Nikon D7000 Digital Camera Review

Dynamic Range

Dynamic range is a measure of how wide a range of tones a camera can capture. The wider this number, the more detail the camera will be able to capture in both shadows and highlights, making images look more realistic and natural. The D7000 did well in this test, managing to an impressive 7.8 stops dynamic range at ISO 100.

In the chart below, we show the dynamic range at ISO levels from 100 to 6400. As you can see, this range did fall as the ISO increased (falling to just over 3 stops at ISO 6400), but that is not unusual: as the ISO increases, the noise increases as well, overwhelming the shadow detail in images and loosing the fine details. More on how we test dynamic range.

If we compare the dynamic range of the D7000 to our comparison cameras, we can see that it has a slightly wider range than the others, but only by a small amount.