3 thoughts on “Nikon D7000 16.2MP DX-Format CMOS Digital SLR with 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S DX VR ED Nikkor Lens”

1. 570 of 575 people found the following review helpful

   
   Review Written for Beginner Photographers, October 11, 2011

   By 

   jpullos (New York, NY) –

   This review is from: Nikon D7000 16.2MP DX-Format CMOS Digital SLR with 3.0-Inch LCD (Body Only) (Camera)

   I am a photography teacher in NYC and online. (See my Amazon profile for my website.) I teach beginner and intermediate photography students every week. I’ve also been a professional photographer for the last five years with images published in The New York Times, GQ, New York Magazine, Women’s Wear Daily, The New York Observer, The Village Voice and Time Out New York.

   (This review is for beginner photographers.)

   If you’re a beginner, you’re most likely asking yourself: Nikon or Canon? Really, I feel confident in saying that you can’t go wrong with either. I’ve used both brand’s cameras extensively and find that they both offer amazing image quality with well-built, solid cameras that, if taken care of, will last decades. There are two differences between the cameras, though, that can be taken into consideration.

   The user-interface: If cameras were computers, Nikons would be PCs and Canons would be MACs. PCs are built for people not afraid of technology whereas Macs are built for people who want things super-easy. Nikons excel at customization options which means you’ll see so many more options with the Advanced features of a Nikon than you will with a Canon. Canons, on the other hand, excel at ease-of-use for beginners. Canons offer less advanced options and can be easier to learn on. This can be frustrating down the line, though, once you’ve learned a lot about photography. At that point you may want all of the options that Nikon offers and be frustrated with your Canon. If you’re someone who really likes to delve deep into your hobbies or if you’re intent on becoming a professional photographer, I’d say a Nikon would be your best bet. If you’re someone who wants to learn the basics of photography and only imagine yourself being a hobbyist, Canon would be a better option for you.

   Where Nikon excels: Flash photography. I often find myself in situations where I’m shooting event photography (weddings, movie premiers, benefits and galas) where I need to use a lot of flash. For this kind of photography, I’ll always prefer to be shooting with a Nikon. Nikon’s flash metering (how the camera magically decides how much light to fire out of the flash) is much more consistent than Canon’s. You can take a Canon and shoot the same scene three times in a row with flash and all three images will be at different brightness levels. You can do the same thing with a Nikon and all three images will be wonderfully the same. If you’re somebody who plans on shooting a lot with flash (indoor photography, event photography, etc.) you’ll want to consider going with Nikon.

   Where Canon excels: Richness of colors. I’ve been in numerous situations where I’ve been on the red carpet taking the exact same picture as the photographer next to me. I’ll have a Canon and the person next to me will have a Nikon. This has provided quite a few opportunities to compare the images side-by-side. What I’ve found is that the colors on the Canon’s images look richer and make the image pop more. If I’m doing fine art photography (anything I’d like to someday hang in a gallery), I’ll always want to be shooting with a Canon for this reason.

   If you’re set on Nikon, there are three cameras you should be considering and it all comes down to what your budget is:

   D7000 $1,400 without lens
   D5100 $750 without lens
   D3100 $600 only available with lens
   (current prices as of 2/19/11)

   Here’s what you get for spending extra money (each camera compared to the one below it):

   D3100 vs. D5100:

   The D3100 is an EXCELLENT camera so if you only have $550 to spend total on camera and lens then go out and buy this camera. You won’t regret it. If you’re considering spending more money, here’s what you’ll get from the D5100 in comparison:

   -Better performance in low light situations.
   -A higher resolution screen on the back of the camera so you can see your images more clearly and make out if they actually turned out well.
   -An external mic jack. (If you’re planning on shooting video with an external mic, you’ll want the D5100 over the D3100.)
   -A flip out screen (handy if you want to put your camera anywhere but at your eye level and be able to see what your camera is about to capture before you shoot it)
   -Faster continuous shooting. If you’re often shooting sports or any fast moving subject, continuous shooting allows you to capture multiple images in a single second. The D3100 shoots at three frames per second whereas the D5100 shoots at four frames per second.
   -Higher ISO options. The D5100 offers one more stop of ISO than the D3100 does. If you don’t know what ISO means (or what a stop is) just know that this allows you to more easily shoot images in low-light situations.
   -Longer battery life. The D5100’s battery will last 20% longer than the D3100

   The two advantages of the D3100 over the D5100 are:…

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2. 1,148 of 1,207 people found the following review helpful

