So it's arrived. First impressions...
Nice box, gold gives you a sense of immense well-being. Also takes the sting off the £880 I've just spent. The charger is nice and compact compared to the bad boy for the D2x I've been using for years. User manual will remain sealed - seems straightforward enough setting it up.
Handling is a game of two halves, so to speak; in its own right it is chunky and very tactile, even if the rubber grips don't feature quite enough texture. However, seeing as I'm a D2x user (brilliant handling) it's a bit of a step down as such, but one that I'm sure I'll get used to quickly. Definitely going to have to get a grip for it though, especially for the 70-200mm, as it feels too small to support the lens in its current form.
Button layout is logical, although again, I'm going to have to get used to dedicated zoom buttons for image playback.
The D-pad is excellent, really positive... having an 'OK' button in the centre is great too.
In most areas, everything feels as well-made as my D2x, although I'm not keen on the D200-esque memory card door. I do love the dual cards slots though and the fact I can assign different tasks to each card. Plus, if I take the cards out and pout them in the wrong slots, the camera detects this and displays an ERR message... very clever.
Haven't tried it with flash yet - that's to come.
High ISO is excellent - very useable at 6400 for double-page spreads, that's at least three stops more than my D2x. ISO 100 is excellent, a must for strobist work.
Movie mode seems pretty straightforward; set aperture then jog the shutter speed dial for exposure adjustment if needs be (or use Auto ISO). Quality is good and I love the flick switch to get it into live view. The record button is in totally the wrong place though - it should be where the AE-l/AF-L button is.
AF is fast and although I've yet to look into AF fine-tuning for lenses, it's snappy and silent and I already love that, especially in low-contrast scenes such as indoors. AF in movie mode is okay at times, poor at others. I knew this would be the case though going by reviews and anyway, I'm looking forward to doing it in MF.
Massive screen - love it. Easy enough to set up blinks etc to show on image playback.
One massive bonus of it using SD cards (aside from the price - £10 for 16GB class 10) is the fact I don't need to do anything other than remove the card - my macbook pro has a built-in SD card reader... bonus
Disappointed they've binned the continuous AF function on the switch at the base of the lens mount but I can see they were tight in space.
No rubber on the base seems strange; not sure if there is rubber on the base of the grip but I see it as a bit of a strange ommission. Even if there were some small areas of rubber it would give grip when placed on flat surfaces.
Glad to see the FN button has the 'disable-flash' option, without doubt the most important custom function there is for what I shoot.
One thing I can't seem to work out iOS why on the top LCD there is no scale for exposure compensation..... the '+/-' sign comes up when using easy exposure comp and the scale shows in the viewfinder but not on the LCD.... seems a strange thing.
The viewfinder is okay but no way as good as the D2x for brightness, especially when wearing specs. But that's because there was a custom glass in the D2x - haven't looked into whether there are others to fit the D7000.
Although I bought it specifically for video (and as a back-up body) I can see myself using this a lot, especially in low light because of the good high ISO. I do know one thing though now..... both my D2x bodies are going because even if I don't replace my main D2x with one of these, I'll replace with a more modern Nikon (D700/D3) because AF has moved on by light years and ISO handling is soooo much better on later Nikons.
