Its replacement is, rather suprisingy a D90. I just couldn't justify the expense of a D300 let alone a D700 or D3.

Its a very nice camera. Things that are better than the D70 are:

• better viewfinder ( feels huge in comparison )
• much better LCD display on the rear
• reduced noise at high ISO.
• live view
• live view/preview over HDMI
• faster preview/better control over zoom

There are a few things which I think are worse though

• Battery life isn't as good
• takes SD instead of Compact Flash

Image quality seems clean, colours are good..Ill post some piccies and comments when I get the chance.

Creative Zen Vision has given up the ghost, and replaced with an ipod Touch and a 3GS iphone.

In fairness I never really used it much for the purpose of a portable storage device. File transfer was too slow, and CompactFlash cards came down in price and went up in storage. I still think it sounded better than the ipod though! but the ease of use and availability of accessories really added to the iphone's lustre.

So, what's been happening in my world of photography? The truth be told..not all that much.

I have a new lens. A nikon 70-300 VR which is awesome. A SB600 flasgun, 3 new tripods including a gorillapod SLR, Aperture and a shiny new macbook pro to go with it. Adobe CS4 has recently been added to my photography kit as well. Same old Nikon D70 though. holding out for a D700 I think ( I quite fancy the low light performance )

As for actually taking photographs..well, ive been a little lacklustre in that front for a while. But hope to start shooting more soon.

Good points so far for the camera enthusiast:-

• Compact flash slot. ( can upload RAW and jpg )
• 30GB of storage
  
• Excellent screen ( despite the narrow viewing angle )
  
• Ability to play slideshows on TV via component video.

• Excellent movie playback
• Superb sound quality

All the shots are backlit so they look absolutley stunning.

Some of the winning entries and highly commended shots were taken with a D70 which is kind of inspiring.

I must say, I disagreed with most of the category winners, but it's a subjective art after all!

I was especially disappointed with the overall winner, I honestly thought it was the worst shot on show, even seeing it blown up to about 4 foot wide its still didn't do it for me.

Anyway heres a link... http://www.nhm.ac.uk/wildphoto/, it runs until february and entrance costs 6 GBP for an adult.

• I take less shots, but more are keepers.
• I spend more time setting up shots.
• My friends are saying 'did you really take that?'
• The comments on my pbase gallery are getting better!

So what are the key things I have learned along the way?

• A tripod is worth its weight in gold
• It's better to underexpose than overexpose
• Always shoot RAW, the price of another CF card is insignificant compared to losing that shot
• You really need to learn to post process. Even the best shot straight from the camera benefits from a little pp.
• There are loads of photographers who are better than you. ( just look at the pbase popular galleries! ) , so it pays to take advice.
• You never stop learning!

the complete gallery can be found at www.pbase.com/covenant/north_downs

It hink my best 50mm shot so far is one I have entitled branch...I came across a twig someone had broken and stuck in a knothole in a tree.

anyway, I rather like it...

So my thoughts soon turned to a long telephoto.

I considered the available options and opted for the sigma 70-300 APO Super Macro II. Now, the build quality of this lens is a little poor, but for the money it delivers the results.

So, I dragged the kids off to Marwell Zoo. I think the best shot of the day was one of a great grey owl, shot through mesh no less! One of the lessons I learned that day, is that you can shoot through mesh.

At the time I didn't own a tripod, lucky for me it was a very bright day! so I could keep the shutter speed very high.

One of the things I have learned since then ( mostly by missing shots ) is that a tripod is a must. I now have two tripods and a walking pole/monopod hybrid.

The other useful tip is that you cannot see if an image is in focus using the lcd panel on the back at default setting.

I've been getting more into photography for the past few years now, it all started when I bought a FUJI 6900, an SLR-Like camera which at the time I thhought was amazing. Over time though I found that I just couldn't get the shots I wanted. The DOF control wasn't good enough, the shutter lag was proving more and more problematic, the electronic viewfinder made manual focusing impossible, etc

So I decided to buy a digital SLR. At the time there were only really two affordable options the Canon 300D and the Nikon D70. In truth, I bought the Nikon largely on how it felt in my hand. Yes, it had a few other nice features such as virtually no start up time, spot metering and fast write times ( all things that seemed to answer some of the things that annoyed me about the fuji ).

That was April 2004. As I wanted the camera that day ( im impatient ), I could only find the 28-80g kit, and the body only. I did want the 18-70dx kit, and in hindsight should have been more patient.

I loved the camera imediately, it seemed to answer all of my problems. I was really impressed with the initial shots ( I was shooting jpg at the time, as I hadn't discovered the wonderful world of RAW ). Some of my early shots are still some of my favourites.