it would be nice with a vertical grip to the D70
I read some place that a vertcal grip wasn't a feature for the D70
but it is very nice to see that the vertical grip is a possibility
It's a DIY stuff, this person built it himself with a MB-18 and a ML-L3 ... I'm pretty sure this thing can be available as an after-market add-on if Nikon refuse to do so.
It seems inevitable to me that someone will manufacture a grip for the D70. It's an obvious omission and, given the volumes that the D70 is predicted to sell at, 3rd parties manufacturers should be happy to step up if Nikon doesn't.
The real question seems to be how much functionality those grips will have. From what I understand, the D70 doesn't have the proper contacts to let a grip easily control the command dials and shutter. If that's the case, we're likely to see one or more of the following:
* Battery grip only. Might let you use AA batteries and improve the balance of the camera, but offer no controls. Much like the current grips for the N75/N80 class cameras.
* Battery grip using the Infrared trick seen above to trip the shutter. I wonder how reliable this is in practice.
* Battery grip using a USB connection to actuate controls. This would require a D2H-style cord leading from the grip to the camera, and could be quite expensive even if it's possible. Nikon Capture 4 offers remote operation via USB... does it let you control aperture/shutter? Does it let you record images to the camera's CF card, or are they always streamed back over the USB connection?
Someone recently printed out the PTP functionality for the D70, which looks like it allows nearly full exposure control from the USB port. This makes a strong case for the possibility of a fully functional grip that includes not only an electronically controlled shutter release, but possibly also command dials and AF/AE lock. The only thing you wouldn't be able to do is voice recording (no support in-camera) or power the camera through the USB port, so if the grip were to have dual-batteries, you'd have to make sure the battery door on the D70 could be removed without being broken.
If it were even reasonably easy, I'd have developed a USB/PTP remote control, but it's just not in the cards. USB is a very assymetric interface, in that the 'host' controller needs to have a lot of memory, a relatively huge amount of code, and a very fast processor. PC's have all of this infrastructure, but providing it in a small low power low cost device is simply not practical.
So, at this point, the shutter release is about all you can expect with this sort of device, via the IR port. I'm planning to develop a simple modification to the camera body to add a wired-remote connector, which would simplify a remote control device like this.
From what I can see, it doesn;t look like this grip interfaces with the battery compartment... no additional battery power?
