D7000 at WDW

[rossb]

Here is one taken by a park photographer. Lens in this shot was an AF-tuned Nikkor 18-200 and I used the built-in flash. I shot about 2,400 pictures and 20 videos and I haven't had time to go through them yet. The videos look better than I thought they would, certainly better than my D90 videos.

I only saw one other D7000 there, but I saw a ton of people using either a D3000 or D5000. I also saw a lot of people using a D90, I saw more Nikon SLRs than Canon SLRs. The Photopass guys carried a D90 with the 18-105 kit lens and an SB-800. On the other hand, most P&S cameras were from Canon. I prefer the Canon P&S models so that did not surprise me.

 

[DVC Mike]

I'm driving down tomorrow, so there will be yet another guy wandering around with a D7000 taking photos.

 

[Quicklabs]

Very nice family photo, there, Rossb.
I just unboxed my D7000 a few minutes ago and it'll go on vacation with me to WDW next month.
Would you mind explaining what you mean by an "AF tuned" lens?

 

[Gdad]

Would you mind explaining what you mean by an "AF tuned" lens?

The D7000 has the ability to calibrate lenses like the D300/D700/D3 and up have for a while now. With a focus target and a tripod you can make adjustments for each lens from -20 to +20 to "fine tune" them individually. The camera will remember the setting for each lens so long as you do not have two of the same type lens- ie 2x 50mm 1.4 or whatever. I did it on my D300 but never bothered with it on my D700 or D7000 so fa at leastr. I've never seen any difference in real world shooting- only when shooting rulers on the ground at minimum focus distance. Kind of a gimicky useless feature in my opinion- but thats just me- ymmv.

 

[rossb]

I kinda agree with Gdad, to a certain extend. AF tuning is only effective when focusing fairly close for the focal used, it gets much less effective as you approach the infinity mark. In addition, zooms will require a different tune for each focal. You have to compromise and pick something that works best at all focals. My 18-200 was nearly perfect at the wide focals and it was off by around 12mm in the mid range. I compromised and went with -6mm. This improved my mid range and actually made my wide focals a little worse. It is also harder to tune wide focals because your AF chart will look relatively small and wide focal DOF is relatively deep.

 

[Quicklabs]

Thanks Jeff and rossb! I have quite a bit of light reading to do with the D7000 manual this weekend. There's a whole lot more capability with this camera than with my D80, that's for sure.

 

[Groucho]

I've never seen any difference in real world shooting- only when shooting rulers on the ground at minimum focus distance. Kind of a gimicky useless feature in my opinion- but thats just me- ymmv.

I kinda agree with Gdad, to a certain extend. AF tuning is only effective when focusing fairly close for the focal used, it gets much less effective as you approach the infinity mark. In addition, zooms will require a different tune for each focal. You have to compromise and pick something that works best at all focals. My 18-200 was nearly perfect at the wide focals and it was off by around 12mm in the mid range. I compromised and went with -6mm. This improved my mid range and actually made my wide focals a little worse. It is also harder to tune wide focals because your AF chart will look relatively small and wide focal DOF is relatively deep.

I don't think it's gimmicky or useless, but it is much more useful for very fast lenses. At F2.8, you might not notice if the lens is slightly frontfocusing or backfocusing - but you might at F1.8 or F1.4.

You have also find that the focus drifts slightly as the camera ages - if it does, this allows you to fix it without having to send the camera back for an adjustment.

That being said, I rarely bother playing with it; it's a recipe for angst and FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) - it's can be hard to tell for sure if you are making things better or worse. Still, I think it's an essential feature on a higher-line DSLR nowadays.

 

[boBQuincy]

While we are discussing focus tuning, I thought my 70-200 was not focusing quite as accurately as it could so I tested it. My setup was focusing on a clock about 25' away with a Canon D30 on a tripod (this was about 8 years ago).

I tested the focus several times in AF, then used AF and focused manually with the slightest increments I could manage. In all the tests the AF was better than I could do any other way so I decided to just take photographs and not worry about it.
I ran the same test with my Xsi about a year ago, same results.

The micro-adjust seems nice but if the camera and lens are adjusted correctly from the factory (and not all of them are) then micro-adjust may not be of much use. Still, I would like to have the option.

 

[rossb]

 

[2Tiggies]

rossb, your DTD pictures: all I can say is WOW!!!!

 

[rossb]

Some snaps from the CBR: