Nope... All those options are gateways to the flexibility and creative control you paid for when buying a D7100. You might want to start with one of the programmed modes, like Aperture Priority for example, to kind of simplify things while you're learning your way around the camera.My question is...is there an optimal way to set the camera settings?
There really is no one best way. how you set it up depends on how and what you are shooting.
I would suggest sitting down with the manual and reading it and as you are reading look at each one of the settings and see what it does and then decide what is best for you.
There are hundreds of people here and every one of them has their on "best" way.
Nope... All those options are gateways to the flexibility and creative control you paid for when buying a D7100. You might want to start with one of the programmed modes, like Aperture Priority for example, to kind of simplify things while you're learning your way around the camera.
Come to think of it there is one setting I suggest. Go to...
Shooting Menu (camera icon)
Set Picture Control (I use Standard here but pick your poison)
Right-arrow one click, using the directional buttons surrounding the "OK" button
From this menu, drop down to the "Sharpening" setting and bump it up to +7. For whatever reason Nikon seems to set this option really low, like -2 or -3, as the default. If you haven't changed it, that's where the setting will be. You can try using other settings here but the +7 setting seems to do a really nice job; there was a noticeable difference in image quality once I made this adjustment.
I don't adjust anything else in this menu; the Sharpness setting is the only one I feel needs help.
Over kill... on the... shutter... speed...... I was photographing at 1/8000 shutter speed and the photos came out amazing. Yet a bunch of people on here told me I was overkilling the shutter speed. For stop action if you don't use 1/8000 shutter speed on a car traveling at 190 mph when do you use it?
And don't take anybody's word as fact. What they say is what applies in their world under their circumstances. I was recently at Talladega photographing cars going by at 190 mph. I was photographing at 1/8000 shutter speed and the photos came out amazing. Yet a bunch of people on here told me I was overkilling the shutter speed. For stop action if you don't use 1/8000 shutter speed on a car travelling at 190 mph when do you use it?
I think it's a rhetorical question being used to drive home a point, personally.You start out by saying "and don't take anybodys word as fact" then you go on telling the op how and when to use 1/8000 is that a fact?