For point-and-shooters, the D70 offers seven Digital Vari-Programs. Like the Vari-Programs in Nikon's non-pro film SLRs, these set the shutter speed, aperture, flash and AF mode for shooting specific types of subjects: portraits, landscapes, close-ups, sports action, night landscapes, and night portraits (with flash-lit nearby subject), plus full auto. But with the digital D70, these modes also adjust digital aspects such as white balance, sharpening, contrast, color saturation and hue for optimum results with these subject types. Even more-serious shooters might want to experiment with the D70's Digital Vari-Programs. For the serious shooter, the D70 offers shiftable program AE, shutter- and aperture-priority AE, and metered manual. These, plus the Digital Vari-Programs, are selected simply by rotating the mode dial to the appropriate icon. In program, shutter- and aperture-priority AE modes, you can apply a very generous +/-5 stops of exposure compensation, in 1/3- or (via Custom Setting 9) 1/2-step increments, by pressing the exposure-compensation button and rotating the main command dial until the desired degree of compensation appears on the LCD panel (Custom Setting 10 allows you to set exposure compensation via the dial without also having to press the exposure-compensation button). You can activate three-frame automatic exposure bracketing (+/-2 stops, selectable in 1/3- or 1/2-stop increments), for ambient light, both ambient light and flash, or just flash, via Custom Setting 12. CS 12 also lets you set white-balance bracketing, which shoots three frames at different white-balance settings. Flash The D70's built-in TTL Speedlight has an ISO 100 guide number of 39/12 (in feet/meters) in manual mode, 36/11 in auto mode (these equal guide numbers of 56/17 and 49/15, respectively, at the camera's lowest ISO setting of 200), and covers the angle of view of a 20mm lens. When a CPU lens is attached, you get i-TTL Balanced Fill-Flash, in which the camera emits a series of monitor pre-flashes, whose reflected returns are read by the 1005-pixel RBG sensor. This data is then used in conjunction with information from the matrix metering system (including distance data when D or G lenses are used) to control flash output for a natural balance between flash and ambient light. In manual-exposure mode, or when spot metering is in use, standard i-TTL flash provides proper exposure for the flash-lit subject, but background balance is not taken into account. Nikon's flash metering has always been excellent, and that continues with the D70. Add the new Nikon SB-600 AF Speedlight to the D70, and you get more power (ISO 100 guide number 92/28, in feet/meters), and lots of versatility. You can attach the SB-600 to the camera's hot-shoe, or use it (along with any number of additional SB-600s) off-camera with wireless i-TTL control. Other features include Flash Value Lock (AE-Lock for the flash exposure), modeling flash (the flash fires a stroboscopic burst that lets you see the lighting effect before shooting), a tilting/rotating head for bounce flash, and more. There's also the previously introduced SB-800 Speedlight, with even more power (ISO 100 GN 125/38, in feet/meters) and repeating flash ("strobe") capability. Maximum flash-sync shutter speed is a very fast 1/500. There's no PC terminal for studio flash, but the optional SB-600 and SB-800 flash units provide excellent "studio" lighting capability. Both front- and rear-curtain sync are provided. More Features Shutter speeds range from 30 seconds to 1/8000, settable in 1/3- or 1/2-stop increments. In bulb mode, the shutter will remain open as long as the shutter button is fully depressed (until the battery runs down). In remote modes (using the optional ML-L3 remote control), the shutter will open when the remote button is pressed and remain open until the button is pressed a second time (up to 30 minutes maximum). At exposure times longer than one second, Nikon recommends activating long-exposure noise reduction (via the LCD monitor's Shooting menu). Note that noise reduction extends image-processing time, and results in larger image-file sizes. The D70 provides two advance modes (Nikon calls them shooting modes): single-shot, and continuous. In continuous, the camera will shoot about 3 frames per second, for up to 4 NEF (RAW) images. Depending on the speed of the CF card used, the D70 can also shoot up to 144 6-megapixel Normal Large JPEG images at 3 per second, taking advantage of the camera's improved buffer memory handling, faster image processing, increased memory-card access speed and greater system bandwidth. There's also a self-timer mode, with a delay (via Custom Setting 24) of 2, 5, 10 or 20 seconds. Other features include a depth-of-field preview button, easy button-and-dial access to many shooting settings, and an included EN-EL3 lithium-ion battery that provides up to 2000 shots between charges. The D70 also comes with a CR2 battery holder, allowing you to power the camera with three readily available CR2 lithium batteries in emergencies. Digital Features The D70's 6.31-megapixel RGB CCD image sensor is the same size as the D100's (23.7x15.6mm, with a 1.5X "crop" factor), but offers a number of improvements, including a better signal-to-noise ratio and greater dynamic range. A new advanced digital image processor uses next-generation algorithms to optimize image quality and reduce noise in long exposures. There are several image-quality options. Best is NEF (Nikon Electronic-Image Format), which stores 6.1-megapixel (3008x2000-pixel) RAW 12-bit data from the image sensor as 5.0MB (approx.) compressed NEF files. NEF images, like any RAW images, must be accessed through proprietary software (either the supplied Nikon PictureProject software, or the optional, more-powerful Nikon Capture 4.1 software).