Nikon D7000 Day 4, The D7000 a black and white photographer's camera

[Edalongthepacific]

I find the Nikon D7000's ability to obtain an exposure that wrings out every detail of highlights without creating overexposed or "blown out" areas to be a very compelling reason to add this camera to your collection. Collection? Well yes. I now have a 5D Mark II, a Nikon D200 (the forgotten camera) and the D7000. I call the D200 the forgotten camera because it was chained to a post in the attic soon after the D300 and its twin the D300S were born.

Anyway, the D7000 has proven itself in the area of exposure as a complement to those seeking a digital camera for black and white photography. Here (IMHO) is why: Because the camera captures detail in highlights very well without overexposing an image, the black and white image can be defined in Photoshop CS5 with more latitude for dynamic range. See attached.

[Brian Hirschfeld]

You have taken some nice images, do you not believe however that this is not the cameras "fault" but rather your technical skill which allowed your to expose well for what you wanted to create?

[Edalongthepacific]

Thank you.I will give myself some credit for being aware enough to, at least, choose from among the possible exposures provided by P Mode. Additionally, I have studied Adobe RAW and have finally found the book I like the most "Real World Camera RAW." The Real World publishers can have my hard earned cash any day! However, the D7000 does a very good job of pushing the exposure "envelope" toward highlights without clipping...convenient.

[Brian Hirschfeld]

Are you using the Nikon function for highlight control (I'm blanking on the name right now)

[Edalongthepacific]

Nikon has a "D-Lighting" that offers to enhance shadows despite bright backgrounds. I have this set to Auto presently but there are a number of levels. I think this was a gift to wedding photographers. I plan to experiment with different D-Lighting levels soon. Other than that I do not know of any on-board tool, other than exposure compensation, for adjusting the right-side limit of exposure. But there are 326 pages in the manual. I may have missed something. Additionally, some features, such as face recognition, present themselves in live mode and not in other modes...I believe.

[Brian Hirschfeld]

I think I have it on auto on my D3s however I haven't checked in a while, seems to do fine when I have all the other settings right.

[Ellis Vener]

There are two kinds of "D lighting" that Nikon offers. Canon has a similar proprietary process. One is standard D-Lighting performed  after the fact in Capture NX2 and the other, ADL, is performed in the camera and these adjustments are part and parcel of the NEF file.

[Brian Hirschfeld]

I was thinking of the in camera one.

[Edalongthepacific]

Thank you Ellis, So any D-lighting in-camera adjustment becomes part of the RAW file, if I understand it. Which can be adjusted in Nikon's post-production RAW editor. I wonder how widely this feature is used professionally?