D7100

Chuckv

I've only taken a couple of hundred pictures with the D7100, and I am still very impressed with the results coming out of it. I've shot at ISO 100 all the way up and had acceptable results through 4000 or higher depending on overall conditions. I also shot these with everything from the kit 18-105 to 1.4 Primes, once again yielding great results. I purchased this as a travel camera, and just ordered a new 18-200 VRII, light (2.3 lbs. with the camera) and really like the compact fit for general day travel.

See Photos at http://img.gg/IveN0j1 Flowers or "Tag" Nikon D7100

D7100 W/ 24-70 2.8 (settings 66mm, -03ev, ISO 100 WB-clody, AP at 3.5 1/250th)

As a side note I had the D7000 in the pass and the picture results with the D7100 are worth the current price difference. I also have a D700 and a D4, but I will love this camera for the daily run around taking pictures when I travel.

tc88

After enduring a lot of hassle and finally finding a copy that doesn't have the focus issue, I would have to say this is a splendid DX camera. It's like a D800 in a DX format. A lot of similar manufacturing issues, some of the specs such as fps on D800 and buffer size on D7100 leave a little more to be desired. But in the most critical parts of a camera such as sensor performance and AF capability, they are really the best in class. If Nikon can resolve its QC issues, they should have a huge winner in D7100.

DaveyJ

After almost two weeks of using the D7100 I or my grandson have not found a single issue other than the inability to adjust aperture while you are in live view. My recommendation is to set the camera on P and let the camera shoot the video and our results this way have been very good. We also shoot in A mode, presetting the aperture and again switching to live view mode. Both the D7000 and the D7100 are great cameras. I would clearly though chose a D7100 over the D7000 right now. The D7000 though in all regards is still a GREAT camera. The more you shoot video with your DSLR Nikon though the more edge I think the D7100 has. on some devices the D7100 lighter weight by a little and with a lighter lens (say an 18-105VR versus and 18-200VR (like on a steadi-cam) the D7100 is easier to use. With a 12-24DX Nikkor lens the D7100 is quite excellent. We have also tested it some with the 60 2.8 micro-Nikkor and the 70-300VR. Again at this stage the D7100 has done extremely well in tough field settings. Good luck to you all,
DaveyJ

BrainBeat

I took a few photos again today and the camera still was favoring the peoples bodies but It did at least this time also nearly always had a point on the faces too so maybe the problem is not as bad as I thought yesterday. I will keep any eye on things and keep you guys informed. I may however not be taking too many photos for a few weeks at lest in a paid way as Easter / school holiday here are coming up which tend to be quiet times.

I would love to hear what others who have this camera are experiencing.

MikeFrewer

I've had mine for 2 days. The first day (Saturday) I didn't have much time to use it. Today I was up early and went to a local wildlife preserve. It was my first time taking photos of birds in flight and wildlife. I got some keepers, but I'm still getting used to it, and probably will be for the next few weeks. I don't have much experience (coming from a D40) so in my opinion, it's a super camera. It's just the loose nut behind the wheel !

JJ_SO

It was a bit odd this weekend. Although I had lots of fun with the camera, there's a kind of strange thing going on in the menu: Quality was set to RAW (only). Function of 2nd card was set to "1st raw, 2nd JPG". For that reason, a less faster SD card was in the 2nd slot. And for the reason, the shop had only one 16GB Extreme Pro card when I bought it.

After a while I noticed that after shooting 3 - 5 frames in a quick sequence (but not at 5fps) I had to wait up to 25 seconds until the green "Saving data" lamp went off. At home, I saw both SD cards had the same pictures on them, RAW only, although the function was not set to "2nd card backup". So the 2nd card was slowing down the fast 1st card.

BrainBeat

@JJ_SO I wonder if what you are after 1 card raw and the other jpg might go better the other way around? That is the way I would have set it up but it probably should be able to do it either way.

