After Canon released its first Digital Rebel - an SLR designed to make it possible for novices to take excellent pictures, while at the same time offering lots of scope for advanced enthusiasts - Nikon soon answered with its D70, which has more recently been upgraded with the release of the Nikon D70s.

Reviewers have found it difficult to find this camera a real improvement on its predecessor, the D70 - which only attests to the quality and specifications of the older camera. This is truly a case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" - and Nikon dodn't fall into that trap.

The new D70s has a 2-inch LCD which is slightly larger than the D70's 1.8-inch screen, but this is not very noticeable.

It also uses a higher-capacity battery than its predecessor, and a slightly improved, more readable menu structure. In fact, in this area the D70 probably beats the more difficult-to-read menu system of the popular Canon Rebel cameras.

It retains the same useful manual focus facility where you just grip the focus ring and adjust the focus - even while autofocus is engaged.

As far as image quality is concerned, nothing changes about the excellent quality already achieved by the D70, as the imaging system remains the same. The new camera also retains the 6.1 megapixel resolution of the D70.

One area of improvement is the built-in Speedlight flash, which now gives improved exposure with flash shots, and more even lighting with wider zoom settings.

Probably the most impressive improvement lies in the speed of the new D70s. Start-up is almost instantaneous, and there is hardly any shutter lag to speak of. It is also able to shoot a rapid 3 frames a second for a continuous burst of 144 pictures!

The main question to ask regarding the Nikon D70s Digital Camera is not about its own capabilities, but whether or not it is worth the cost of upgrading from the D70!

More features of the Nikon D70s digital camera:

• The viewfinder of the Nikon D70s has a diopter adjustment for individual differences in vision. To adjust viewfinder focus the diopter control is adjusted up and down until the viewfinder display and focus brackets are in focus.

• The Nikon D70s offers a choice of seven Digital Vari-Program (pre-set) modes. When you select a program the camera's settings are automatically optimized to suit the selected scene.

• The camera supports JPEG and RAW file formats, and the ISO range is 200-1600.

• Lenses: It accepts interchangeable Nikkor lenses.

For more information visit Best-Digital-Photography.com

Rika Susan of Article-Alert.com researches, writes, and publishes full-time on the Web. Copyright of this article: 2006 Rika Susan. This article may be reprinted if the resource box and hyperlinks are left intact.