Hearts in Hawai'i
Nikon D7100
5/26/2013
This is not meant to be a comprehensive review of the Nikon D7100 DSLR camera. Other sites have done extremely detailed reviews already. I personally recommend you check out the review done at DP Review.
What I'll do here is show some real-world results of my early experiences with this camera. I'm primarily interested in landscape photography, so the pics I display on this blog will be mainly of that type. Use of additional filters (such as a circular polarizer) will be noted. My comments will also be along the lines of comparing the D7100 to the camera I previously used, the Nikon D90.
What attracted me to the D7100 after using the D90 for the past three years? First, it was the upgrade from a 12 megapixel to a 24 megapixel sensor. Being able to do much larger crops of images was something I could not ignore.
Second, the D7100 has a wealth of features not found on the D90. Greater image quality, a larger viewing screen with a higher resolution, lower noise at higher ISO, more dynamic range. The list is very extensive, but what probably was the "tipping point" was the fact that the D7100 is weather sealed. In Maui, for example, using the D90 on the beach on windy days (and Maui certainly has their share of those!) carried an increased risk of sand and dust getting into the camera and compromising the sensor. The D7100 adequately addresses this concern.
After reading many reviews of the D7100, I actually took a step back and considered two camera farther down the Nikon line; the D3200 and the D5200. With the D3200, while they share a 24 megapixel sensor, the higher resolution screen, weather sealing, 51 focal points (vs 11 on the D3200), in-camera HDR, more dynamic range, and a built-in focus motor all swung the advantage significantly to the D7100. The primary advantage of the D3200 was its much lower price (roughly half the price of the D7100).
Comparing the D7100 to the D5200 was somewhat closer, yet again, the D7100 had too so many improvements over the D5200, that it quickly became a question; do I want to spend less money and later on wish I had those features I wasn't finding on the cheaper camera? At $1,199 (body only), the D7100 appeared to be a very good deal.
First looks
My first test pictures of the D7100 occurred outside on a fairly sunny day. This would be an easy test, as most cameras will render outstanding images under this type of condition. But first, I had to set up the D7100 the way I wanted it. There were some factory defaults on settings I needed to change:
1) Since my images are primarily of landscape features, I changed the AF-Area Mode to Single Point.
2) Image quality; I changed this from JPEG Normal to JPEG Fine.
3) I turned on Active D-Lighting (this affects the contrast between light and dark areas of the image) to Auto.
4) Unless shooting portraits (which rarely happens), I change the Picture Control from Normal to Vivid. Within the Vivid setting, I set Sharpening to +7 and Saturation to +2.
And that was pretty much it. Now it was time to take the D7100 outside! But first, I took a few shots inside, trying to get a sense of the kind of detail
this camera was capable of. With that 24 megapixel sensor, large crops--huge crops, were possible.
These images were taken using a 35mm 1.8G lens. This lightweight lens, which cost only $200, is extremely quick and sharp. If I used the 1.3x crop mode on the D7100, this lens becomes the equivalent of a 68mm lens on a full-frame Nikon (such as the D800). It will come up short if trying to shoot a wide panoramic pic, but other than that, I've found this to be a nearly perfect lens.
On the outside images, I also used a B+W Kaesemann Circular Polarizer.
Clicking on a picture will show a larger version of the pic!
Overall, I was very pleased with the first batch of shots I took. However, as I said, getting nicely exposed, detailed shots is fairly easy with almost any DSLR camera. How will the D7100 perform in low lighting conditions? That will be the subject of my next batch of test pictures.
I found the handling of the D7100 to be superb, much like the D90 but I prefer the handgrip on this camera. It might feel a little small to those whom have large hands. The menus are easy to navigate (this in large part due to my experience with two previous Nikon cameras). I have only tried out a few of the features so far but will get much more in depth of discovering all this great camera has to offer in the upcoming months.
Previous: 4/17/2013--Hawaiian Restaurant Details
Index of Blog Pages
last updated november 14, 2021
|