I was thinking about my focus issues and as I had as yet not tried to fine tune the AF for my lens which I knew at least on my D5000 often backfocued a bit. I will try doing some test again with it tuned and see if that seems to fix some of the issues. I was also thinking I should edit the sharpening too as the both my 17-50 and the nikon equivalent when I have tried it have often been a bit soft too. I would think these 2 issues could well make an image soft enough to invalidate good testing as so show issues that may not be there. As always I will keep you guys posted.

shutterdancer

@ JJ_SO according to page 69 of the manual it looks like you should have selected overflow ......which would have written to the second card only when the first one was full......seems like the best way to get the most out of the buffer.

Then again I could be wrong....I have one on order ,not one in my hands yet,but I downloaded a copy of the manual so that I could hit the ground running when it arrives

tc88

JJ_SO, here is my guess. Since you selected RAW file only, there is only RAW generated. But you also wanted 2nd card JPG, so the camera decides to send RAW instead of JPG to the 2nd card. That slows down since the 2nd card will be the slower of the 2.

Now if you select RAW+JPG, I think that should solve your issue.

A related question, is your extreme pro the 95MB/s version? If so, if you take out the second card and do RAW+JPG with both highest quality, and save both to the 1st card, what's the fps you get after the buffer is full? Do you get 2 fps? I'm trying to find out whether the camera can utilize the higher speed of the extreme pro.

shutterdancer

@tc88.....even with fast cards the RAW buffer is not that great......why would you want to slow it down even more by shooting RAW+JPG?

BrainBeat

After tuning my lens to be I think right (around -5) now and retesting the far left and right points I would say thing do look a lot better than they did. Far right is a little soft still but a lot closer now and probably not a great issue but the left is still very soft. I also tried a few other the other left sided points and some were good some where as soft as the far so it would seem you want to not be using too many left side point if you can help it.

tc88

Shutterdancer, I don't think LR/PS can take D7100 RAW yet. I know there are hacks, but I don't want to deal with that. But I still want to keep RAW for later use while I can use JPG for now. Also JPG I can send to people unedited. I only bother editing RAW on the best pictures I have.

Besides, at this point, I just want to find out what the top write rate is which can be determined using the fps times the file sizes after buffer full. Hope this explains.

shutterdancer

Thanks tc88 I understand.

JJ_SO

Thanks for all your comments guys.

JJ_SO, here is my guess. Since you selected RAW file only, there is only RAW generated. But you also wanted 2nd card JPG, so the camera decides to send RAW instead of JPG to the 2nd card. That slows down since the 2nd card will be the slower of the 2.

Now if you select RAW+JPG, I think that should solve your issue.

A related question, is your extreme pro the 95MB/s version? If so, if you take out the second card and do RAW+JPG with both highest quality, and save both to the 1st card, what's the fps you get after the buffer is full? Do you get 2 fps? I'm trying to find out whether the camera can utilize the higher speed of the extreme pro.

That's my guess, too - at what the camera did. I thought, I set the 2nd card function already to "overflow" but either I ddn't save the setting and aborted it or I did it when the cam was in U1/U2, not in A-mode.

Yes the first card is 95MB/s, as the second would be, too. But it was at the moment not available in this shop and I thought, until I get an update of the RAW converter, a slower card is enough to save the JPGs which I only saved to see the pictures.

There was not a problem of slow fps, since I only took 3-5 frames in a row (not in a second). The problem was, you can't access the results until the slowest card finished storing. And I would have expected the second card to be empty. I'll keep an eye on that.

BrainBeat

I was just looking on YouTube and found this vid where the tester tested the burst speed using different cards. He did a similar test to what you were doing JJ_SO where he was writing raw to the fast card and jpg to the slow one and it seems to slow down the burst heaps and the speed of the second card makes a difference to the speed too. It would seems that from his tests the burst rate of full size jpg is only 5.7 FPS and not the quoted 6 and it looks like this is as fast as the camera can go as there in that case the card does not seem to be the limiting factor if you use the 45Mb+ versions. I would assume he was testing on the fine setting too but I can't see for sure.

