The D70 is old. It’s fantastic, I love it, but it’s old. Resale on the D70 is going down rapidly as new models appear and I’d better sell it before something happens to it and I’d have to pay more to fix it than I’d get to sell it.

So this weekend I convinced myself we needed a new camera-not want-this is a need. And today I find myself in London Drugs where the staff were kind enough to let me play with one for a quarter of an hour or so comparing my D70 to it and seeing if they’ll price match a great deal from Broadway Camera.

I’ve been comparing the D70 mainly with the D80, and D300 with my heart set on the D300 from the start. The D80 has many features over its older sibling but when it comes down to it also has a lot of fluff that I don’t want and the D70 even comes out ahead a few areas (higher shutter speed, higher flash sync among other things).
One thing that suprised me comparing the 70 to the 300 today was finding I prefered the 70’s ‘look and feel’. The more rubbery grip on the 300 wasn’t convincing enough for me that it was better to hold and it’s little more rounded feel and cleaner design seemed less ‘business’ to me. I think it would just take a little getting used to. One things for sure, regardless of what our next camera is and how fantastic it is I’m sure going to miss and have a warm spot in my heart for the venerable D70.

We had this …bush (not sure what it is) in front of our townhouse in a space shared by our neighbor and evidently it bothered the neighbor so she asked my wife while I was at work if she could pull it out. When I got home I heard that it had been removed which didn’t bother me too much but I was wished I had a chance to check it out for possible bonsai material and remove it myself if it was. Anyway I found it in the compost bin pretty much bare-rooted and not too many of the all important fine roots so I don’t hold out too much hope that it’ll suvive but we’ll see. I pruned it heavily and removed a good portion of the large roots and potted it up in whatever mix I had left over.