   
   Great Camera — A perspective from a D300/700 Owner, October 20, 2010

   By 

   B. Fuller (United States) –
   
     
   
     

   This review is from: Nikon D7000 16.2MP DX-Format CMOS Digital SLR with 3.0-Inch LCD (Body Only) (Camera)

   This is very simple, if you are a Nikon shooter looking for a new camera then stop reading and buy this camera. It’s that good.
   Handling

   This camera is brilliant to hold and use. Nikon has done it again and has made the user interface more usable and streamlined. What to change flash modes. Press the flash pop-up button and rotate the control wheel. Sweet. Want to change create and use a User defined mode? There are two. Set your mode up. Go to the menu and save it. To use it rotate the shooting mode dial to U1 or U2. Presto you are there. In the D300 and D700 you to have to setup things in the menu and switch in the menu. Also, there were 2 sets of things you could change and they were not all inclusive. It was all horribly confusing and I never used it. Speaking of shooting modes. There is now one position on the shooting mode dial for scene mode shooting. You change through the different scene modes with the control wheel and the type scene shows up on the back screen. Sweet. I can go on and on but needless to say Nikon have really improved their interface. One caveat, I don’t think it is quite up to par with the GH1 to change exposure compensation (IMO the most important control) but still a huge step in the correct direction in handling. I like the handling of the D7000 better than either the D700/300.

   Low Light Shooting

   The D300 wasn’t that great for Hi ISO. It shoots clean at 400 ISO and usable up to 1600. (The D90 and D300s were better) The D700 was fantastic. Clean at 1600 ISO and usable up to 6400. It opened up new worlds. The D7000 is close to the equal of the D700. Enough said. Just to give you an example. The bouquet toss at a reception is often done in poor light. By using 1600 instead of 400 you get the equivalent of 4 times more light. At ISO400 you flash may need to use 1/4 power and you can get 1 maybe 2 shots of the toss and catch before the flash needs to recharge. At ISO1600 your flash would only need to use 1/16th power and now you can get 5-6 shots. This is huge.

   Picture Quality

   Like all modern DSLRs it takes great pictures. I don’t pixel peep so I can’t really say that I notice a difference between the pictures from the D7000 and any of my 12mp cameras. It makes really nice pictures and that is all I care about.

   Useful Photography Features (Not Marketing Features)

   –100% view finder! Big bright with 100% coverage. No more guessing of your framing. (It is not as bright as the D700. However, it is 100% vice 95%)
   –2 SD slots – When your getting paid to shoot a wedding or any gig, my card broke is not an excuse. Very useful feature. For the home user put two smaller cards rather than one big card and save some money.
   –Smaller and lighter than D300, D700, D3s, D3x- When you stand on your feet for 9 hours shooting the wedding and reception, you start to feel every ounce you are carrying. Often you will be carrying two bodies with a fast tele zoom and fast wide zoom. That starts to get heavy. Light weight here we come.
   –2016-Segment RGB Meter- for spot on exposure and white balance–No one touches Nikon on this and this one is fantastic.
   –1/8000th — Very useful for shooting into the sun wide open with a bright lens
   –1/250 — Could be better (1/500th for D40) but could be much worse. Auto FP helps.
   –Magnesium body and better sealing — Shoot in dusty environments without messing up the inside your camera.
   –Uses the ML-L3 infra red remote — Small and cheap. IR sensor on the front and back of the camera.
   –Autofocus focus motor for non-AF-S lenses

   Marketing Features that will sometimes be Useful

   –16Mp — Nikon was obviously getting creamed in the marketing wars on this. This is going to lead to bigger files requiring larger hard drives and faster computers. Occasionally it will be useful if you can’t frame as close as you would like and you need to crop or you need to print big. Alien Skin Blow Up 2, Image Resizing Plug-in Software for Photoshop, Macintosh & Windows and Genuine Fractals 6 Professional Edition 1-user Full are two very nice programs that can increase the size of your photos for printing large. 16 MP is nice by not necessary.
   –39 Point Auto Focus — To me in some ways this is better than the 51 point of the D300 and D700 as that gets too unwieldy. However, you really don’t even need 39. However, still useful on occasion.
   –6 frames per second– I very rarely ever put my camera in 3 frames per second. When I do so it fills the card quickly. If you are shooting the big game then 6 is nice. Or it is nice for some cool special effects shots. Other than that you won’t really find yourself using it that much.

