Stuart Herbert

I bought my Nikon D100 two years ago because I’d grown fed up with the variable accuracy of shooting with chemical film. I’d go out into the Brecons, shoot a roll of 36 exposures, wait for it to be developed … and what came out the other end didn’t look like the shots that I’d thought I’d taken. The colour balance, contrast, and tonal range would rarely match how things had actually looked that day. At £10 a pop just for the costs of the film and developing, it’s just too expensive and frustrating.

Kristi has been using my old Nikon F80 and F60 camera bodies since I got the D100, and as time goes on she’s been taking more and more photographs when we’re out walking. It’s been interesting to watch her go through the same frustrations with chemical film that I did; her frustration’s been made worse because she’s got her own Minolta compact digital camera to compare shots from, and there’s always the shots from my Nikon and Canon digital cameras.

I haven’t actually seen the latest photos that she picked up from Jessops at lunchtime, but I guess they weren’t good enough. She’s retired the F80, and ordered herself a nice shiny Nikon D70s. It should be here in time for the Beyond The Border storytelling festival at the start of July.

As she’s planning to use my lenses with the camera, I hope to get to play with the camera myself. One more than one occaison, I’ve read stories about Nikon D100 users who switched to the Nikon D70 after frustration with the sharpness of the D100’s photos. Personally, I sometimes have trouble getting the focal point correct - the D100’s viewfinder is tiny compared to the F80’s - but from what I’ve read the D70’s viewfinder is identical in size. Still, if the D70s can help me take even better pictures, I might just have a D100 to put up for sale on Ebay later this year.