11 Images from a wedding...you've been warned.

[Sebastian]

You jumped ship too soon. :-O

If only you had known the D70 was going to redefine digital! ;-)

Still great shots, even if you do use a canon thingy.

Redefined digital? HAHA!!! ;)

Seriously, it didn't do much besides make it more affordable. Even the fancy meter doesn't seem to be everything it was hyped up to be. But what did I lose? Easy control. What did I gain? Better image quality and more consistent exposures. I'll take the latter over the former ANY day.

Try as you might, you will never make me regret the switch. ;)

[Speed]

Redefined digital? HAHA!!! ;)

Seriously, it didn't do much besides make it more affordable. Even the fancy meter doesn't seem to be everything it was hyped up to be. But what did I lose? Easy control. What did I gain? Better image quality and more consistent exposures. I'll take the latter over the former ANY day.

you will never make me regret the switch. ;)

"you will never make me regret the switch." ;)

You can't blame a guy for trying! I'm glad you've adapted to your new camera. The images look great buddy.

[adina]

Adina,

I do shoot in Milwaukee every so often. Actually know a couple photogs in Milwaukee and Appleton. Are you anywhere near there?

Wedding photography is great.

Dennis

I'm about 30 minutes from Milwaukee, and hour from Appleton. Both easily driveable distances

adina

[mtbbrian]

These are great Seb.
I am sure the couple is extremly happy with your wonderful, intimate photographs of their day.
Thanks for sharring!
Brian

[coloradoamigo]

I just don't "see" the image quality of the 10D being FAR better than that of the D70. Almost every single review of the D70 states that it is on par, and in some cases better than that of the 10D/Rebel, and the noise at higher ISOs is much more monochromatic (more film like) than that of the 10D/Rebel (which share the same CMOS sensor).
Also, I get very consistent exposure from my D70. The metering is fantastic. Another thing, the new i-TTL flash system is awesome, but even with the older flash system Nikon employed, I'm suprised to hear you say that you get better flash exposure from your Canon. Alot of the Canon users I know and read about complain about the Canon flash system compared to the Nikon. From what I've read, the new flash system in the Mark II will address alot of the complaints.
All of that being said, I believe image quality is very subjective, and you obviously like the Canon "look" to the Nikon. One thing I wish the D70 has is ISO 100, that is a definite advantage over the Nikons. That being said though, the noise levels of the D70 have not bothered me much at all, and when they have, I've applied very slight noise reduction. No problem.
Not trying to start a war here AT ALL, not my intent, and I know you are very happy with your decision to switch. Just thought I'd defend my camera a bit. ;)

Have a good one Seb!!
Brian

Redefined digital? HAHA!!! ;)

Seriously, it didn't do much besides make it more affordable. Even the fancy meter doesn't seem to be everything it was hyped up to be. But what did I lose? Easy control. What did I gain? Better image quality and more consistent exposures. I'll take the latter over the former ANY day.

Try as you might, you will never make me regret the switch. ;)

[Sebastian]

Brian, come on, I know you're not trying to start a war.

To answer your question, I don't look at image quality quite the same as the testers out on the web. All those graphs and charts are only part of the equation.

In over 10,000 frames shot with my D100s, I had an occassional image that would WOW me, a shot where sharpness, detail and color all came together to really impress me in their quality. In the 5,000 frames shot with my 10D I have had very few shots that DIDN'T wow me in that manner. And that is how I judge the quality. I am getting from JPG files what I would get from a NEF files with plenty of post-processing.

As for flash, the Canon flash system is stupid, but it's more consistent than the D100/SB-28. The Nikon was easy in that you would just point and shoot, but exposures were all over the place. Canon makes you keep a focus point on the subject, which limits framing possibilities, but exposure is much more consistent. And due to the positioning of the 7 AF points, I still have some flexibility in framing, but not as much as I would like. The i-TTL system is supposedly greatly improved, and the E-TTL II is supposed to rid us of the AF point tether. Both are great for everyone.

As for noise, once again the charts and graphs are different from everyday shooting. Look at the D2h, it actually has LESS noise than the Canon 1D numerically, but look at the image comparisions and download samples, and in almost every shot the 1D looks better. That took me a long time to swallow, and in the end was part of the reason behind my switch. But my point is, at ISO 100 I have no noise, none. When I first got the 10D I took some shots with some deep shadow and brought the levels ALL the way up. The shadows had no noise. ISO 400 looks like my D100's ISO 200. Overall the colors are more saturated and I think the skin tones are much more natural. Overall, when I look at both my libraries of images, the ones taken with the Canon and the ones with the Nikon, I think the majority of Canon images looks far better in every way than the majority of the D100 images.

