Nikon D70s 6.1 MP Digital SLR Camera - Black (Kit w/ 18-70mm and 55-200mm Lenses)

Full manual controls, lots of hard buttons, chunky well built design and great image quality. the sensor may be old now, but still produces great images, especially with the right lens. Supports old manual Nikon lenses, and all AF lenses.

Might be a bit too chunky for some, the newer designs are better looking and slicker.

High ISO performance and LCD size (small at 2") and low LCD resolution isn't as good as today's dSLRs, but this is to be expected. For the time, a great camera and my personal one has never let me down. Totally recommended and still demanding a reasonable price and justifiably so.

I'm currently the owner of a Nikon D100 & a Fuji S2.
These cameras were based on the Nikon film camera I used to use, the F80.

The D70s was the later & only slightly modified version of the D70.
I bought the D70s because it was likely to be a little newer. (~Jun 2005)

6MP is quite adequate for most purposes, to get better resolution from a DSLR
requires a very good lens & optimum conditions.
The D70 is lighter than my other cameras, is capable of 1/500th sec flash sync.
This makes quite a difference using day time fill flash.
Unlike the earlier cameras, the D70s has cheap IR remote control facilities.
Given a decent (& preferably genuine) CF card, it will shoot around 27 pictures
at maximum resolution & minimum compression at 3 frames/s before slowing down
to 2 frames/s Quite good for a camera available at this sort of price.
It, unlike say a D40, has the screw drive motor to power non AFS lenses.
Vital if you have a collection of these older style lenses.

It does have a lightweight penta-mirror viewfinder. This is a collection of
mirrors glued together rather than a prism. This results in a slightly darker
image in the viewfinder than earlier cameras. Probably only significant in poor light. To get a penta-prism viewfinder now you need to go "professional"

The new lightweight Speedlight the SB-400 works very well with the D70s.
Get one to go with it, they work really well, bounceflash helps a lot.

All in all highly recomended, you will enjoy using a D70s.
Very good value for money at current prices.

I've owned a D70 since May 2004 and have just added a D70s. Essentially, they are the same camera. The D70s has a 2 inch LCD screen, whereas the D70 has a 1.8 inch LCD screen. These are small screens in comparison to newer Nikon DSLR cameras. They boast 6.1 mega pixel ratings and deliver extremely high quality photographs at A3 size. If you own or have owned a Nikon SLR camera you will be able to use your existing lenses on either of these two cameras. Personally, I reckon these cameras represent exceptional value for money.

If I was asked advice by anybody on what is the best value quality used digital SLR if you are on a tight budget , my answer would have to be the Nikon D70s.Although a camera that was not designated as a "pro" camera , it definately has a solid and sturdy build quality.It will also take most types of Nikon lenses ever made.Another asset of the D70s is its superb 3D Colour matrix metering system that is used in nearly all of Nikons higher end cameras.
If you are thinking about buying one - do it ! You can't go wrong for the money.
For £150-£170 you can pick up one in great condition - slap a decent lens on it - my advice would be a Nikon 18-70mm for around £100 and you have a combo that can produce stunning images for about half the price of a starter digital SLR tha is half as good !!

I needed a reasonably cheap Nikon fit Camera with the ability to use all Nikon fit autofocus lenses, so that ruled out the current D40 and D60 models.

The D70s fitted the bill. It's an older model but is a real pleasure to use. Very well made, user friendly, and with plenty of user-variable settings. I'm very pleased with the results so far (10 weeks) and still being pleasantly surprised by its abilities.

It's 6Mp may seem technically lacking when compared to present models of 10Mp or 12Mp but the pictures really don't leave much to be desired. Files are smaller whilst picture quality looks very similar indeed.

As with many product lines, the "finest" produced may arguably not be the last version made. Development not only adds feature improvements, it finds ways to reduce production costs. We apparently get more for less which rather proves the point.

In short, if Nikon DSLR camera development had stopped with the d70s I don't think there'd be much to grumble about.