NikonD70 or Fujii S9000

[lamard]

I am moving up from Oly C4000 zoom and had an old Fujii Finepix 4700 zoom which took terrific photos I've never used a Nikon Digital...had an old Nikon point and shoot which took really nice 35 mm shots. NikonD70 or FujiiS9000 are my final two choices. I really like the S9000 tilting color LCD display for taking shots at ground level and overhead. I am somewhat concerned with noise because I do some enlargements and lots of cropping - select,cut and paste. Thanks for any opinions.



Lamar in Chamblee, GA

[Monza76]

Lamar

You are talking apples and oranges here, these two cameras are very different, here is my opinion (and a sprinkiling of fact just for colour):

1/ The Fuji should easily match the noise level of the olympus C4000 and the Fuji Finepix 4700 up to ISO 400, beyond that it gets a little noisy but usable for smaller prints.

2/ The Nikon is a DSLR therefore there is no live LCD view, this is an optical through-the-lens viewfinder. This also means no movie mode. The up side is that this camera is practically noise free up to ISO 1600.

3/ It will take a couple of expensive Nikkor lenses to match the range of the S9000's built in zoom. If your budget is tight the Fuji offers more, but there is no future expandability.

4/ The high resolution of the Fuji, combined with low ISO settings will yield excellent results in good light. In low light it loses out to the Nikon (image quality and noise characteristics quickly overshadow megapixel resolution in low light shooting).

5/ The Fuji can be used with any generic old automatic flash unit (like the excellent Vivitar 283/285 or any of a number of Sunpak models). This does not give TTL flash control like a Nikon flash on the D70 would, but it is very inexpensive and the flash units you can find cheap used, are often very powerful. This is the main reason I own a Fuji S7000.

DSLRs demand more from their owners in money and time, the reward is great technical image quality. EVF cameras like the S9000 have about 90% of the functionality of a DSLR, are far less demanding, but have far greater limitations.

If you are serious about photography as a hobby you will be happy with the D70, if you just enjoy picturetaking and experimenting with camera settings you may be just as happy with the lighter, cheaper S9000.

Ira

[lamard]

Ira

Thanks much for your reply. There is more useful information in your reply than in all the googling that I have done on the question.

Being a relative Beginner, I have one more question: Is there that much difference between the Nikon's 6 megapixel resolution and the Fujii's 9 megapixel resolution if I enlarge portions of a photo. I take pix of butterflies and other such things and sometimes unsharp mask and third party plug-ins do not do the job in PaintShop Pro and I wonder if the 9 vs 6 megapixel resolution would give me lots of improvement for enlarging portions of a photo. Of course, with the D70 I'll be moving up from 4(Olympus 4000) to 6 megapixel and should notice some difference, I think.

Lamar

[Ivan Karamasov]

I haven't experienced it myself, but I guess the resolution advantage with the s9000 does not pay off in the amount you might expect. Thats also what the "professionals" told me. The noise issue plays a part here as well.
How about finding out for yourself? Just load down some samples from your two candidates and print out a crop or take a look at them on your monitor. You can use the samples either from this site or from www.dcresource.com.
If you can't tell a difference, then I would not pay any attention to resolution charts. Just decide for yourself.
greetings
ivan

[lamard]

My budget just jumped up to just above two thousand dollars. One of my clients just paid off and I need to spend it on a digital camera for Christmas.

I want to take movies of my Grandchildren (my pride and joy) with the digital cameara but want to take advantage of the Digital SLR advntages of low noise (blow up the grandchildren pix so that their smiles take over the screen) This is a puZzle. The Fufii s9000 movie thing is a plus with me......the Digital SLR low noise is also a consideration...Do I want to buy two cameras?...A Fujii S9000 and a Nikon S70?...I don't think that I can do it with two grand......................

Please help me with more adice.....

Lamar

[tbcass]

lamard wrote:

My budget just jumped up to just above two thousand dollars. One of my clients just paid off and I need to spend it on a digital camera for Christmas.

I want to take movies of my Grandchildren (my pride and joy) with the digital cameara but want to take advantage of the Digital SLR advntages of low noise (blow up the grandchildren pix so that their smiles take over the screen) This is a puZzle. The Fufii s9000 movie thing is a plus with me......the Digital SLR low noise is also a consideration...Do I want to buy two cameras?...A Fujii S9000 and a Nikon S70?...I don't think that I can do it with two grand......................

Please help me with more adice.....

Lamar

If you buy a Nikon D70 and a Fuji s9000 you can have both for under $2000. The Fuji can be had for$655 with a 1Gb card (NewEgg.com). That leaves you with $1350. You will find that 95% of the time the s9000 will take just as good photos as the D70. From my 37 years of using all kinds of cameras I also think you will end up using the Fuji most of the time.