PB_PM

Most likely a case of the camera operating at the speed of the slowest card. In other words, don't use slow cards if speed is important to you!

spraynpray

Doesn't explain why it wrote two .nefs when .nef + .jpg was set tho. If that is the case, sounds like a firmware update will cure it.

@JJ_SO: Pls confirm you set .nef + .jpg but got .nef + .nef. If so can you tell us what happens if you swap cars in slots?

@anybody with a 7100: Does .nef + .jpg work for you with same cards in both slots?

JJ_SO

5.7 fps is very close to 6 , Also, there's another setting of JPG quality - either you can choose "equal file size" or "optimum quality". Because I rather want to have good quality, I changed the default "equal file size". Now, I don't know if the processing needs more time or if the file sizes are in a variety between 8 and 20 MB and therefore some jpgs need more time to be stored, but 5.7 fps appears to be in a certain tolerance.

@spraynpray: Yes I can confirm the setting. No, I can't test right now, camera and me are in different places at the moment "to my regret" I need to fulfill a daytime job. But I think as well, there will be a firmware upgrade soon.

@PB_PM: you can also say "if you need to see the results quickly, you should go for a fast card" or "don't think about saving money on slow cards, go for the fastest". So, it's not only slowing down the burst rate. What matters more to me, I can't check the result quickly. I don't know, if there are two different data channels for NEF and JPG. But as I can choose "second card as backup" that would be the same scenario.

shutterdancer

I had been using 30 and 45MB/s Sandisk cards in my D90 but when I ordered the D7100 over the weekend I ordered a few Sandisk 95MB/s cards.I never shoot RAW+ JPG only RAW, so I don't think that the buffer will be a problem for the way I shoot.

I hope I don't regret my purchase,but I just couldn't wait any longer for the mythical D400 My D90 has been running on an empty tank for awhile now!

MikeGunter

Hi,

The manual is clear that 12-bit and 14-bit settings for RAW images are at different rates as are optimal jpg and optimal compression jpg file sizes making buffer sizes different for buffer capacities - so those settings will impact frame rates, too.

My best,

Mike

shutterdancer

Exactly right Mike...that's why I wondered why the guy in the video didn't tell us if he was shooting 12 or 14 bit raw or JPG fine or small or DX or 1.3 crop

MikeGunter

Hi all,

@Shutterdancer - for me, I don't see any reason not to use 14-bit all the time, and also use fine JPG and optimal quality jpg.

I don't (as a rule) shoot for fast action sports or other fast moving activities that would require higher frame rates that would need me to quit RAW and shoot only JPG - thus getting greater frame rates out of the camera.

Using that, you'll experience a disappoint 5 fps in DX from RAW + JPG (sufficient for me with Backup in #2), but likely not what a lot will like to hear. More in 1.3 crop, less than fine, less in 12-bit, less without Backup, but you know...

I'm sure if you add a battery pack it'll boost it some (but likely not a whole lot).

Still impressive. And for the sports fans, you can get really slick JPGs from the camera.

@Daveyj - I got the camera on you comments and it does please. I'm trying to figure where it fits in added value to the DX line. It appears to have 'more' - the Expeed 3 delivers.

My best to all,

Mike

tc88

BrainBeat, thanks for finding the video, that's helpful.

In my testing, with extreme 45MB/s, I get about 1 (maybe 0.9) fps on RAW+JPG, and 1.5fps on RAW only, both everything at highest quality. From the video, seems that the camera can utilize the even faster speed of extreme pro. That's good to know.

Golf007sd

Get the fasted memory card you can buy for your D-SLR...period! Right now I'm waiting/hunting for a good sale/ price drop on the Sony 32GB XQD S-Series 168MB/sec for my D4

shutterdancer

No problem with with the buffer on the D4 with one of those puppies eh Golf? Wish they would shave about 3K off the ad4