Yes. Actually professional photographic equipment doesn't get obsolete. Lenses are expensive and making them forward and backward compatible makes sure the user stays inside the ecosystem. Also, you want higher end bodies to be dependable, so you don't obsolete them, but supersede them with better capabilities.
I can take my old D70s today and take beautiful photos, even with it's 6MP sensor, however a newer body would be much more flexible.
> Actually professional photographic equipment doesn't get obsolete
> I can take my old D70s today and take beautiful photos, even with it's 6MP sensor
I suspect if you do a wedding shoot with a 6mp interchangeable lens camera, some customers are rightly going to ask questions when you hand over the work... Of course professional photographic equipment gets obsolete - even lens systems get deprecated every 20-30 years too. Newer sensors have vastly more dynamic range than the d70s among other image quality benefits.
I think you argument holds water much more strongly in the context of amateur users, where for sure you can keep getting nice images from old gear for a long time.
> I suspect if you do a wedding shoot with a 6mp interchangeable lens camera, some customers are rightly going to ask questions when you hand over the work...
Unless you're printing A3 pages, getting gigantic pictures, or cropping aggressively, D70s can still hold up pretty well [0].
> even lens systems get deprecated every 20-30 years too.
Nikon F mount is being deprecated in favor of Z because of mirrorless geometries, not because the lenses or the designs are inferior (given the geometry constraints). Many people still use their old lenses, or nifty fifties are still produced with stellar sharpness levels. I'm not entering into "N" or "L" category of lenses of their respective mounts. Not all of them are post 2000 designs, or redesigns, and they produce extremely good images.
> Newer sensors have vastly more dynamic range than the d70s among other image quality benefits.
As a user of both D70s and A7III I can say that, if there's good enough light (e.g day), one can take pretty nice pictures with a D70s, even today. Yes, it dies pretty fast when light goes low, or it can't focus as fast, or can't take single shot (almost) HDR images (A7III can do that honestly, and that's insane [4]), but unless you're chasing something moving, older cameras are not that bad. [1][2][3]
> I think you argument holds water much more strongly in the context of amateur users, where for sure you can keep getting nice images from old gear for a long time.
Higher end, action oriented professional cameras are not actually built with resolution in mind, especially at the top end. All of the action DSLRs and mirrorless cameras up to a certain point are designed with speed and focus in mind. You can't see A7R or Fuji GFX series in weddings or in stadiums. You'll see A9s, Canon 1D or Nikon D1 series cameras. They're built to be fast. Not high res.
A wedding is more forgiving, but again a high MP camera is not preferred since it's more prone to vibration blurring.
> Unless you're printing A3 pages, getting gigantic pictures, or cropping aggressively, D70s can still hold up pretty well
You even qualified that later with "if there's good enough light" and "unless you're chasing something moving". No, a D70 won't work well for wedding photography. Yes, people shot weddings with much slower film. They don't anymore because, like the D70, slow film is obsolete. People shot weddings with manual focus lenses too and the D70 is awful for MF lenses from the tiny viewfinder to the lack of support for non-CPU lenses. When the D70 was a current product some people did (make no mistake the D70 was never marketed as a pro body) simply because the D70 was on par with its contemporaries.
> Nikon F mount is being deprecated in favor of Z because of mirrorless geometries
Even within the scope of the F mount the D70 is obsolete — it's incompatible with new E and AF-P lenses.
> A wedding is more forgiving
Wedding photography is about the most technically challenging, least forgiving (low light, constant motion, spontaneous behavior) type of photography out there. The point you were responding to still stands – older digital photographic equipment is obsolete in a professional context while having some utility for hobbyists. Nobody's taking a D1 out to shoot sports these days. In fact most people didn't when it was new because Nikon's autofocus was so far behind Canon's.
> You even qualified that later with "if there's good enough light" and "unless you're chasing something moving". No, a D70 won't work well for wedding photography.
I didn't intend to say "You can shoot weddings with a D70s". I just wanted to say, a D70s can take beautiful photos, even today, with today's standards, that's all. Even Nikon didn't position D70s for that kind of action when it was brand new.
> People shot weddings with manual focus lenses too and the D70 is awful for MF lenses from the tiny viewfinder to the lack of support for non-CPU lenses.