That being said, the D70 improved a lot. The noise still is higher than the D100, but like you said its quality has improved, so it looks better. That happens even though the weak AA filter has increased the numerical amount of noise. The meter is more consistent, but due to some sort of software crippling, it seems to be inconsistent when directly compared to the F5 meter. People are speculating that the brains behind the meter are not the same as the F5/D1/D2 series, and therefore gives different results. Meaning that it it's not the same performance wise, just part-wise, but still an improvement over the multi-area matrix.

I'm just saying all this to give my side of the story. Look around and you'll see that you didn't even need to defend your camera, because I promote it quite a bit on this site, it is an EXCELLENT camera, especially for the price. But in the end, I look at the D70 images and they look like D100 images, except with more detail and nicer noise, but they just don't wow me like Canon images do. I never believed it when Canon users trumpeted the CMOS buttery smooth imgage quality, but it took only a few thousand images to convince me it was true, at least to me.

I am sold on Canon, no matter how frustrating their cameras are, Nikon has some work to do for me to ever look at their images the same way again. The only camera that comes close IMO is the D1H, because its relatively low resolution and huge photosites gives it such smooth and saturated images.

Hope you see where I'm coming from. Take care and keep those awesome pictures coming.

[coloradoamigo]

the way I intended.

I think we both agree that image quality is very subjective. I'm loving the image quality of the D70. But if I would have bought an Elan7 a few years back instead of the N80, I would have gone Canon digital and be just as satisfied. I think both systems, in the right hands, produce simply stunning results.

Let me tell you, if I had a bunch of cash lying around (and the only way that's gonna happen is if I win the lotto, which I hardly even play), I would snatch up a Mark II in a second. Since I mentioned the Mark II, the D70 and Mark II are perfect examples of how you can't please all people all of the time. With the D70, people grumble about moire, and that it should have a stronger AA filter. I've heard that some people are grumbling that the Mark II has too strong an AA filter. Camera companies just can't win, can they? Technology that gets rid of all these problems WILL win out in end though, no doubt
.
A comment on the 3D Matrix meter. I don't think it's crippled at all in the D70. I believe it works the same as in the F5. It's all in the tone compensation. The D70, and for that matter, the D100, only give the "appearance" of sometimes (some say consistantly) underexposing, but actually it's all in the tone/curve.
For instance, I can use the "normal", default, tone in the D70 and shoot a scene. The meter gives me 1/320sec at f/8, for example. Load it up on the PC, and it looks underexposed in certain situations. Then I can shoot the same exact scene, but instead use a custom curve, and the meter will give the exact same exposure, 1/320sec at f/8. Load it up in the PC, and the image is perfectly exposed. The key is to know when to use a custom curve, the normal curve, or one of the other built-in curves in the D70. While I have not quite gotten this nailed down all the way, I'm coming close (thus my JPEG's out of camera are improving as well). In high contrast scenes, it's best to employ a custom curve (I like Oldskool's alot, as well as Provia 3.4), where as in lower contrast scenes the normal, default curve works very well.
I think this has alot to do with people thinking the meter exposes inconsistantly, where actually the meter is very consistant, it's just the diferent tones for different situations that are tricky. The digital side has so many more variables than the film side, where tone, saturation, WB, hue, sharpness, etc. play a huge part in how the image comes out of the camera.
I really like one of the Oldskool curves because in alot of situations it exposes to the right of the histogram, but without blowing highlights. Thus, the signal-to-noise ratio is greatly improved. ( http://luminous-landscape.com/tutori...se-right.shtml ). I can then adjust brightness, contrast, etc. to make the image look just right. One thing is for sure, I'm learning so much quicker using a DSLR as compared to film, and it's alot a fun to boot. There is just so much experimenting you can do, and all that extra stuff you have to pay attention to makes you understand exposure that much better. (You know all of this and are way ahead of me in this, so why am I typing this?? ;) )

One thing is for sure, the competition between the two companies is to the consumers benefit all the way. We are the lucky ones in this scenario. Nikon first pushed Canon to do better. Now Canon is forcing Nikon to do better. We, the photographers, are the winners in this "battle".

