After nearly 6 years with my trusty D50 I plumped for a tasty new D7000 over Christmas. So I’ve gone from a 6MP dslr to a 16MP! Not to mention the fact the new camera has full HD video recording capabilities (1080p 1920x1080px), a huge 3″ LCD screen and numerous other improvements.
But I’m not here to compare the two cameras, they are worlds apart in terms of technology and age. The D50 was great back in the day but I wanted to say a few words on the new Nikon.
Due to the myriad new features today’s cameras have it is taking me a while to get to grips with the D7000. The D50 was relatively simple compared tot his new beast. There are tons of buttons all over the D7000 and after a quick play I found the need to RTFM! Thankfully Nikon have provided a great manual that covers just about everything you need to know about the D7000. In fact, it’s going to take me a while to get through it all. Right now I’m dipping in when I find myself flummoxed by something the camera does, or does not do!
Thanks to the bad weather of the British winter I’ve been unable to do much testing outside but the results are very impressive for indoor use. The noise is very well handled when viewed in Lightroom and Photoshop even when the scene requires some high ISO. The D7000 goes up to 6400 with H1 and H2 equivalent boosting it to ISO 12,800/25,600. That’s pretty sweet. I’ve set mine to limit to 3200 as anything above that is going to require some serious noise reduction and will not print well. I sell my work to interior designers and home owners so it needs to be good quality when printed large on canvas or acrylic.
I like the twin SD card slots, very handy when out and about. Not only can you choose to have the second one written to when the first fills up, but you can have one record RAW whilst the other writes jpg versions. Smart!
Battery life is incredible. I haven’t had to charge it yet and I’ve done hundreds of shots – and video recording of my little boy. As any good photographer will tell you though, yo should always have a charged battery backup so I bought one from Amazon which was a great price for a genuine battery.
I can see the Nikon D7000 is going to be a great piece of kit over the coming years. I would have liked the flip out screen the D5100 has but it’s about the only thing I’d want that it doesn’t have! Superb build and amazing features make the D7000 one of the best cameras around for the price. Mine was £850 for the body, just before Christmas. Looking now I can see they are £950.









