Nikon D7000 Digital Camera Review

Shooting Modes

The D7000 offers a wide selection of shooting modes that are accessible from the mode dial on the top of the camera body, including two auto modes, the usual Program, Aperture, Shutter and full Manual modes and two user defined modes.

Focus

The D7000 offers an impressive 39 focus points, all of which are arranged in a grid pattern around the center of the frame. The 9 points closest to the center of the frame are the cross type, which are more sensitive when shooting in low light. If 39 points is too many (especially if you are choosing an individual focus point manually), a menu option allows you to cut that down to 11 points. You can also use a dynamic focus mode, where you select an initial point, but the camera switches to another focus point if the camera moves. This is designed to track a moving object such as a bird or a football player, and options are offered to use 9, 21 or all 39 focus points. A similar 3D focus mode is also offered, which tries to track and object moving towards or away from the camera.

One interesting feature on offer here is the AF fine tuning feature, which allows you to, as the name suggests, fine rune the focus system to adapt for different lenses. Different lenses can have very slight differences in their response to the auto focus signals the camera body sends, so this feature allows you to tweak the signal for maximum sharpness. Most users won’t need to use this feature, but a pro who is looking for maximum performance might want to spend the time tweaking their lenses.

Recording Options

The D7000 offers a limited range of options for both the size and compression of captured images, but it is flexible enough for most users. For size, there are three options of large, medium and small (see table below for resolutions), all at the 3:2 aspect ratio. There are no options for other aspect ratios, but the cropping editing tool does allow you to crop images down to other aspect ratios.

There are more options for the compression, with three levels of JPEG compression (fine, normal and basic) and the option to capture RAW images in Nikons own NEF format. Simultaneous RAW and JPEG versions can also be saved, with the second memory card slot providing the option to save NEF to one card and JPEG to the other.

Other Controls

Electronic Level

The D7000 includes a digital level which tells the user if the camera is being held level to the ground with an on-screen display.