"Jeroen Smaal" wrote in message ...
wrote in message
om...
http://astrosurf.com/buil/d70v10d/eval.htm

Text in French, but with inline English translation. Interesting
observation:

"[...] the internal firmware applied a median like
filter to the three layers of the image for erase hot
pixels (local intense thermal signal). This processing
is not mentioned in Nikon documentation [...]
the RAW format of Nikon D70 is not a true raw format
[...] an image which would reflected the outgoing
signal of a CCD sensor [...]"

There is, however, a blunt workaround.

This is not very good news for those of use who (like me) were considering
the D70 as an alternative to the Canon 300D.

Although the D70 looks like a great camera for daytime shooting, its
insensitivity in the H-Alpha region, the (albeit fixable) problems in the
"Noise Reduction" mode and the significantly higher CCD noise compared to
the 300D make the D70 a lot less interesting for long exposure
astrophotography. Too bad.

That's odd. The exact opposite is cited in the June 2004 issue of SKY &
TELESCOPE. If you examine their table on page 134, only 3 DSLRs are given
three stars (for deep-sky astrophotography):

1. Canon EOS-1Ds (at $7,000)
2. Canon EOS 10 (at $1,500)
3. Nikon D70 (at $1,300)

The Canon EOS 300D (aka Digital Rebel) only rates two stars and has "limited
functions". The Nikon D70 is stated "low noise".

Basically the same is stated in Digital Photo's 100+ page review of the D70
in which it's also compared against the Digital Rebel (EOS 300D) at URL:

http://wwww.dpreview.com/ (select D70)

I would tend to believe S&T's assessment more than some translated document
which is at odds with two (2) respected journals: S&T, and Digital Photo.