   Video
   The other thing I am not really going to dwell on is the video capabilities. In my opinion all the various video options are mostly marketing hype really targeted at a niche market. Shallow…

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3. 404 of 422 people found the following review helpful

   
   Cool things you might not know the D7000 can do, October 26, 2010

   By 

   James Sabo (Shadow Hills, CA United States) –
   
     

   This review is from: Nikon D7000 16.2MP DX-Format CMOS Digital SLR with 3.0-Inch LCD (Body Only) (Camera)

   Just take it for granted that this takes amazing pictures under all conditions, including low light, and that it contains all the manual controls that you’d ever want.

   Instead, here’s some things that the camera does that you might not have heard about:

   * Built-in EyeFi support

   If you’ve used EyeFi SD cards before, you probably assumed that it would work with the D7000, since the D7000 now uses SD cards instead of CF. But not only do you not have to mess around with SD-to-CF adapters, the camera is actually EyeFi aware– you can choose to have it upload or not upload on a slot-by-slot basis (so you might have it automatically upload the RAW files you saved to an EyeFi Pro card in slot 1, but not bother to upload the JPEGs you saved to the EyeFi Explorer card in slot 2), and there is also an icon that appears on the Info display to indicate that there are files waiting to upload, that the upload is in progress or disabled, etc.

   The Nikon Wifi adapter is going for $400. A 4GB, class 6 EyeFi card goes for $40. If you really want to move RAW files, snag the Pro version for $80. Yes, the Nikon adapter does things that EyeFi can’t, but if you just want to get your files onto a PC without pulling the card, why spend 10X the money?

   You’re stuck with the usual limitations of the EyeFi card, but I fully expect to use this feature a LOT with studio portraits– yeah, it only takes 10 seconds to pull the card and have Windows recognize that you added it, then another 5 seconds to eject the card and stick it back in the camera. But if you just want a quick check that your exposure or focus is where you want it, wouldn’t you rather just hit a single key and see your last shot, then get right back into the flow? You may want to drop your JPEG file sizes to speed up the transfer.

   * In-camera RAW file processing

   The camera contains a ton of built-in settings– in addition to the basics like Standard, Normal, Landscape, etc, you also get all the various Scene modes, which are basically variations on those main settings.

   RAW processing allows you to see how the shot would have looked had you used one of those other modes. In other words, you shoot in Normal, which basically applies no processing to the image, then select the RAW file, and choose how you’d like to adjust it. You can change the white balance settings, exposure, basic picture setting (landscape, portrait, etc), noise reduction, color space, and dynamic lighting. With the exception of the advanced details on the basic picture settings, you see a preview of how your change will affect the picture.

   If you like it, just hit EXEcute and it writes out a JPEG to your card. Don’t like it, just back out and nothing’s saved.

   This means that you don’t have to worry that shooting in Vivid is going to result in an oversaturated image, or you can punch something up even more after the fact. The only real drawback here to me is that it is going to kick out a JPEG, so if you’re planning on doing further editing in Photoshop, this may not be the best route. But if you’re just looking to go right from the camera to the web, or want to get an idea of how playing with custom settings will affect your shots, this is a massive shortcut to taking and then deleting a ton of shots. (And keep in mind that Photoshop will allow you to mess with most of these settings when importing RAW files anyway, and the plugin D7000-compatible RAW plugin had a release candidate posted yesterday, so you can finally open your RAW shots.)

   And a related feature that’s in most other Nikons, but that you might not know about– you can define your own basic picture settings. Want something that’s super-saturated and super-contrasty? Just hit a few buttons, choose a name, and you’re done. On the older Nikons, you had to edit the basic profile itself, now, you can use one as a starting point and adjust from there. Much cleaner.

   * User-defined settings on the control knob

   Not as hidden as the first two, but I can’t emphasize how cool this feature is. Here’s the situation I was in last night– I was shooting a singing contest in a dimly-lit venue. I was allowed to use a flash, but I didn’t want to constantly be blasting the singers while they were performing.

   I defined one setting as shutter priority, 1/60th, ISO Hi 2, center-weighted metering & focus, no flash. The second setting was automatic, ISO auto, full metering and autofocus, flash enabled. I’d take a couple shots in U2 with the flash, close the flash down and switch to U1 and shoot a half a dozen shots, then switch back to U2 and use the flash for a couple more shots. There was no fumbling for controls, no worrying that I changed the shutter speed without realizing it when changing between Auto and S– every time I went from U2 to U1, all my settings were reset to where I put them before the event…

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