Nikon’s D7000 is one of its newest models, one nearly impossible to get as of November 2010 except by going on a waiting list. The new model is hot because it’s a pro-style body with the same lens options as the high-end models (D3 and D300 series), magnesium rather than polycarbonate body, a 16 megapixel sensor (DX or APS size) and HD video capability at 720p and 1080p (the latter only at 24 frames per second). Even serious amateur shooters like me find a lot to love about the new camera. In fact, I think the D7000 is perhaps the best all-around pro-sumer digital that Nikon has ever produced, and it's enough to make me say that I'm done buying "professional" backs.
Physically the D7000 is a bit smaller than the D200/D300 models and a lot smaller than the D2/D3 models. It has a larger display on the back, and like some of the other models it’s capable of “live-view” shooting like a consumer digital camera. This mode is essential for video shooting because you can’t move the SLR mirror fast enough to shoot video; it locks up in video/Live View mode and you use the rear display. It’s easier to fit the D7000 into a holster, and easier to show friends pictures you’ve just taken. Despite what some comments have suggested, that the smaller size feels less “professional”, I can say from someone who uses the relatively-giant D2X that the smaller size feels fine and the weight is appreciated.
In fact, the D7000 feels in many ways more “pro” than the D200; the shutter release is extremely fast like that of the D2X, so the mirror-up state won’t block view as much. You can also lock the mirror up or select a “quiet” mode where it moves more slowly if you want to avoid shake in longer exposures, and of course if you enter Live View your mirror is always locked up and there’s no sound or blocked view on the LCD screen (nothing is visible in the viewfinder since the mirror is locked. You can also lock the mirror up for cleaning the CCD, though the D7000 has a clean-CCD function that can be enabled at will, or when the camera is powered on, off, or both. If you change lenses a lot, then auto-cleaning makes sense.
The camera isn't without some minor issues, and I hasten to say that with the exception of the D2X, every digital camera I've owned has had some operational annoyances. The two that I've found on the D7000 are that the exposure mode dial on the left side of the camera is, because the body is small, subject to turning when you grab the camera or (especially) take it out of a case or holster (I use belt/holster systems to carry cameras). That's annoying but you can usually spot it instantly and it doesn't happen most of the time. Second, the rubber trim on the grip side tends to come loose a bit at the bottom if you grab it a certain way. It pushes right back into place. Small price to pay for the value, in my view!
Nikon says to use Class 6 or higher SDHC cards in the camera, and since mine haven’t come yet (you can’t pick them up in your typical retail shop, so ordering is a must) I tried the camera with some older and low-speed cards. While they worked, I did get a warning about card format when I put the card into the reader on the PC to pull images off, which leads me to believe that the camera is too fast for the card even in single-photo mode, much less video. I decided that I’d get Class 10 cards, the fastest currently offered, to be safe.
I made a decision with the D7000 to move to Compressed NEF (raw) shooting from the uncompressed form, not only for the D7000 but also for the D200 and D2X. I’ve examined the test shots of many who have looked at the two modes in parallel and concluded that for my shooting there’s no good reason not to take advantage of the compression, which cuts storage for pictures by about 40% and so will give you about 66% more shots on a card or on your PC hard drive. When you shoot thousands of images on a trip, that’s nice, and it saves space for the videos that the D7000 will now let me shoot! The tests I've run in the field bear out the in-home test results so I'm staying with Compressed NEF.
While JPEG shooting isn’t my thing personally (I like to fiddle more in Photoshop than JPEG is likely to support well), the D7000 has a good JPEG option, which is to optimize for quality in the compression instead of optimizing for file size. If you select that option, you will get fewer images per gigabyte and the number will vary according to the amount of detail in the shot. I suspect that the size ends up being a bit closer to the file size of a compressed NEF image, but you’d be able to use it directly in even simple photo software that won’t process RAW, or to print or email it (beware of file size, though).
