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Hi Scottm

What a lovely predicament to be in!

Do remember that the high ISO plus FAST lenses leads to overexposure! You do NOT need the fastest lenses, but high quality glass. So a 70-200mm f2.8 is great, but the rumoured new 70-200mm f4 pro lens should be out sometime this year, for obviously half the price!
So don't be in too great a hurry, and rather handpick what you really need...

God bless,

Friedrich von Hörsten

Hi Frederich... you are quite correct regarding the speed of the lenses; this D7000 gives a lot more life to my older, slower lenses that are of reasonable quality. However, in my case, many of my shots are in low-light conditions, where the use of a flash is just not possible. Given the limitations of the D70 AND my glass, I never even attepted to get various shots, whereas now I have the camera technology.... just the quality (and fast) glass required.

One of my more odd (mentally confusing, that is) shots is a timed exposure of the bushveld with starlight the only ambient light (no moon!) available, at midnight and the landscape to the horizon is full of colour as though it is a sunny day (Shot 30sec, 50mm f1.4) and the stars are visible in a blue sky

My prime reason for tending towards the 70-200 f2.8 is to get full funcationality with a 2x converter, giving me a (reasonable?) reach in the bushveld of 400mm (plus the crop factor) while still having the ability to exploit VR and autofocus, both of which I believe I would lose on an f4 lens. I am astounded on the clarity of shots, even at ISO3200 but have not yet undertaken may tests beyond this. I am in no rush to collect new glass (my bank manager says NO! ) so maybe the f4 could suffice. Will just have to wait and dream.

I have learned over the years to never compromise on quality, an expensive lesson in my early days in photography, and will thus wait till the best can be placed in the bag.... or I will just have to make do with what is in there already.

I received mine on Friday and have been very impressed with the camera thus far!


Interesting point about the lenses...as camera resolution keeps increasing it will definitely show up the deficiencies in lower-quality lenses as you need the best possible glass to enable the camera to put its high density pixels onto your subject (so to speak).

There have been many reports on the web of Canon 5Dmk2 users complaining that lenses like the 17-40mm f4 L are not performing as desired (and this is a 'pro' level lens!). Even on the Canon 7D which I used up until recently, putting on a kit lens or "non-L" series lens had a negative effect on overall image quality (as should be expected). On the contrary when I moved from a high quality zoom to a high quality prime telephoto I got even more out of the 7D sensor with less apparent noise on the images.

The best piece of advice another photographer ever gave me was to invest in glass first, and upgrade your camera later then it really becomes obsolete (obviously if you have the bucks, buy the body too ).

I think Nikon can do well to bring out a 70-200mm f4 as Canon has had one for years and has taken the market as many shooters are not willing to fork out the extra for the f2.8...they also need to refresh the 80-400mm VR as it is much slower than its Canon competitor which I used for a long time, the 100-400mm L IS USM.

Just my 2c.
Good luck with your choices, and enjoy the camera! Some other interesting announcements due from Nikon later in the month.

hello all
I got my D7000 in december and have been shocked at the brilliant image quality. Ive just bought a Sigma 120-400mm and can't wait to try it! Taking pics around home just doesn't do it justice

To all the potential upgraders! just do it, let the bank pay for it while u test it out! Don't think they have a money back guarantee tho

Hi perhaps you should wait for the release of the D3200 although reviews of d7000 rate it as an excellent camera. The 3200 looks promising and will be cheaper than the d7000.

Just bought my D7000 a few months back, really enjoy it, and so far im impressed even with a sigma 150-500 lens.

I will be in kruger july and cant wait to try it in some proper light....

john

Thats really good to hear J n P as i'm looking to get the sigma 150-500 to use with my D7000, just got the Nikon 70-300 VR (which works really well at Marwell Zoo) but probably won't be enough reach for the KNP.

hope your both well.

cheers Steve T (brother of Gemma T)

nice one steve

john

D7000 is a very nice camera...I am very satisfied about mine....

Yip, got mine as well the other day - VERY impressed with it's low light capabilities. Also got the Nikon Battery Grip for it - what I like about this one vs the Battery Grip I've got on my D90 is the fact that it has up/down/left/right controls on it for instance to move your focal point on in your view finder, where as on the D90, if you are using your camera vertically, you only had the controls on the camera to move your focal point around.