Nikon Announces D7000 DSLR, 35mm/f1.4 AF-S, 200mm/f2 AF-S VR2, and SB-700 Flash

<p>While I can only speak for myself, I have been reasonably satisfied with my poor experiments of MF nikkors on an old D100. Are these MF lenses practical to use? imho, absolutely not, but when I use these lenses I'm going for a specific effect and in reality, I think I'm using a digital camera as more of a 'digital back' as opposed to using it as an AF digital camera. How I wish Nikon made an amateur digital camera that would accept an old-fashioned split-circle focusing screen. I know I lose AF, but that was kind of my goal anyway. Give me a digital camera that has current matrix metering, and TTL, but the ability to completely shut off the AF and use a split-circle focusing screen. I could really use something like that...</p>

 

<p><em>How I wish Nikon made an amateur digital camera that would accept an old-fashioned split-circle focusing screen. </em></p>

<p>You can get split-image screens for most DX format Nikon DSLRs from Katz Eye Optics (as well as a few other manufacturers). They work nicely on those viewfinders which are based on an actual prism (rather than mirrors). The D100 viewfinder is quite bad; for manual focusing I would get a newer (and a little higher-end) camera; D80, D90, D200, D300(s), D2X, D3 series, or D700 should work fine with a replacement screen. The problem with the D100 is the small viewfinder size. The lower-end models (i.e. D70, D50, D5000 etc.) have a pentamirror "prism" which doesn't give a clear image. I find that the D700 with Katz Eye screen works fine and makes manual focus lenses a joy to use, though not quite the same as an F3HP or FM3A.</p>

<p>I looked at the Katz Eye website, and don't really understand what they are selling. Is it a replacement prism? Does it actually split the image when not in focus (like the old cameras)? Or is it just a brighter screen?</p>

<p>Katz Eye sells a replacement focusing screen. It works the same way focusing screens used to work in the 1970's and 1980's (and the recent FM3a also).</p>

<p>It's a replacement focusing screen, not a prism. Their screens have the split image in the center, and some of their screens also have a microprism collar around the split image, which can also be used to focus. The "brightness" of the screen image is not necessarily what you want to be able to manual focus (with fast lenses), but rather a clear visual contrast between in- and out of focus areas. Nikon screens are quite good for f/2.8 - f/4 lenses, but the Katz Eye screens are (in my opinion) better for faster lenses.</p>

<p>Interesting to read the wish lists. I would want an internal polarizer that I could "rotate" with either control wheel, or turn completely off.</p>

<p>As for some other items, I current have a camera that can provide an ISO of 8, a shutter speed of 1/50,000, provides a live histogram in record mode, and can tell me the temperature of the CCD (noise goes up with temperature). It also gives me the zoom setting on the LCD in 35mm equiv terms, and when using live view, can be set to make the blown highlights blink when in record mode. It can also be set to be in "record when motion detected" mode, can play video games, and in an emergency, make the LCD into a flashlight.</p>

<p>No, it is not a cell phone, although my Droid has a 5 meg camera with flash, still or movie mode.</p>

<p>Does anyone know if the D7000 will offer a replaceable focusing screen system like Nikon's pro equipment ( F series, N90(s) ), or will it require dis-assembly like many of the consumer grade equipment?</p>

<p>Right now, I'm kind of torn between a D2Xs, or a D300(s) ... the D700, or a used D3 is what I want, but they are just too far out of my price range, right now...</p>

<p>And now, Nikon pulls out the D7000 with full AF HD video, external mic input, Ai/Ais coupling...</p>

<p>This is not an easy time to make a buying decision...</p>

<p>With my D300, which is pretty demanding on lens sharpness, my 16/3.5 AI, 28/2 AI, 40/2 CV, 50/1.2 AIS, 105/2.5 AIS, 200/4 AIS, and 80-200/2.8AFS (below 150mm), and 70-300AFS (below 250mm) all seem to be pixel sharp when stopped down a bit, so they could certainly use a higher resolution sensor, especially if it had a weaker AA filter.<br>

Some of my other lenses, like my 24/2.8 AIS, 20/2.8 AF-D, 50/1.8 AF-D, 85/1.8 AF-D, 135/2 AIS, and 180/2.8D seem like they kind have met their limit on a D300. Some additional pixels for over-sampling would not hurt though.<br>

So it really is a case-by case basis as to which lenses are sharp enough.</p>

<p>John</p>

<p>Oskar, Left, Walt, Zach, thanks for your answer.<br>

I`m impressed with that "House" chapter. Looks astounding. Not in amateurs hands, thought.</p>

<p>I have a question - what is difference between the matrix and 3D color matrix II ?<br>

