Due to bayer interpolation when reading CCD data most of today's digital cameras incorporate antialiasing algorhitms whics blur the image to some extent. Nikon D70 is no exception. To make photos usable we have to execute some sort of sharpening. It could be done inside the camera (D70 has 5 levels of sharpening), or with the help of additional software within your PC. I am using two of them: Nikon's own Nikon Capture Editor and Adobe Photoshop. Here I am comparing all 3 possibilities with few grades each. Target was USAF 1951 resolution target (its finer part covering resolutions between 25 and 89 lpm) with max. possible reading with D70 of 71 lpm (nr. 4 on the left side).
Abbreviation used:
1)Nosharp- RAW shot, no sharpening,
2)ICnorm- Inside camera, norm (default) setting,
3) IChigh- highest sharpening setting,
4)NCE2- Nikon Capture Editor unsharp mask intensity 100% halo width 2% threshold 0,
5)NCE3- similar, but set at 100%, 3%, 0
6)NCE5- similar, set at 100%, 5%, 0
7)PS0.2- Photoshop unsharp mask set at Ammount 500%, radius 0,2 pixels, threshold 0
8)PS0.3- same except radius 0.3 pixels,
9)PS0.5- same but radius set as 0.5 pixels
10)PSedg- edge sharpening in Photoshop,
11)PSshp- "plain" sharpening in PS,
12)PSmor- More sharpening in PS.
Tests performed with two lenses: extra sharp Nikkor 50/1.8 (more than 63 lpm reading) at f8.0, and not-that-sharp Sigma 50-500 Bigma set at 300mm and f11. Results are interesting showing a)that external proccessing is better than in-camera on-the-fly sharpening and b)that different lens sharpness requires different sharpening ammount.
In order to evaluate the difference, I recommend downloading the pics and viewing them in PS at 200%.