Nikon D300s vs D7000

[wonderspark]

Well, think I'm going for the D7000 with an AF-S 35mm f/1.8G DX lens. Now I'm shopping for waterproof options.

 

[luminosity]

I completely forgot I had an event to cover tonight (fortunately, the person I was going with remembered and so I made it), and found myself with only my D7000+35/2+50/1.8 AIS. That's what I took with me to campus today, and so that's what I had on me in the evening. I'm getting more adept with my D7000, and getting many more shots in focus than I did before.

The ability to meter with AI/AIS lenses is invaluable to me. I shot almost everything at ISO 800 and it did well.

 

[wonderspark]

Ordered the D7000. 🙂 Also got the MB-D11 to keep it running all day.

Can anyone speak to the matter of how much heat the camera puts out? The reason I ask is that I read somewhere that someone put a DSLR into one of the waterproof bags and took it in the ocean, and the camera overheated in the sealed bag. I'm actually hoping it does put out a little bit of heat, because there will be freezing cold days during construction, and I'm hoping it won't shut down because of the temps being too cold.

Honestly, I've never worried about the operating temperatures of cameras, because my use has only been durations of an hour or two at most. Nine hour shoots like the one I'm about to embark upon will be a serious test of operating temperatures. Any thoughts or advice?

 

[John.B]

I think there is a misunderstanding: lossless compression means you can reconstruct the data 1-to-1. Losslessly compressed NEFs are `zipped uncompressed NEFs,' i. e. you will not be able to see any difference, because there is none!

Compression allows you to put more files in the buffer or onto the memory card. If it is lossless, you don't have any drawbacks.

As long as Aperture, Lightroom, etc. continue to be able to read the compressed NEFs and there is enough horsepower on the camera to handle compressing image files on-the-fly, I agree that there is no drawback. The fewer bytes you have to write, the faster those writes will be.

Though I think the compression happens between the buffer and the card instead of between the sensor and the buffer (someone check me on this, I'm a Canon guy who's not up to speed on all the Nikon tech).

I own the D700 and D7000 and have owned the D300. The D7000 is, to me, clearly superior to the D300. I never liked the look of D300/D90 images, but of course that's highly subjective.

I've had my D7000 for a couple weeks now, and I'm shooting almost exclusively with it these days to get more familiar with it. I'll have something major on Friday that will allow me to put it through some heavy paces. Its big brother will be on hand to do some heavy lifting, but the D7000 is strong on its own. It is well built and feels like a compacted D700/300. It has the same magnesium alloy build, just smaller.

The viewfinder appears the same between the D7000 and D300, and the D700's viewfinder space is clearly better than both.

The D7000 has an array of things I like, including the leveling feature present in the D700. The focus mode button change is welcome, and stops me from accidentally switching from S to C or vice versa. The sensor goes down to ISO 100 natively, which looks terrific. It can be nice to have a small but solid camera, rather than a larger one like the D700/300.

It still looks good at ISO 800, which is important to me. The autofocus may not be as strong as the D700/300, but it's still very good. I only use the center point, so it could have a hundred autofocus points and it would be more or less irrelevant.

I'm looking at the D7000 to be my next camera body for backpacking b/c it's the first Dxx/Rebel sized dSLR that I feel has the combination of image quality, low noise at high ISOs + native ISO 100 performance*, AF, durability, and 1080p/24 HD that I'm looking for in the one small package. It helps that this won't be my only body, so it doesn't have to be the best at everything.

*Coming from the Canon camp, I'm hoping the D800 and D400 (or whatever they wind up being called) get the same native ISO 100 functionality in the D7000.

 

[Cliff3]

Though I think the compression happens between the buffer and the card instead of between the sensor and the buffer (someone check me on this, I'm a Canon guy who's not up to speed on all the Nikon tech).

I doubt that it is documented anywhere that we would have access to. My guess would be that the file is created by the ADC, which means that it happens as the data is read off of the sensor. If not, then there would have to be two transformations of the data taking place; the first into some internal format and the second into a NEF format. Touching the data twice would be an incredibly inefficient way to architect software where throughput is a critical feature.

 

[John.B]

I doubt that it is documented anywhere that we would have access to. My guess would be that the file is created by the ADC, which means that it happens as the data is read off of the sensor. If not, then there would have to be two transformations of the data taking place; the first into some internal format and the second into a NEF format. Touching the data twice would be an incredibly inefficient way to architect software where throughput is a critical feature.

If the compression happened between the sensor and the buffer, that would theoretically help the number of raw captures you could grab before filling the (admittedly small) D7000 buffer. Does it actually work that way IRL? I have no idea. 🙂

 

[MiBerb]

D7000 more fit for your intended use

Ok, for the first time, I feel closer to the D7000 side. I figure I need either a 16 or 32 GB card to capture 999 shots in one continuous shoot. What is the largest file size you've seen with the D7000?

D7000 has 2 SD card slots so you can have 2 cards installed and the camera may manage the overflow from one card to the other. That may be your deal breaker