As a person who shot MF on both film and D70s, I tend to disagree, but that's not a hill I'd prefer to die on, at least within the borders of this comment box.
> Even within the scope of the F mount the D70 is obsolete — it's incompatible with new E and AF-P lenses.
I think being able to select between this much [0] of lenses is enough for most people.
> Wedding photography is about the most technically challenging, least forgiving (low light, constant motion, spontaneous behavior) type of photography out there.
Sorry, no. I shoot at tango nights. You have much more freedom in weddings. You can use flash, come close, people expect you, etc. A "low light" wedding situation is "what you can expect in a good tango night". You can't use flash, use lenses slower than f/2.2 (or more specifically ~t/2.5), because even a latest generation sensor will just choke, you can't use big lenses and be a distracting element, or come close for any reason. So, no. A wedding is not a piece of cake, but much easier from a technical point of view. Weddings have their problems like the distance/area you have the cover, the equipment you have to carry on you, duration, and storage and energy logistics, I agree, but it's not as challenging in terms of light or camera capabilities.
> ...older digital photographic equipment is obsolete in a professional context while having some utility for hobbyists.
I'd rather rephrase this. Newer photographic equipment is much more capable and makes professionals' life much, much easier. Obsolescence is something different in my eyes, and it's not the same as "not as useful today as of yesterday". Even an analog Pentax MF body is not obsolete in today's photographic world, even for professionals. It might not be their everyday body, but's it's neither useless, nor obsolete.
> I just wanted to say, a D70s can take beautiful photos, even today, with today's standards, that's all. Even Nikon didn't position D70s for that kind of action when it was brand new.
Take a look at what equipment qualifies you for professional support (NPS). Even the D3xxx series qualify. The D70 does not. The D70 does not because it is considered obsolete by Nikon.
> As a person who shot MF on both film and D70s, I tend to disagree, but that's not a hill I'd prefer to die on, at least within the borders of this comment box.
Sure, I shot manual lenses for quite a while with a D200 (with and without a split prism screen). DSLRs (autofocus bodies from any manufacturer really), especially lower end ones, are not well suited to manual focus lenses. Fast lenses like you would need for a wedding exacerbate this as you simply cannot resolve enough contrast to nail the focus with a big aperture.
There's no way around the fact that the D70 has a small viewfinder (95% coverage, sure, but only 0.75x magnification). The D200 had a 0.94x viewfinder and even that was well more challenging than the old ME Super I cut my teeth on.
> I think being able to select between this much [0] of lenses is enough for most people.
The D70 is still obsolete.
> Sorry, no. I shoot at tango nights. You have much more freedom in weddings.
Sorry, no. You can re-do a tango night. Try to redo a wedding shot and you'll be dealing with bridezilla at best. And, sure, you can use a flash (assuming the venue is okay with it) just like you can create unhappy customers. Even the brighter, outdoor weddings I've been to (not as a photographer thank god) have way more uneven lighting than any sort of indoor dance venue.
> I'd rather rephrase this. Newer photographic equipment is much more capable and makes professionals' life much, much easier. Obsolescence is something different in my eyes, and it's not the same as "not as useful today as of yesterday". Even an analog Pentax MF body is not obsolete in today's photographic world, even for professionals. It might not be their everyday body, but's it's neither useless, nor obsolete.
A D70 is still obsolete. Your old Pentax will shoot just fine with whatever K (or whatever depending on the age) lenses. Your D70 will function with a subset of F mount lenses and both older and newer lenses won't work. There are probably exceptions for those who are wedded to the novelty sensors Nikon used in some of their older cameras but no pro is going to be shooting with a D70.
I mean, look, you can use old manual focus (but not pre-AI) lenses with the D70. You'll have to bring a separate light meter though (or just chimp it) because the meter does not work at all with non-CPU lenses. Stop down metering? Nope. Nada. Much, much easier is a major understatement. What pro work are you going to do without an in-body light meter? Studio stuff? The D70 is obsolete.
Here's the list of DX bodies that Nikon considers pro gear: D500, D300S, D7500, D7200, D7100, D5600, D5500, D5300, D3500.
I can take my old D70s today and take beautiful photos, even with it's 6MP sensor, however a newer body would be much more flexible.