From a chinese camera forum:







Notice the new 18-70 lens!

Looks like size is very similar to the D100 - so hopefully housing manufacturers will be able to use existing housing molds and move a few controls.

And just for fun, here's what looks like the D2h with 17-55DX



Cheers
James

Interesting, the thing I like most about the mockup that was displayed on DP Review some time ago (while likely not official) was b&w lcd below the playback lcd, that constantly showed ISO. I can't say how many times I'v forgotten what ISO I was in, and had to look in the menu.

According to his Thomness, the specs of the D70 have gotten loose on the web, and he summarises what he can on the linked page.

A few juicy highlights:

The F5's color metering
max flash sync 1/500 (crepuscular rays anyone )
Same imager as the d100
Same battery as the d100
Cam 900 af module (sigh...)
New iTTL flash

and some other yummy stuff....

So, if they put all this in the d70, what next for the d100??? Interesting times.

I'm afraid I don't see any reason to get too excited about the D70. If I understand correctly, it will basically be a dumbed-down D100 (scene settings, for example). The problem is that the D70 will supposedly sell for $1000 when it's released, but by this spring, the D100 price will likely be down to around $1300-$1400 at the discounters, so there's no big price difference like there was last year when the digital EOS was introduced.

In any case, Thom Hogan has some speculations on his web page at Tom Hogan - D70


Jim

Oops, I just saw that Craig had the Tom Hogan link in the other thread ("D70, apparently real specs..."). Okay, he gleaned some info that I overlooked. But I'm still keeping my D100!

Jim

What I see to get excited about...
[list]
What I see as a disappointment...

[list]

The most interesting thing, from my perspective, is what it indicates for other members of the F-mount dSLR family. If the lower end nikon dSLR is getting these cool things, one wonders where the d100 and D2x may be going.

Now if that 18-70mm lens had a 1:1 reproduction level at 70 mm - ALL my prayers would have been answered. BUT I am just not that lucky

I am not convinced that Nikon would out the F5 colour metering in this camera. They never shared this feature with any other film camera (even the F100) and I can't see why they would suddenly put this feature in a bottom of the range digital SLR.

This camera does look very similar in shape to the D100, which is great news for housings As we will either be able to squeese it into existing D100 housings or at least it wil greatly speed up getting housings on the market for this camera.

Alex