I was just comparing the specs of D7000 with D300s and found that D300s has 3d color matrix whereas for D7000 it is only 'MATRIX'. In what way does it affect ?</p>

 

<p>"From my perspective, if a lens gets good marks on the 24Mp D3x from a reviewer most of use agree with, I don't see how the same lenses will be sent to the unusable bin on a 16mp D7000."<br>

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John - the issue is pixel density; while there are more sample sites on a D3x, they're still larger and spread over a larger area. A lens that can resolve at the size of the sensor sites in the D3x might still struggle with the smaller sites of the D7000. It may still be producing a lovely image outside the bounds of the D7000's sensor, but that information is wasted. The sensor sites on a D3x are larger than on a D300 (double the resolution in 2.25x the sensor area), let alone a D7000.<br>

<br>

"I would expect the new AFS 35/1.4 to be better in some ways, but does that translate into the 35mm f2 being not very good because a high resolution sensor can show its flaws (probably only the pixel level) whereas film could not?"<br>

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Tempest - I believe (and I've only read about it, I'm not a lens designer) that there's a trade-off between resolution and contrast with fine detail. If a lens is designed for maximum contrast with a 12MP sensor, it'll be less good at resolving details finer than that; alternatively, if a lens is designed to resolve 18MP detail as well as possible, it'll have less contrast in the coarser detail - and hence look worse at the limit of a 12MP sensor. Film has the benefit that resolution tails off fairly smoothly, so you can argue how many megapixels a 35mm slide has according to how much contrast difference you call a pixel; digital sensors, by contrast, will resolve anything up to their pixel count and absolutely nothing beyond it. The other benefit of film is that people don't tend to make too many 40" prints from a 35mm film frame (if for no other reason than that it's hard to scan and the grain is enormous), whereas people do tend to look at digital crops at 1:1 on a computer screen.<br>

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Anand - the 3D part of the Nikon metering system is, I believe, that it uses information from the autofocus sensors and lens distance information to tell it what kind of scene it's looking at and where to prioritise the meter setting - which is why you can't matrix meter on an F5 with a manual lens that provides no distance information. I'm sure the D7000 still does this. However, it's interesting (and I'd failed to notice, when I first read the announcements) that the meter has been upgraded and has more sensor sites - the F5, F6, D3, D700, D300 etc. all made do with a 1005-point system, so I'll be interested to see if it's actually an improvement. I certainly doubt it'll be a step backwards, but Nikon's metering system has always been very well-considered, so I'd not lose too much sleep over having the old version. HTH.</p>

<p>There are different types of challenges on lenses. A DX sensor with dense pixels, such as this 16MP D7000, challenges the resolving power of lenses. An FX sensor challenges the edge performance. Of course the most challenging cameras are the FX ones with a lot of pixels. For example, I have tried the 24mm/f2.8 AF-D on the 24MP D3X, and corner performance is terrible. (The 24mm AF-D is a "current" lens but shares the same optical design since the 1977 24mm/f2.8 AI, which I used to own back then.)</p>

<p>Even the 12MP D5000, D90, and D300/D300S have denser pixels than the 24MP D3X. The 16.2MP D7000 is even denser although the increase is not that big. We'll have to test how the D7000 works with all sorts of lenses.</p>

<p>Andrew - I havn't used F5 and neither do I have any manual lens, so couldn't think of 3D part in matrix. thanQ for that clarification comparing with F5. Also, I hope as well as think that there won't be any step backwords. However, note that for D300s - it is 3D Color Matrix II, Center-weigehted Average and Spot whereas for for D7000 it is said only to be Matrix. I can think of using matrix instead of center weighted average, however, spot metering is something you can't get away with. Wonder why center weighted average and spot is not mentioned for D7000....</p>

<p>Where are you looking for your information? The D7000 has (per DPReview):<br>

TTL exposure metering using 2016-pixel RGB sensor*<br />• Matrix :3D color matrix metering II (type G and D lenses); color matrix metering II (other CPU lenses)<br />• Center-weighted: Weight of 75% given to 8-mm circle in center of frame; diameter of circle can be changed to 6, 10 or 13 mm, or weighting can be based on average of entire frame (fixed at 8 mm when non-CPU lens is used) <br />• Spot: Meters 3.5 mm circle (about 2.5% of frame) centered on active focus area (on center focus point when non-CPU lens is used)</p>

<p>Andrew,<br>

Does this mean that an otherwise fine lens on the D70 (6 Meg) could actually produce worse results on the D90 (12 Meg)? I don't dispute that a lens could prevent a a high resolution sensor from reaching its potential. There are also issues with the angle that light from a lens hits a sensor. But could a lens actually produce bad results merely because the sensor has a higher resolution? And if so how will we ever know until we buy what combinations of lens and sensor are good?</p>

