Review

Almost 3 years ago, I had an epiphany - go and buy a DSLR, and I did. I bought a D3100, which is an awesome camera and my DSLR guru. We had a nice run. Taken thousands of photographs, started with Auto, then directly jumping to Manual, and then later realizing Aperture priority is my priority. Then I became greedier, needed faster focus, wanted a 14-bit image for a higher dynamic range etc. Then my Nikon D3100 decided to retire with pride, and I handed over the job to D7100. D7100 saved me a lot of money since I was thinking about D600 by selling all my DX glasses which includes my favourites Tokina 11-16 f2.8, Nikkor 17-55 f2.8, Nikkor 40mm f2.8. By JPRoche (Own work), via Wikimedia CommonsI would like to share some points from my experience. (NOTE: This is not a complete review of D7100. Below are the reasons why I like this camera) Top 7 reasons why I like the Nikon D7100 1. Auto-focus is so fast. It should be noted that auto focus is fast even in low light conditions. Now I can catch up with my 2 year old daughter running around. So, I don’t have to tell you how important it is for action photography. 2. Good image quality of High ISO photos. Now I can crank my ISO up to 3200. (I correct noise in lightoom) U1 and U2 are very useful. I am using U1 and U2 as my 'A' and 'S' with bit higher ISO for extreme conditions. U1 and U2 are user settings. Many cameras have this settings as a menu item. But D7000, D7100, D600 has it in the dial which is very convenient to access quick.Select your mode "M" or "A" or "S". Make the changes on those modes which you would like to save it in the U1 or U2. I have increased the automatic ISO range to 3200 from 1600 in my "A" and "S" mode. Here is how you can do it. - Go to setup menu and save settings to U1 or U2. - Now your U1 and U2 are your additional modes. Read: Ligtroom 4 Noise Reduction Tutorial Part 1 3. Nice color depth and details in the image. 14-bit is very good for shadow recovery. 14-bit RAW+JPEG Fine I get upto 5 FPS not 6 FPS, Nikon advertisement has a small fine print in their specification. 4. Awesome build quality, feel good and strong in hand. The whole body is weather sealed, too. 5. Dual SD cards with different options for saving images. So I don't have to worry about storage in the middle of a shoot. 6. Awesome battery life. Yes I am coming from D3100. But, unfortunately, the battery life is slightly less than that of the D7000 7. Getting much sharper shots. Optical Low Pass filter (OLPF) is removed in D7100. This results in better resolution and sharper images. This can be seen in 100% crop/magnification. Eventhough there are lots of awesome features in this camera, I think there are few things that could have been improved. 1. Buffer size. If you shoot 14-bit RAW+JPEG Fine, you may need a SD card that writes 95MB/s or atleast 45MB/s. 2. A built-in WiFi. Nikon - WU-1A Wireless Mobile Adapter" to work with mobile devices. This feature introduced in D3200 and D5200. And now D7100 has it. If you like to be in the shot with your family, after focusing the camera, you can sit with your family and see yourself in your iPhone or android phone live view to take the shot. I feel very good after upgrading to this camera! I highly recommend it if you are looking for upgrading from an entry-level DSLR camera, and would like to go with Nikon DX format. Should Nikon D7000 users upgrade to D7100? D7000 users can hold on to that unless they want more focus points, slightly sharper images, higher resolution (24MPvs 16MP) or low light performance. Both the cameras have almost the same size and weight. There is not much difference between these two cameras. About the Author Roshan Davis is an amateur photographer, artist and a professional software engineer. He loves sketching and painting since childhood. You can check out his work on his facebook page RoshArt Photography or on his Flickr Profile . Buy Nikon D7100 from Amazon Nikon D7100 24.1 MP DX-Format CMOS Digital SLR (Body Only) Nikon D7100 24.1 MP DX-Format CMOS Digital SLR with 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S DX VR ED Nikkor Lens