Speaking of software, there are going to be some issues early on with photo software and the RAW format produced by the D7000. Adobe hasn’t released anything formally that will open D7000 NEF files, but there’s a beta version of Adobe Camera Raw and the DNG Converter available on Adobe Labs. I tried the latter and it did process the images fine, and it converts them to a form that Photoshop CS3 will then read. If you don’t want to upgrade to the latest Photoshop, Elements, or Lightroom then this will be a good choice for you. Picasa and Irfanview also both open the D7000 files, and of course Nikon’s ViewNX 2 does as well. The open-source conversion for the files still looks ragged, so for now you’ll have to convert with ViewNX 2 and convert to TIFF, or use the DNG Converter, if you want to use open source tools like Gimp for photo editing. Recent upgrades to open-source tools have improved D7000 conversion, Google's Picasa does a decent job, and the new DNG converter is now product line so conversion works fine. I've settled on using the Converter as my conversion mechanism; it's produced good results and it also cuts down on the DVD storage you need to save pictures.
For anyone with an older Nikon (like me) or with simple point-and-shoot experience, the settings and use of the D7000 are different, and for the latter group likely complex. The modern DSLRs offer a lot of wonderful capabilities but they come at the price of having to know to select them and how to optimize them. There are a number of guides online for D7000 settings and it’s probably a good idea to set up the camera based on one of them unless you know what you’re doing. The manual doesn’t provide a lot of insight into what some of the settings mean, and if you want optimal operation of the camera you’ll have to experiment a bit to see what works best. It’s been like that with both my previous Nikons and with the Fuji S2 before them (the Fuji was my first DSLR, back in 2002).
I don’t want to offer a tutorial in shooting digital pictures or in using the D7000 here because it would take up a lot of time and space, but I do want to point out some of the things about the camera that I expect will change the way I shoot, and likely you as well.
First and foremost, the D7000 works a lot better at high ISO settings than any other camera I’ve had or used. The D200 and D2X will provide decent images up to about ISO 640 with reasonable noise reduction software. My initial tests of the D7000 is that it will do the same but up to about ISO 3200. Even the images at ISO 6400 are tolerable without noise reduction, and I’d use the 12800 and 25600 settings with noise reduction without hesitation for wildlife shots. To me, the key question with high ISO setting is what it will give you in return for the higher noise levels. The only possible trades are depth-of-field and shutter speed because that’s what creates exposure, and my initial tests suggest that with the D7000’s better noise performance I could expect shots at 1/400th or higher when before I was working at 1/60th. When you’ve got a 400mm lens, even with VR, that is an enormous benefit in eliminating shake and reducing subject movement. For bird photos, the higher ISO could be a life-saver because of the sharp movement those little critters make.
Noise reducction is important for good images above ISO 6400, and my personal choice is Dfine from NIK Software. In fact, I use Dfine, Vivenza, and Sharpener Pro 3.0 together and they handle probably 90% of my plugin workflow needs. Read the tutorials carefully to be sure you use the plugins correctly to get best results.
There are some truly different things about the D7000 in exposure, so different that it's my view that you probably want to forget what you used to do in terms of settings and start over! Let's get to the two most critical things; how Auto ISO impacts settings, and dynamic range.
My earlier Nikon backs had limitations in how great a range of ISO settings Auto ISO could really support. Thus, I tended to set the cameras to ISO 400 (a good overall value for wildlife) and then set the cameras in "P" mode, letting the camera pick shutter speed and lens opening. I'd thumb the wheel to re-balance the camera choice as needed, and occasionally I'd use one of the other modes to get more control. It worked on the D200 and D2X, but it's the wrong answer on the D7000. There, you want to shoot in Manual mode! Yes, I'm not kidding. Set the camera in M mode and based on the lens and conditions, pre-set your lens opening and F-stop. I tend to use 1/800th and f6.3 for my tele-zooms, for example; higher shutter speed if I need to stop action (like hummingbirds). The camera will then set the ISO to make that combination work, and you can see what it is by pressing the shutter down half-way. If you think you'll be unhappy with noise, then reset one or the other of the exposure settings. This sounds like more work, but in fact it's proved to be VERY easy, and I've now done two long trips with extensive camera use on both to validate the point.