<p>Anand, as far as I am concerned, whatever 3D color matrix metering are meaningless marketing jargons from Nikon. Back in the late 1970's when I was using the Nikon FE with only center weighted metering and I was shooting slide film with a limited dynamic range, I never had any serious metering issues. Later on when spot metering became available, it really helped some tough lighting conditions such as snow scenes, back-lit situations, etc.</p>

<p>In 2001 I bought a Contax 645 camera that only has center weighted and spot metering, no matrix or evaluative metering in Canon terminology. I quickly found out that center weighted and in some difficult cases spot are all I need as it was back in the 1970's, and once again I was shooting mainly slide film such as Velvia.</p>

<p>With instant feedback and histograms on digital cameras, metering has never been easier. I doubt that Nikon is going backward in terms of metering capability on the D7000, where they even include an AF motor and the Aperture Follower Tab to meter with AI/AI-S lenses that have no CPU. But one way or another, it should not be a concern.</p>

<p>One down side with those marketing jargons is that once you leave out one of those terms, it'll make some people wonder whether a feature is missing.</p>

<p>I agree with Sun that the 3D metering is probably irrelevant most of the time - but it's still interesting from a technical perspective to know how it works, if only so we know when to expect it go get confused. (I actually took some shots yesterday with my D700 and thought the matrix meter hadn't done very well with the light behind the subject, but then remembered I was using an AI lens and it was dropping back to non-3D mode.) Just to clarify, I brought the F5 up because it has a matrix meter, but no way to tell it about AI lenses, so with an AI lens it won't matrix meter at all. With the digital cameras and the F6 you can tell them about the lens so you still get matrix metering, although without the 3D bit.<br>

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Tempest - don't worry, it's just that a lens optimised for maximum contrast on a 6MP sensor likely won't be good at resolving fine detail (with decent contrast) at 12MP, but the lower-resolution detail will appear the same both sensors. As you put it, it just won't help the higher-resolution sensor meet its potential - but images at the same size from each sensor (and with smaller pixels on the higher-resolution sensor) won't look any worse for the sensor upgrade.</p>

<p>hmmmm - that's strange. I was comparing the specifications on B&H website and just now checked once again - it says only Matrix. I wonder where do they get their specifications from ..</p>

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<p>hmmmm - that's strange. I was comparing the specifications on B&H website and just now checked once again - it says only Matrix. I wonder where do they get their specifications from ..</p>

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<p>Relax, no doubt it's an early typo/mess-up. Do you really think that Nikon would "dumb down" the metering on a 1200-dollar camera?</p>

<p>Will it be a joy when we are able to consider comprehensive test reports involving use of all lenses from the early ai to the most recent announcements? Or will there then be another 200 postings?</p>

<p>Since AF mode selection was discussed earlier in this thread and I've only just noticed, I see (from AP's preview and from actually reading DPReview's preview) that the details of the AF mode are selected by pressing a button on the side of the AF/M switch. The good news is that at least you should be able to feel the difference between AF and M, and see the rest on the screen (feeling the difference between AF-C, AF-S and M is tricky on a D700); the bad news is that it's still where you can't easily get at it if you're holding a big lens in your left hand. It strikes me that maybe tripod users can actually get at these controls while shooting, and my allegations against Nikon's usability testing may only apply to big stabilised telephotos used hand-held (still, my hand's busy holding the lens even with a 14-24). As for a separate AF button, it appears it's the AF-L/AE-L button or nothing.</p>

<p>Long thread for another camera just like all the rest. </p>

<p>Ross, I think the long thread reflects the excitement over the D7000, which seems to be a camera a lot of people are interested in! I enjoyed reading all of the comments, and it was nice of Shun to hang out in this thread too. All that is left now is for someone to post their results!</p>

<p>Based on the interest, I would suggest this is NOT a camera, just like all the rest. If it was, would the thread be this long ?</p>

<p>It may be my faulty memory, but is it that common for a camera to sell for $500 less than the next step up, but surpass that more costly camera in so many ways ? Some said we would NEVER see a $1000 Nikon that supports AI/AIS lenses, yet, there it is. It has lots of features that were only on more expensive cameras. It's a pretty cool package.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Long thread for another camera just like all the rest.</p>

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<p>+1</p>

<p>While the d7000 is a nice, decent camera...the Fuji X100, Sony A55/33 and NEX are waaay more excting than the d7000...and I'm a Nikon dslr user. Come on, Nikon, show me a $1600 FF d40/FM3A and I'll buy the 35mm f1.4 as a bonus:)</p>