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Long live the Nikon D70

Daniel Schaefer

New member
in june of 2004, my father, a photographer since his childhood in the sixties, bought his first DSLR, A Nikon D70.

he promptly attached an old manual 50mm 1.8 lens, popped in a 2gb CF card, and shot away for about a year, until suddenly, a bigger, shinier camera came along, and the D70 went up on a shelf in his office

and there it sat, until november of 2009, when i asked my dad if I could borrow his D300, and he answered me, by handing me the dusty, rusty, decrepit D70, which I kid you not, had a small spider living inside when I took off the body cap.

my dad bought me a $70 18-55 zoom, and I went to school and snapped away for a day.

the next day, i left the camera home, and felt something odd

the day after that I brought back the camera and kept shooting

I was hooked

day in and day out, my Dirty D70 was slung at my side, and it stayed that way for two years, with it i discovered my first 50mm lens, which has remained my favorite lens to this day. i learned how powerful an image could be, how easy it was to show the truth of the moment through the lens, and also how easy it was to lie.

the D70 was dumb

and I loved it

it did nothing right

so i had to learn how to do it myself

this camera made me the photographer I am today.


after loving the d70 day in and day out, i finally bought my own first camera, a Nikon D7000 with an Mbd11 battery grip.

after some minor complications with the shutter, I had to send the 7000 back to the Nikon spa for some TLC, and found myself dusting off the old D70

after some poking and prodding, the old beast awoke, and i felt the farmilliar grip against my palm once more.

I shot for one glorious month with my old friend and a 50mm, nothing else.

the pictures I took in that one month, i can safely say, mean more to me, and I am more proud of than any other pictures i have almost ever taken.

i am unsure why, but the combination of the old, crotchety camera, and the strangely familiar feel, turned something on in my head that made me think of photography as a completely new medium again.


for those who have read this far, you may wonder why I have decided to write this

well on March 22nd, 2011, my Nikon D70 took its final shot.

the shutter froze, the sensor over heated, and the readout read FTLERR

the chip had been corrupted, but I was able to get the final shot off of the card.

according to the metadata, this image was the 71,676th image taken on this camera.

upon closer inspection, only 876 were taken before the year 2009

so within the space of just under two years, I had taken 70,800 photos on this camera.

the shutter is only rated for 50,000 before "potential fatal failure"

the D70 now sits peacefully upon a shelf in my room, a constant reminder of how I began, and a trophy that will accompany me no matter where I live for the rest of my life.

for those wondering, the final photo taken on the D70 was an image of a weather torn flag, flying on a rain soaked van nuys boulevard, the image titled "Resilience"

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Rest In Peace

Nikon "Babe" D70

2003-2011
 
May it rest in peace as beautifully as my old Nikon FA....
Not the best one, not the high end one...
But one whose photos are still recognisable to me, as ones of my best (just a personnal opinion), still mourn the noise of this shutter..... :)
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
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Rest In Peace

Nikon "Babe" D70​
Daniel,

I like this image, it works for me on a few levels and is a fitting last image for that camera.

thanks for posting this.

cheers

Indeed!

******Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
******What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
******Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
******O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
 

Jim Galli

Member
Great story!

If you can get that worked up over a D70, you're probably a good candidate for a Yashicamat and some 120 format black and white film some time in your life.

I've got old Nikons laying around here and there, but so far I've never had one die on me..........yet.
 
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