# D7100... second impressions..



## TheLost (Mar 18, 2013)

I had a chance to REALLY push my D7100 this weekend shooting my son's indoor youth football (american) game.... I'm impressed!

The games are held in the evening at a local universities 'Field House' (indoor practice facility). 






That picture (taken last year) doesn't do a good job showing how dark the field house is due to it being taken at noon and the large bay/access doors where open behind me.... but you can see the tiny slit windows along the top and the small lights attached to the roof.  On a cloudy day and in the evening its worse then most Jr. High school gyms .

The D7100 was impressive to say the least!  My D7000 struggled in the low light last year (it still did a good job) but the D7100 never missed a shot.  

What blew me away was how good the images looked at 4000 ISO...    




D7100 + 70-200 f/2.8 @ 200mm | f/2.8 | 1/1250 | ISO 4000  

That image is straight out of the camera converted from RAW to JPG and resized..   I'm sure running it through lightroom will improve it  .  I'll upload more images once i've had time to run them through PP.

I didn't find the buffer any worse then the D7000.  I shot the entire game RAW 14 bit and never ran into any problems.  However, i don't hold the button down often.  I normally follow the action and click about 5-6 images per-play with maybe a burst on a pass or tackle.  

1.3x crop mode is interesting.. but i'd rather just crop myself.

Shooting JPG's you can hold the button down for ~15 seconds before the buffer fills.  I tried it... got way to many files.. but the autofocus seemed to keep up 

And WOW does this thing Auto Focus...  I'm going to take flack for this, but it blows the doors off the D300s.  

Holding the body for a long time feels better in my hands due to the wider/deeper grip then the D7000.  Weight wise i couldn't tell its lighter but then the Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 makes the damn thing heavy after awhile anyway.

The surprise for me was how much moving the AE-L/AF-L over just slightly improved using that button as the AF-ON button.  If you are a big fan of using 'Back Button Focus' the new placement of  AE/AF-L makes up for the lack of a dedicated AF-ON button.  It is more comfortable shooting using AF-ON then the D7000!





D7100 + 70-200 f/2.8 @ 133mm | f/2.8 | 1/1250 | ISO 4000  

If you don't use 'Back Button Focusing' you should give it a try... It lets you shoot AF-C and still be able to recompose the shot. In this image i pre-focused on the tee then moved the focus point to where i assumed the kicker would be.  Once you use AF-ON you can never go back 

I'll run the images through lightroom4 and post the final results... but overall i was impressed with the image quality.  There is a noticeable improvement over the D7000.  

I'll finish up my quick 2nd impression post with a link to Scott Kelby's review of the D7100.  Hopefully that will take some heat off the D300s lovers anger over my AF comments


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## cgw (Mar 18, 2013)

Truly nice to see real world/real time sample shots. Apart from its goodness, the D7100 may just also drive down D7000 prices! Thanks for these.


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## TheLost (Mar 18, 2013)

cgw said:


> the D7100 may just also drive down D7000 prices!



I think you'll see the D300s price drop down a bit as well


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## ghache (Mar 18, 2013)

Pretty cool, i rarely shoot my d7000s over 1250 as past that, you start seeing noise. these are really nice iso4000 shots.
im pretty sure it does pretty well at +-iso 3200..


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## Derrel (Mar 18, 2013)

Looks pretty good at this web size for ISO 4,000 and a crop-body camera!!! Really, quite,quite usable images in my opinion.


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## MOREGONE (Mar 18, 2013)

I was really wanting to see some higher ISO images. Thanks for sharing. I think it did wonderful at ISO 4000


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## sashbar (Mar 18, 2013)

Stupid question, but .. where is the DoF preview button?


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## Derrel (Mar 18, 2013)

sashbar said:


> Stupid question, but .. where is the DoF preview button?



It is on the D90 and D300s!!!


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## sashbar (Mar 18, 2013)

Derrel said:


> sashbar said:
> 
> 
> > Stupid question, but .. where is the DoF preview button?
> ...



There is one in its usual place but it is marked "Pv" . Is it "preview"? Then it should be it.


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## rgregory1965 (Mar 18, 2013)

Id love to have the D7100 but here are some I shot last year with the D7000 and a 18-105 kit lens at 3200-6400 iso and Im very happy with them.


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## bc_steve (Mar 19, 2013)

it does look better at high ISO than the D7000.  Interesting.  Thanks for posting!


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## gsgary (Mar 19, 2013)

They would have looked better if they were not under exposed


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## nmoody (Mar 19, 2013)

Would love to see more pictures from the D7100. As long as I don't hear anything too bad from users I plan on ordering one in a few weeks.


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