteworthy contributers to these forums) opinion is that 3 is fine for anything up to A4 (A3 at a pinch). For anything more, the cost of the equipment and frequency of requirement justifies the purchase of medium format camera gear - such as an old Roliflex. In other words, 3mp will cover 99% of your photography.