Have a good one Seb, and have a great holiday!!
Brian

Brian, come on, I know you're not trying to start a war.

To answer your question, I don't look at image quality quite the same as the testers out on the web. All those graphs and charts are only part of the equation.

In over 10,000 frames shot with my D100s, I had an occassional image that would WOW me, a shot where sharpness, detail and color all came together to really impress me in their quality. In the 5,000 frames shot with my 10D I have had very few shots that DIDN'T wow me in that manner. And that is how I judge the quality. I am getting from JPG files what I would get from a NEF files with plenty of post-processing.

As for flash, the Canon flash system is stupid, but it's more consistent than the D100/SB-28. The Nikon was easy in that you would just point and shoot, but exposures were all over the place. Canon makes you keep a focus point on the subject, which limits framing possibilities, but exposure is much more consistent. And due to the positioning of the 7 AF points, I still have some flexibility in framing, but not as much as I would like. The i-TTL system is supposedly greatly improved, and the E-TTL II is supposed to rid us of the AF point tether. Both are great for everyone.

As for noise, once again the charts and graphs are different from everyday shooting. Look at the D2h, it actually has LESS noise than the Canon 1D numerically, but look at the image comparisions and download samples, and in almost every shot the 1D looks better. That took me a long time to swallow, and in the end was part of the reason behind my switch. But my point is, at ISO 100 I have no noise, none. When I first got the 10D I took some shots with some deep shadow and brought the levels ALL the way up. The shadows had no noise. ISO 400 looks like my D100's ISO 200. Overall the colors are more saturated and I think the skin tones are much more natural. Overall, when I look at both my libraries of images, the ones taken with the Canon and the ones with the Nikon, I think the majority of Canon images looks far better in every way than the majority of the D100 images.

That being said, the D70 improved a lot. The noise still is higher than the D100, but like you said its quality has improved, so it looks better. That happens even though the weak AA filter has increased the numerical amount of noise. The meter is more consistent, but due to some sort of software crippling, it seems to be inconsistent when directly compared to the F5 meter. People are speculating that the brains behind the meter are not the same as the F5/D1/D2 series, and therefore gives different results. Meaning that it it's not the same performance wise, just part-wise, but still an improvement over the multi-area matrix.

I'm just saying all this to give my side of the story. Look around and you'll see that you didn't even need to defend your camera, because I promote it quite a bit on this site, it is an EXCELLENT camera, especially for the price. But in the end, I look at the D70 images and they look like D100 images, except with more detail and nicer noise, but they just don't wow me like Canon images do. I never believed it when Canon users trumpeted the CMOS buttery smooth imgage quality, but it took only a few thousand images to convince me it was true, at least to me.

I am sold on Canon, no matter how frustrating their cameras are, Nikon has some work to do for me to ever look at their images the same way again. The only camera that comes close IMO is the D1H, because its relatively low resolution and huge photosites gives it such smooth and saturated images.

Hope you see where I'm coming from. Take care and keep those awesome pictures coming.

[Sebastian]

Everyone will bitch about something, without fail. I don't care if the Mark II pulls less detail than some think it should, it still pulls out a lot more than my 10D, and it is still INSANELY fast. Damn the AA filter at that point. It could be 6 megapixels and 8fps and I would still want it. It's the fact of having one camera that can go from sports to studio without hesitation that made me switch. I want it, and I want it ASAP, and I'm working my ass off to get there.

The metering thing, it's not about comparing images, it's comparing the readings. One guy took an F5 next to his D70 and pointed them at the same scene, same framing, same lenses, and kept getting different readings. Who knows.

The thing is, Nikons are in no way BAD, I just think Canons are better. That doesn't mean Nikons should be avoided. I still recommend the brand readily, I love the ergonomics. I always felt Canon had the edge in image quality, even before I bought the D100, but in the end that was low on the list of switching. My priorities changed.

As for taking your post the way you intended it, I think you and I are very much on the same wavelength on a lot of things. At least that's hw it's been in the past, and this discussion seems to support that feeling.

You gonna be in the midwest area anytime soon? ;)

[coloradoamigo]

Seb, there are so many places I want to see, and Chicago is high on that list. One of my sisters lived there for a few years, but I never made it up there. Unfortunately, pretty much all my vacation time for the year will be used up for the family reunion/honeymoon trip here at the end of June.
So my question to you is, are you gonna be in the Colorado area anytime soon? Have you been to CO.?
Maybe it's time for another Colorado gathering...