(FORTUNE Magazine) – It's a classic theme of geek tragedy: A distraught mortal shakes his fists at the gods because he's just spent a thousand bucks for a fancy piece of digital gear, only to discover that a much better model has just been introduced.

In this case it's a much better camera, Nikon's new D70. Despite its relatively high price--$1,299 for the six-megapixel camera plus a versatile zoom lens--the D70 is destined to be wildly popular with advanced amateur shutterbugs as well as with novice point-and-shooters who aspire to take great photos.

The camera rival it vanquishes is the Canon EOS-300D Digital Rebel, introduced just six months earlier, which wowed the camera world (and this reviewer) as the first high-quality, digital single-lens-reflex (SLR) camera to sell for under $1,000, lens included. A mere dollar under, true, but $999 was and still is hundreds less than other digital SLRs on the market.

The Nikon D70 costs $300 more than the Digital Rebel when purchased with its specially designed Nikkor DX 18--70mm zoom lens ($999 for the body only). It's money well spent, however. The Digital Rebel is a very good camera. It's just that the D70 is, well, divine.

Nikon may not have beaten the Digital Rebel to market or beaten its price, but it pummels the Canon in nearly every other way--sort of the way Achilles took Hector to the woodshed during the siege of Troy. Achilles, you'll remember, was half-god, half-man, and in fact the D70 is half-professional, half-consumer. A fairer fight would be to compare it with Canon's pro-level EOS 10D camera or Nikon's own D100, which are both bigger, heavier, and much more expensive.

For most mortals the question is, What's the big deal about a digital SLR? After all, tens of millions of casual snapshooters are quite happy with the results from smaller, simpler, and less expensive range-finder digital cameras--the most common kind you see in stores. But many advanced amateurs and professionals prefer the SLR format for accuracy because it uses a single lens for both composing the image and taking the picture, and for creative freedom because it allows the use of high-quality, interchangeable lenses ranging from 180-degree fisheyes to the 600mm telephoto monsters favored by paparazzi, not to mention nature and sports photographers.

Such advanced technology comes at a price, not just in dollars but also in convenience. The D70 is not a camera you would casually take on vacation or to a party unless you're really serious about photography, as opposed to just taking pictures. It's too big to tuck into a pocket or purse, too heavy and ungainly to dangle around your neck on a long hike, and too expensive to laugh about when you drop it or get caught in the rain.

But just as a swan is transformed when it moves from land to water, the D70 becomes a thing of efficient grace and beauty when lifted into shooting position. There's almost zero time lag from the moment you turn the power on to taking the first picture, including a quick, five-point auto-focus. For sports or other action shots, the D70 can capture bursts of images, three per second, for a dozen or more shots. (The total depends in part on the capacity and speed of your CompactFlash or MicroDrive digital "film" card, which is not included with the camera.) The battery is good for hundreds of shots before needing a recharge. In a pinch, the D70 can also use disposable CR2 lithium batteries.

The D70 feels much more solid and substantial than does the Rebel, and the buttons and dials are well positioned. Menu selections, displayed on a 1.8-inch LCD screen on the back of the body, are an f-stop or two short of intuitive but still easy to figure out, especially if you read the manual. (And the latter is pretty good, which is exorbitant praise for tech manuals.)

Advanced photographers will admire the total control over such variables as metering, shutter speed, aperture, white-balance, focus mode, and sensitivity (what we used to call film speed back in the Bronze, er, Silver Halide Age). As their skills progress, hobbyists can explore the D70's custom settings, which the Rebel lacks.

But there are treats for the novice too. The D70 has seven preconfigured program modes to increase the odds of taking a great photo. For example, in "portrait" mode the camera sets color, hue, and saturation levels to capture the most flattering flesh tones, softens the focus of background images to emphasize the face, and so on. There's also night portrait, landscape, night landscape, close-up, sports, and the ever popular "auto" for taking pictures of your car. No, wait, it's the mode in which the camera automatically adjusts all its own settings for an optimal shot after quickly analyzing whatever scene you're showing it. Lots of cameras have an auto mode, but the D70's is to the competition's as a Lexus is to an ox cart.

The smooth, 18--70mm Nikkor DX zoom lens ($400 if bought separately or $300 when bundled with the D70 camera body) is the equivalent of a 27--105mm lens on a 35mm film camera, which means it is suitable for most common shooting situations. If you already have one or more Nikon F-mount lenses for your old film camera, most will work with the D70. Or you can take out a home-equity loan to start collecting other compatible lenses, including all Nikkor AF-and Nikkor DX-series lenses; the DX line is designed specifically for the D70 and its digital cousins. I tested the D70 with--take a deep breath--a Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70--200mm f/2.8G ED lens, one of the best telephoto lenses that I've ever used. Take a deeper breath: The lens costs $1,600, even more than the camera itself. Whom the gods would destroy they first give a weakness for expensive glass.

The D70 has its weak points, though none is fatal. The D70 seems to suffer more than other digital SLRs from an affliction called moire, which under certain (rare) conditions causes stripes or patterns to appear in a photo. And for a camera that sends big photo files to a computer for storage and processing--images that can be as large as five megabytes each at maximum quality--Nikon's limited USB 1.1 transfer rate, instead of the speedier USB 2.0 or FireWire standards, is slow-witted. But those affronts are forgiven because of the luminous quality of the photos taken by the D70, every bit the equal and in some cases better than similar shots taken with the Digital Rebel.

Achilles would say it's not the sword, but the skill of the swordsman. Still, I feel better taking my cuts with a well-balanced weapon like the D70.

Should you tempt the geek gods by buying a D70 now, knowing that next year there will be a newer, better, and maybe even cheaper digital SLR? The way I figure it, years from now, long after the D70 has been replaced by a fancier camera, I'll still treasure the photos it has allowed me to take. To have missed them would be the real tragedy.

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