Well I did not like the plastic feel of the xt. My mom has a 20d I shot with it often. It has more of a feel of the old canons like the professional slr my mom shot with in the 80's. Even though I don't like the plastic feel. I am still am going to probably by the Digital rebel XT this winter. However if you have the money for a 20d or a 30d it is a good investment. If I could afford a 20D or a 30D I would buy one in a heart beat.

All of my Friends have digital canon EOS models so we share ideas and yes occasionally lenses. I don't know much about the D70.

Be wary of Nikon:

"We are surprised and disappointed to hear that Nikon is trying to lock out third party RAW converters. According to PhotoshopNews.com, Nikon has encrypted white balance information in NEF files written by the D2X and the D2HS. While the encryption can be cracked, Adobe is concerned about being sued for violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Dpreview agrees with the sentiments of chief engineer and original author of Photoshop Thomas Knoll, who said "I think the copyrighted information inside the NEF file belongs to the photographer, not Nikon. But Nikon apparently thinks they own the information inside the NEF."

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0504/05041901nikon_encryptnef.asp

Oh ye of great influence. ;-)

This isn't one of the choices you have here, but we recently bought an Olympus E500 (also an SLR). My husband did a ton of research and we went with the Olympus for a number of reasons. One is that you get two lenses with the Olympus, a big plus. The pictures are pretty good quality too, with good colors. I think you are a friend on my FLKR photo stream, so you can take a look there. He took my headshot and "blogger" pctures with the Olympus SLR.

Here is a fair review of the camera:

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/olympus/e500-review/

At the bottom there are also links to reviews of the two you are considering here.

Plastic feel isn't a negative for me. Especially if you can't put it down for a while- lighter is better.
P.S. found this through flickr RSS feed (tag rebelxt) ... guess which I have!

Josh,
I hate to ask this question, but since you have posed it like many people have to mewhile I am on assignment, I will answer the same way, "what do you want to do with it?" Professionally, I use Nikon 2 D2h's (not D2hs, there is a slight difference). Have you considered Nikon's D200? The reason I ask is though it is more expensive, say that you are free during next years TDG, and you happen to be in the area. The D70s stil has a shutter lag time, where as the D200 is almost as fast as the D2 series bodies. Also, other then shooting pix of your family and amassing collection of photos for your pages, what else are you planning to shoot?

Just work with me here for a second Josh, if you are thinking that you will ever print larger then an 11x14 print, go D200. If you are thinking that action sports are not something you see shooting (including the kids sports), go D70s. Do you see having this camera for more then a few years? GO NIKON. Why, well, Nikon (which in a way has screwed themselves due to this) lenses made for the F1 (back in the 60's) will still operate on a brand new D2x, though only in manual focus, etc. Canon changes their mounts with almost every new series of camera bodies. I like that a lens that I bought in the 70's still works today. I have two pieces of very exotic glass, one of which, that if made today would easily cost at least the 28 grand they were going for new back in the late 80's (which I now use MAYBE 6 times a year for surfing contests at Sebastian and a couple of triathlons).

Do you know where you are planning on buying the camera at? If a certain store in Orlando near hwy 50 and mills, or the other one near Lake Ivanhoe, let me know. I will go there with you (with some basic Nikon glass) so that you can get an idea of what you are in for.

Mark

p.s. If I lost everything today, I would be very tempted to go buy Canon products, due to their preceived superior glass, but Josh, the camera bodies DO NOT take abuse of any kind well. Abuse that my Nikons take on day in and day out.

I recently purchased the Nikon D50, which is a newer (and cheaper) version of the D70 -- but with less gadgets. I can't say enough about this camera.

I have used it in a variety of settings, and all the photos have turned out great -- even in low light.

On the advice of the sales rep., I bypassed the Nikon lens and purchased a nice Tamron 18mm-200mm which gives me great range in both indoor and outdoor settings. It keeps me from having to swap out lenses in different situations.

That's my 2 cents worth...

Josh: I love my D70, which I got back in late 2004. If I were to buy one today, I think the D50 would be plenty, though I don't know if it has the same feel. One of the differentiators for me back then was speed & the number of sequential shots it could do. I think either camera will be great, but I only have good things to say about my D70. Don't you have Nikkor lenses already?

Josh

Earlier in the year I chose the D50 over the D70 and haven't looked back. Get the D50 and put your money into the lenses, especially the anit-vibration lens if you go telephoto.

Josh,

I'm on a similar quest, and the Canon D20 is looking mighty good. Less $ than the D30, has features similar to the Rebel XT but better built (you know, the "prosumer camera" euphemism!...).

You may also want to consider lenses with image stabilization (a friend of mine has a D20 with a EF70-300mm DO IS USM lens, very nice photos!). This seems to be a very useful technology to get at this time, it allows you to avoid high iso settings, the soft-spot of digital photography.

With the super-zoom models available these days, I'm questioning the DSLR option (well, at least my own!). Take a look at the Lumix FZ30, or the canon S3 IS. Their benefits are price, convenience, light weight, good optics (including image stabilization), and reasonable performance. As they say, it all depends on what type of photography you're interested in!

Good luck and keep us posted on your decision.

Alex

>Nikon (which in a way has screwed themselves
>due to this) lenses made for the F1 (back in
>the 60's) will still operate on a brand new
>D2x, though only in manual focus, etc. Canon
>changes their mounts with almost every new
>series of camera bodies. I like that a lens
>that I bought in the 70's still works today.

This is somewhat misleading, so I think I should correct it incase anyone gets a wrong idea. Although the F-mount has indeed been the same on Nikons since 1959, pre-1977 (i.e. pre-AI) lenses will NOT work on a modern digital Nikon. Post-1977, they will probably all work in some regard, but there have been a number of variations on the basic mount; some will not meter properly, others will not focus properly (in the case of an autofocus lens)

Oh - except for Nikon IX lenses, which again won't work at all, even though they're post-1977.

Canon is better in some repects and worse in others. They're worse in that they only moved to the mount they're currently using (EF mount) in 1987. Every lens made since that will fit in a modern Canon, which is 10 years after the equivalent date for Nikon. So that's bad if you own a Canon lens made pre-1987. The upside is that you know that any lens made since 1987 will work with full functionality; there are none of the strange forays into subtely different mounts that you have with Nikon. And certainly it's rather misleading to say they release a new mount with every new generation of cameras.

Oh - except for Canon IX lenses, which again won't work at all, even though they're post-1987.

(Are you getting Deja-vu with that last sentence? The whole IX thing was a bit of a disaster for both manufacturers, apparently...)

Then there's the whole DX (in Nikon's case) or EF-S (in Canon's case) business; if you get lenses with that designation, they will only work properly with AF-S sensor sizes, and won't work will full-frame (either film or digital) bodies.

Anyway. In general, all this is really prety irrelevant to a new camera buyer. Choose a new system based on lens line up, to a lesser extent body line-up, and what you feel more comfortable with, not mount.

>but Josh, the camera bodies DO NOT take abuse of >any kind well. Abuse that my Nikons take on day >in and day out.

I had to comment on this, I was pretty much with you up until this point (other than the nonsense about the Canon lens incompatibility, what a crock!).

Canon 5D and up are weather sealed with magnesium alloy bodies. You can literally hit one with a baseball bat, pick it up, snap in a lens and take amazing pictures.

Oh and Canon is still the undisputed high ISO leader.

Any update on which one you got eventually and how you liked it? Trying to decide between the D70 or D80!