renee and elliott

My Nikon D70s has served me well since January of 2006. The D70s has been to the Florida Keys, Tennessee (twice), and Italy. It was my camera of choice to document Ariana’s birth and early life. The instant feedback of the LCD screen allowed me to learn more about photography in the past 18 months than I learned in the past 18 years. The most significant advancements I made were in the use of studio and location lighting.

I pressed the shutter over 18,000 times on the D70s. That’s over 750 rolls of film. If you consider film and processing costs, the camera paid for itself 8 times over!

A few months ago, my friend Richard offered me his Nikon D80. He is always buying the latest and greatest, and needed to unload his camera before he could pander to gear lust again. I finally caved in last week when all the good reasons piled up:

• Richard’s D80 was like a garage-kept roadster. My D70s has been on multiple road trips. I’d be “turning back the odometer” by 14,000 shots.
• Digital cameras have a life cycle of 2 years. I gained another year of service out of my rig.
• As much as megapixels don’t matter, they matter to potential clients.
• All my Nikon lenses and flashes are 100% compatible.
• The D80 has a few new features I’d actually use and benefit from.
• I could flip the D70s kit for Richard’s asking price on the D80!

There are always cons to balance out the pros. The D80 takes SD memory cards while the D70s uses compact flash cards. The maximum flash sych speed goes down from 1/500th second to 1/200th second. 10 megapixels means bigger files.

Today, I bid farewell to this workhorse when I met with its new owner. Three guys got new cameras this week.