Nikon D100 Digital Camera

The D100 is a camera for keen amateur and aspiring professional photographers.

Since its introduction, Nikon has produced four ever cheaper cameras, with ever fewer features (the D70, D70s, D50 & D40). I have owned and used the first three. They do have some updates, which may make them more suitable for your needs, particularly if you want to shoot JPG rather than RAW files (by RAW files I mean digital negatives, that record all of the information picked up by the sensor). For example, they have faster buffers which enable you to shoot more pictures, more quickly.

Viewed pixel for pixel, D70 and D50 files can also superficially look better, as they sometimes exhibit less noise and appear sharper before post-processing. These cameras are also tweaked to produce brighter colours and lighter pictures to make them more appealing to amateur photographers.

But in my experience, if you shoot RAW the D100 still produces the best pictures. Only the D200 (and perhaps the D80, which I have not used) can outshine the D100, and even here I still prefer the D100 for some purposes.

Why might the D100 be preferable to these more recent cameras? Well, the D100 has a sensor that in the view of many outperforms those on the derivative cameras. The RAW files it produces make more contrasty, better-looking pictures, with more accurate colours, and smooth tonal gradations. I once took a series of identical photos on the D100 and D70, and found that when viewing the images as a whole, I could easily identify the D100 images on the basis of better image quality, and in particular, accurate sky colours (D70 skies tend to turn turquoise, which I hate).

Here are some more advantages of choosing the D100:
Better build
Greater reliability (no BGLOD)
Mirror lock-up (for macro photography)
Delay mode to minimize vibrations (also useful for macro)
Uncompressed RAW (records more information, providing smoother gradations of light and colour)
Better for low light photography
Subdued, subtle colours
Better view-finder with glass pentaprism
Vertical grip option with possibility of attaching sound memos to the images
More accurate colour
Better shutter
Better battery life

If you need the greater accuracy of iTTL flash photography, then a D70 may be preferable. But the D70 is pretty crippled with regard to wireless flash, whereas the I have had very acceptable results with the D100 (using two flashes, one mounted on the hotshoe and the other used as a remote).

Finally, if you are buying a D100, but have not used a Nikon DSLR before (and even if you have) there are two things you should be aware of about the D100:
1. Images straight from the camera tend to look underexposed. This is normal. The meter is adjusted to protect the highlights from burning out. You can adjust the images to look how you want using Nikon Capture, or similar post-processing software.
2. D100 images can look soft. This is because the D100 has an especially fierce AA filter in front of the sensor. You can recover all of the lost sharpness and detail by careful sharpening during post processing.

For both of these reasons, D100 files can be slightly more tricky to post-process than those of other cameras. But if you can survive the learning curve, you will find the camera is capable of producing the most outstanding photographs.