Second, the D7000 handles photos with dynamic range issues a lot better than other cameras. There’s a feature called “Active D-Lighting” that effectively flattens the dynamic range in the highlight and shadow parts of the image while leaving mid-tone contrast pretty much alone. This seems to have great promise in wildlife shots, particularly where animals are silhouetted against the sky or obscured in shrubbery. I need to experiment a bit with this under different conditions; I’m especially interested in how it would work with birds in flight. However, it’s also supposed to help with sunrise/sunset scenes, etc. The best strategy here, I think, is to assign one of the programmable buttons on the D7000 to the mission of turning Active D-Lighting on and off, and use it selectively. The question will be whether it’s better than changing exposure directly or via compensation.
Video in the D7000 is a mixed bag. The good news is that it’s better than other models in that it offers 1080p at least in 24 frames per second mode. The bad news is that anyone who gets a DSLR to shoot video is likely to be seriously disappointed because of the inherent mechanics of the process.
All DSLRs (but one, a Sony I think) have their autofocus sensors on the mirror, so when you shoot video and (necessarily) lock the mirror up to view on the sensor, you lose the good autofocus mechanisms of the camera’s natural behavior and fall back on what’s called “contrast focusing”. Plainly put, that’s only slightly north of no focus at all on pretty much any DSLR, and it’s particularly problematic in low light or with low-contrast scenes. To make matters even more complicated, the focus tracking of this mode won’t work unless you have at least an AF-S lens, which in most cases means one of the new Nikkor G lenses.
Older D series lenses work fine in the normal mode but won’t track with Live View and video, so Nikon says. I say that even in single-servo non-tracking focus mode, older lenses probably won’t work. Good-quality newer wide-angle lenses seem to work fine (my 17-55G F2.8 seems to work well) and I suspect the kit lenses (all G lenses) also work, and unless you have a G lens already I’d recommend you get one of the kits if you plan on shooting video. It’s possible to manual focus video, but remember that the LCD screen is what you’re looking at and so if you’re like me and getting along in years you’ll probably need some high-powered reading glasses to see it well. You’ll also need a tripod or stable rest for the camera.
I tested the D7000 video on landscape/scenery, and I didn't like the result in autofocus mode. There's a bit of hunting, even with the new G lenses (I have a 17-55 f2.8, which is a good, expensive, lens and should work as well as anything will. That makes the scene expand and contract, which I don't like. I suspect that manual-focus video through a telezoom would be OK. But remember, DSLRs have much larger sensors than standard videocameras, so they have lower depth of field in general. That means that focus will be harder to obtain and that you’ll have less in focus at any given time (all other factors being equal) than with a camcorder or even a Flip video. Thus, you can expect the video process to work very differently. The moral is that if you want to shoot video, get something else. If you want to shoot pictures and use video in exceptional situations, then DSLR video is OK and the D7000 is as good a choice as any.
There’s a lot of stuff you can do to make camera control/setting management easier. There are two user setting modes on the setting dial, two buttons can be programmed with custom functions, and you can store your own custom menu items in a special menu to get to them quickly. Wait a bit before you do this; you may change your mind! What I’ve done is to get my basic settings made using the menus, set M mode and the shutter speed and lens opening for my base operation, auto-ISO with Hi-2 (ISO 25600) as the max and 1/250th of a second as the minimum shutter speed, and save that combination as U1. I then moved to P mode and turned off auto-ISO, setting the “base” ISO at 500, and saved that combination as U2. Now if I want my P/S/A modes of shooting to work as usual I set U2, and if I want my super-M-mode operation I set U1. Keep in mind that I’m presuming shooting for nature/wildlife or candid “culture portraits” and not snapshots.
Remember that setting U-anything will only hold those settings while you’re still set for the U-setting; if you switch the mode to A or P or whatever, you’ll go back to whatever the menu settings were last, so if you want to have the camera work in “base” mode (without any U-setting) then set those values for ISO, auto-ISO, etc. and don’t save them as anything. Now if you turn the dial to another mode, that’s what will be used. There are thus in effect three user modes, one where neither of the other two are explicitly set. In my case, since you only get to this third implicit mode by not setting either U1 or U2, I’m assuming I want my P/S/A modes to work the old way with fixed ISO, so I’ve turned auto-ISO off and set ISO at 500.
Update: April 19th 2011
I've now done Belize, Quito Ecuador, the Galapagos, Cusco, and Machu Picchu using the D7000 very extensively. Video slideshows from the trips are available on YouTube; see the links in the Photos and Videos section of this site.
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