wrote:

Very true. One size does not fit all. The biggest thing I look for is
image quality, including color accuracy and low noise levels, across
the full ISO range. This is naturally going to lead me to Canon's
offerings because no one else offers this, and I'm reluctantly willing
to give up stuff like spot metering. But some people are quite happy at
the lower ISO settings, and don't care about noise at ISO 800 or ISO
1600, because they don't use these settings, and for them the D70 is
just fine.

I disagree: to the best I can tell, the D70 is fine at ISO 800 and 1600.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond70/page14.asp

Look at the patches: at ISO 800 and 1600, the D70 is at least as good if not
better than the 300D. (Note that the D100 looks a lot more like the 300D
than the D70.)

The luminance noise graph is problematic because it's basically the green
channel.

If you look at the RGB noise graph, you'll see that they're all really
close. The best of these cameras at ISO 1600 is nowhere near as good as the
worst at ISO 800. (And the 20D really doesn't change that: it's ISO 1600
green channel is about the same as the D70's ISO 800 green channel, but red
and blue are a mess.)

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos20d/page20.asp

So in practical terms, the differences are really small.

The D70 and EOS-350D are hands down the best choices in the amateur
market, and most people would be happy with either of them, despite the
minor shortcomings of each.

Yep. Although we haven't seen the Dpreview 350D review yet: we're assuming
it acts like the 20D.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan