Quickie recommendations: the 50mm f/1.8 gives you enough power to shoot yourself in the foot in this scenario, so you probably want to shoot in aperture priority mode. Set for f/2.8, take a test shot in advance, and if you don't have enough depth to cover the entire cake plus about a foot, nudge upward one step at a time until you do. If you won't have the chance to do this ahead of time, just go with f/2.8, aim at the face, and hope for the best. Set your ISO at the lowest value for which you get at least 1/125 sec shutter speed at your desired aperture. If you're up to ISO800, and still don't have it, but have at least 1/60 sec, don't worry about it and shoot f/2.8, 1/60 sec or faster, ISO800 or lower, and you'll be fine.
Longer explanation:
You have three problems to contend with in a scene like this: first, your depth of field will have to be long enough to cover both the cake and the full face of the blower (at 50mm, f/2.8 might be sufficient, but shooting wide open will probably cause one side or the other to go soft). Second, your shutter speed has to be fast enough to deal with the fact that most people lean forward and then move their heads to blow, and you have to be shooting fast enough to stop this motion. 1/60s is going to be your absolute limit, and I'd aim for 1/125. The D70 has reasonably good noise performance up to ISO800, if I recall correctly, so don't be afraid to go that high to pick up speed. Don't go higher. The 1600 performance stinks on a D70. Your third issue is going to be metering. Nikon has better internal metering than Canon does, but your lighting situation is going to be slightly on the evil side, with a potentially underlit room contrasted by lots of light coming off of the candles.
Your best shot here is simply to get your metering done well in advance, by shooting a few shots of the lit cake alone, or just get some candles out early, and check your lighting. If that isn't going to be possible, set for spot metering, and then meter off of the face of the blower. (Damn the highlights! Full speed ahead!) You want the widest aperture that gives you the entire scene tack sharp (which can be hard to tell from preview shots, even fully zoomed, but use your best judgement) to pick up shutter speed, and you absolutely cannot go below 1/60 sec. If you are dropping below that, move ISO up to a top of 800 first, then either sacrifice depth of field and accept that the cake will go soft, or underexpose up to a stop and fix in the RAW import stage afterwards. This shouldn't be necessary if the room is at least moderately lit.
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