So what's so good about this camera, then?
If you look at the photos, you'll probably notice great colors, and low noise. The low noise is something which is for me very important - it gives photos a touch of realism and color smoothness which is what you see in the world. I have not shot much film, so I'm not 'used' to noise as being a factor which makes photos look more 'photographic'.
D30 has been blamed to have a 'soft' image. When using quality lenses (primes, L-series stuff), this is not so. Because D30 images are more 'negatives' than final prints the D30 photos might need some additional on Photoshop, as a film negative needs some work in a darkroom. As a matter of fact one of the strenghts of D30 is that in-camera sharpening can be essentially turned off and it lets you decide what's best for the target media and for the photo's style. The better you handle this darkroom technique and all post-processing desicions, the better your photos will look in the end. You can get unbelievable amount of detail and crispness from D30 if you use high quality lenses and remember that the old rule '1/focal length is with D30 '1/(focal length * 1.6)'. I've got A3 size photo prints from my photos which look incredible.
It's a shame that megapixels and initial image sharpness has become the only area of interest in consumer camera market (to which D30 officially belongs to). First of all, doubling megapixels does not matter as much as you would think (i.e. doubling megapixels does not double x and y resolution!), and applications which really need such a pixel mass are few, and with 5-6 megapixels you can't anyway compete with glossy fashion magazines who use large format film cameras. Normally people say that you need more pixels because you get good quality prints after cropping - my opinion is that if that is your reason for upgrading a camera then it's cheaper and more productive to spend more time thinking about composition.
The one aspect of digital cameras which is mostly ignored in all this technical babble about megapixels, is sensitivity and it's relation to noise. This simply means: Check a camera model and see in what kind of situations you can take photos (at all) and are the results usable. D30 beats all consumer models by having ISO 100-1600, where ISO 100 and 200 are virtually noiseless, and 400 has some faint noise, and 800 is very usable. You can even use 1600 if you use noise reduction actions available for Photoshop (Fred Miranda sells one set
here, and jes has one good free action
here). Combined to sensitive lenses, this gives you a freedom to use available light most of the time. It's a relief after using a cameras with only usable ISO 50 or 100. It means you don't have to carry a tripod, and you can stop movement in dim scenes. You get what you see. You can change ISO by a small movement of your thumb and adapt immediately to new lighting situations.
I noticed and interesting thing about D30 'propack' (vertical grip with 2 batteries and vertical controls). More and more of my photos are now vertical. It feels so natural to change between vertical and horizontal grip, that you decide orientation by composition, not by how comfortable holding is.