Nikon D7000 "The Gadwall"

[James Salywoda]

Gadwall Duck
Southern California

I got to play around with a Nikon D7000 and I have to say from only a few pictures taken it is a fully capable camera for "Birds in Flight"

Nikon D7000 AFS 600 F4 1.4TC
1/1600 F7.1 ISO 800

Thanks For Looking

Jim

[Vivaldo Damilano]

Looks like it's a very capable camera James, going by this camera's quality, the D400 will be an awesome. Superb sharpness, also like the BG colour and the detail looks very good to me TFS:cheers::cheers:

[Bill Dix]

Nice shot, Jim. I like the downwing position, details and bg. Did you get a chance to try the D7000 with very high ISO?? Probably can't compare with the D3S and other FX bodies, but I wonder if it is significantly better than my D90 that gets noisy at 800 and up.

[Tom Rambaut]

Sweet image - the background color does it for me, wing blur gives sence of movement and sharp in neck and head. I'm impressed with what some of these Nikon cameras produce, in the right hands of course.

[Alan Murphy]

Nice one Jim. Not a fan of the slightly blurred wings, but that's just me.

[Todd Frost]

Another sweel image James. Sharp where it needs to be. The next bodies to come out will be interesting. Ready to make the D300 my back-up body. Well done.
TFS
Todd

[John Guastella]

I like everything about this image except the blurred left wing. Wouldn't the photo be improved if the part of that wing proximal to the body was in focus, especially since it has some interesting markings and color? Just asking - I'm not a bird-in-flight expert!

John

[Sid Garige]

Excellent job Jim. Not a fan of wing blur but still works for me.

[Dan Brown]

Nice shot, Jim. I like the downwing position, details and bg. Did you get a chance to try the D7000 with very high ISO?? Probably can't compare with the D3S and other FX bodies, but I wonder if it is significantly better than my D90 that gets noisy at 800 and up.

Nice work James! I have been looking at that D7000 and am glad to see some products!

Bill, checkout this link - http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/comparisons/2010-11-08-d7000-d300-5dmarkii-d3-iso/index.htm
It has some side by side image noise comparisons for the D7000, D300, D3 and some Canon body:t3 If you can believe what you see here, the D7000 looks great for the $$$:eek:

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

James, terrific bird, light and shooting angles here. wing position is awesome. Your ducks-in-flight are very inspiring.

[Manjeet & Yograj Jadeja]

Beautiful shot lovely pose and sharpness.
Just updated our body to d7000,
used it with 170-500 which is definitely
not one of the fastest focusing lenses around.
but the focusing speed did improve a "LOT" compared to
the D80 that i used till now.
Agree with James, when coupled with a good AFS lens
it should perform very well for shooting birds in flight.

[James Salywoda]

Thanks for the comments everyone

[arash_hazeghi]

love the pose and BG Jim, congrats on the new camera, Nikon AF is a joy to use for flight!

[Ofer Levy]

An impressive shot ! Not crazy about the blurred wings but still looks good.

[Stu Bowie]

Kaustubh summed it up nicely by saying your in flight images are simply outstanding. Good wing position here, and stands out against the water BG nicely.

[Thomas Herou]

Nice shot,I don't mind the wing.It stops the image of feeling clinical.
I've got the Pentax K-5 with the same sensor,and it works wonderful up to
ISO1600.OK up to 6400,higher ISOs is useless.

[Bill Dix]

Nice work James! I have been looking at that D7000 and am glad to see some products!

Bill, checkout this link - http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/comparisons/2010-11-08-d7000-d300-5dmarkii-d3-iso/index.htm
It has some side by side image noise comparisons for the D7000, D300, D3 and some Canon body:t3 If you can believe what you see here, the D7000 looks great for the $$$:eek:

Thanks Dan. Rockwell's review of the D7000 is indeed compelling.

[Pieter de Waal]

James I am with Kaustubh and Stuart and enjoy your images immensely. Nice and sharp head and great eye contact, I too prefer your images with less wing blur, shows up the beautiful feather patterns.

[Paul Guris]

I recently upgraded to the D7000 from a D90 and feel it give me a solid extra stop. On a recent pelagic with overcast skies, I set up to use auto-ISO (you know, the one that DP Review called "primitive") at ISO 400, max ISO 1600, and min. shutter speed of 1000. I took gull and Gannet shots all day at ISO 800-1600 and am very happy with the results. I haven't pushed it past 1600 yet, but I plan to soon just to see what I get.

I'm really pleased with the improved AF on this camera. That works great. On AF-S it seems a bit more accurate (hard to quantify), but for BIF on AF-C it seems to really hold on tight.

Going from 12MP to 16MP had less of an impact than I expected. It certainly helps some with heavily cropped images, but it doesn't seem like enough that it would justify upgrading from the D90. The ISO performance and AF are definitely what make it worth it to me.