D80 owner; I've been jonesing for the 7K as an upgrade to it.
See attached review from another Nikon forum:
Dedicated bird shooter with a D300/D3; gets the 7K to test out.
Doesn't like it well enough to keep it as a back up.
Sends it back!!! (Dead pixel)
After reading his review, I'm more jonesing for a D300S now.
Close to the same price line for the body only, better OVERALL quality from the 300S.
7K IS an upgrade on the D90, but not to the specs of the 300S, which is more what I'm looking for.
I was hoping (as lots of folks were) for a slam dunk, no question upgrade...not so much now.
Autofocus points (apparently not the 'bag of chips' so proclaimed), sharpness of images (unexpected lack of in some instances) and iso 1600 noise are a few killing points for me on the 7K.
I'm heading for better glass first, then upgrade the 80.
..."Well as many of you may know I was able to pick up a D7000 kit at Best Buy on Thursday.
I have mixed feelings towards this camera. It has a lot going for it on paper but in the end it falls short of my needs.
Pro's:
My camera produced sharp images.
The camera has a nice compact solid feel. It doesn't feel overly plasticky. It is a bit of a step up from a D90 in this regard but far short of a D300 feel.
To get sharp pictures with this camera you need good technique, there are a lot of densely packed pixels on this sensor and it will show flaws much easier than a D700 for instance.
Cons:
Movie mode.... I'm not a professional videographer by any means but lets say I bought this camera for a trip and wanted to take some casual video with it and use autofocus. Well this is going to be a disaster. The autofocus comes through obnoxiously loud in the playback. You would have to buy a directional mic or manual focus. There is nothing casual about taking video with a honking directional mic on your camera :tongue:
Autofocus: I'm used to D300 and D3 performance. I took this camera and paired it with a 400mm 2.8 and shot eagles in flight this morning. It was D90ish performance in my opinion. Lets just say I didn't get one acceptable image today with the D7000. The following link are the acceptable images I got with the D3 this morning after putting the D7000 back in the bag. http://www.lemmophoto.com/p145268366
Sensor: My camera had one really apparent dead pixel near the center. This is not acceptable especially when you are shooting video. It is pretty easy to get a dead pixel out of an image, but on a 5 minute video not so much. Someone else pointed out earlier that they found a couple other dead pixels in my images as well.
Shutter: As someone else said it is very mushy, I don't like the feel or the sound or any of it. It just doesn't feel right.
Buffer: Again I am a D300 D3 user. I was shooting Jpeg-Raw and getting about 10 images buffer. That doesn't cut the mustard for my needs.
AF-On button: This doesn't have a dedicated AF-ON button but you can use the AE-L button instead. This is what I use. This button is too close to the viewfinder. I am a left eye shooting and it makes for a very uncomfortable experience with my knuckle and eye fighting for space.
Noise: I shot some images early in the morning at 1600 ISO and got very noticeable noise in the feathers of the birds. This was a bit surprising to me. It may have been partially my fault due to exposure issues though.
Conclusion: I returned it as a defective item due to the dead pixels to Best Buy for a full refund about an hour ago. I do not plan on buying another one. I was hopeful it would be able to replace a D300 for wildlife and bird photography. In my view it falls short. It is a very nice D90 upgrade though."
See attached review from another Nikon forum:
Dedicated bird shooter with a D300/D3; gets the 7K to test out.
Doesn't like it well enough to keep it as a back up.
Sends it back!!! (Dead pixel)
After reading his review, I'm more jonesing for a D300S now.
Close to the same price line for the body only, better OVERALL quality from the 300S.
7K IS an upgrade on the D90, but not to the specs of the 300S, which is more what I'm looking for.
I was hoping (as lots of folks were) for a slam dunk, no question upgrade...not so much now.
Autofocus points (apparently not the 'bag of chips' so proclaimed), sharpness of images (unexpected lack of in some instances) and iso 1600 noise are a few killing points for me on the 7K.
I'm heading for better glass first, then upgrade the 80.
..."Well as many of you may know I was able to pick up a D7000 kit at Best Buy on Thursday.
I have mixed feelings towards this camera. It has a lot going for it on paper but in the end it falls short of my needs.
Pro's:
My camera produced sharp images.
The camera has a nice compact solid feel. It doesn't feel overly plasticky. It is a bit of a step up from a D90 in this regard but far short of a D300 feel.
To get sharp pictures with this camera you need good technique, there are a lot of densely packed pixels on this sensor and it will show flaws much easier than a D700 for instance.
Cons:
Movie mode.... I'm not a professional videographer by any means but lets say I bought this camera for a trip and wanted to take some casual video with it and use autofocus. Well this is going to be a disaster. The autofocus comes through obnoxiously loud in the playback. You would have to buy a directional mic or manual focus. There is nothing casual about taking video with a honking directional mic on your camera :tongue:
Autofocus: I'm used to D300 and D3 performance. I took this camera and paired it with a 400mm 2.8 and shot eagles in flight this morning. It was D90ish performance in my opinion. Lets just say I didn't get one acceptable image today with the D7000. The following link are the acceptable images I got with the D3 this morning after putting the D7000 back in the bag. http://www.lemmophoto.com/p145268366
Sensor: My camera had one really apparent dead pixel near the center. This is not acceptable especially when you are shooting video. It is pretty easy to get a dead pixel out of an image, but on a 5 minute video not so much. Someone else pointed out earlier that they found a couple other dead pixels in my images as well.
Shutter: As someone else said it is very mushy, I don't like the feel or the sound or any of it. It just doesn't feel right.
Buffer: Again I am a D300 D3 user. I was shooting Jpeg-Raw and getting about 10 images buffer. That doesn't cut the mustard for my needs.
AF-On button: This doesn't have a dedicated AF-ON button but you can use the AE-L button instead. This is what I use. This button is too close to the viewfinder. I am a left eye shooting and it makes for a very uncomfortable experience with my knuckle and eye fighting for space.
Noise: I shot some images early in the morning at 1600 ISO and got very noticeable noise in the feathers of the birds. This was a bit surprising to me. It may have been partially my fault due to exposure issues though.
Conclusion: I returned it as a defective item due to the dead pixels to Best Buy for a full refund about an hour ago. I do not plan on buying another one. I was hopeful it would be able to replace a D300 for wildlife and bird photography. In my view it falls short. It is a very nice D90 upgrade though."