This review is a bit overdue, but I wanted to wait awhile before I put up my real world review of Nikon’s newest flagship DX camera the D7100. Being that the D7100 was closely based on the D600 I was prepared to thoroughly dislike the camera. The D600 was kind of awkward to handle, the AF system was not pro-level despite having 39 AF points being a $2000 FX camera, the oil spot/crud issue, etc. Not to mention my D600 has been into the shop for repairs three times (but let’s not get into that).
I wanted to give the D7100 a fair workout. I spent a couple of weeks shooting around town doing some small jobs with it, but when I was asked to go on the road to play bass for a touring musician I figured I’d put the review off. The best way to really get to know a camera is to bring it on the road. Traveling with a camera affords you the opportunity to put it to use in a plethora of shooting situations.
Handling
As with the D600 the D7100 is a compact yet robust camera.
It doesn’t have the satisfying heft of the D800, but it’s not engulfed in your
hand like the D5200. The D7100 feels a little more solid due to the fact that
the back plate of the camera has been upgraded to magnesium making the camera
frame ¾ magnesium rather than ½ like the D7000/D600. Despite this there is no
noticeable gain in weight.
One problem I had with the D600 was that a lot of the Nikon
FX pro zooms dwarfed the camera, being a DX camera the D7100 can be used with
the Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G and it handles perfectly, especially with the MB-D15
grip. This makes the camera much easier to handle.
In short the D7100 pretty much follows Nikon’s typical
design, which is nicely balanced and feels good in your hands.
Controls
Nikon camera controls are usually well placed and intuitive
and the D7100 is no exception. Anyone upgrading from a D7000 or using it in
addition to the D600 will have no problem. The D600 and the D7100 have pretty
much the same layout with a few only a fewminor changes. The new i-button allows you to access the Info
edit menu with a single press.
The D7100 also fixed an issue that people were having with
the D600, which was the limitation of the OK button in playback to only access
the retouch menu. Once again it’s programmable for 100% zoom and histograms (and
more), this is a great thing. One of my biggest issue with the D600 was this OK
button problem.
As usual the menu system is pretty much standard Nikon, easy
to navigate, if you’ve used any Nikon DSLR since the D100.
Shooting
The D7100 is equipped with the same 24MP Toshiba made CMOS
sensor that first appeared in the D5200 with one major difference, the Optical
Low-Pass Filter / Anti-Aliasing filter has been completely removed (as opposed
to the dual filter design of the D800E). This allows the D7100 to capture finer
detail, which is necessary because at 24MP when viewing at 100% you need all of
the fine detail you can get. I didn’t notice any increased moiré in any of my
images despite the fact I went out of my way to shoot subjects that would test
this out.
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| finely detailed patterns like bird feathers are notorious for causing moiré in cameras without AA filters as you can see here there is little to no moiré in this 100% crop. Click to view full size. |
I really liked the D5200 sensor. The images were excellent,
and the D7100 is pretty much on par with that. The images this camera puts out
especially with a lens stopped down about 2 stops are astonishingly detailed.
This camera is great for landscapes because of the fine detail and the great
dynamic range. A decent wide-angle like the Sigma 10-24 stopped down to about
f/8 is going to get you extremely sharp and finely detailed images.
This brings me to a major issue with the D7100 sensor. Well,
not an issue with the sensor itself, but with the lenses that need to be used
with it. I’ve been using a Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G for a long time with great
success. The problem is that this lens is old.
It was released a decade ago,
which in digital terms is a lifetime. The lens simply cannot keep up with the
D7100. I shoot wide open a lot and at f/2.8 this lens is soft. It’s not that
the image is blurry, you can clearly see detail, but it’s veiled in a soft
glowing haze with lots of CA and doesn’t improve until it stopped down. Nikon,
if this is you flagship camera you need a flagship lens that is comparable. So,
luckily Sigma has released the 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC OS HSM “C”. And guess what?
It is sharp. It’s much smaller and
lighter, better range, also does close-focusing, and has OS. Since the Nikon
needs stopped down to f/4 to look good, the Sigma eclipses Nikon’s flagship
lens that costs $1000 more in every
way. Great job Sigma! (Sigma 17-70 review coming soon). So I sold the Nikon
17-55mm f/2.8G. I recommend you sell yours too before this news gets out,
because Nikon must be upgrading this
lens soon. Buy the Sigma, it’s worth every penny.
Anyway, I digress. The D7100 is a nice camera to shoot and
has some new features that I really enjoy. The i button is a great addition to quickly access the Info edit menu
and replaces the useless retouch menu button on the D600 (which also had the OK
button call up the retouch menu, really who needs TWO buttons to get to a menu
hardly anyone uses?). I also find the 1.3X DX crop to be a great feature. Not
only does it speed up your frame rate to 7fps it gives you an equivalent 2X
(1.95X actually) crop factor. This is great for sports and wildlife shooters.
It turns my 300mm f/4 into almost a 600mm f/4 with no teleconverter to lose
resolution and no loss of light. Coupled with a 2X teleconverter you get an
astounding 1200mm f/8, and guess what? The D7100 new AF system center point can
focus down to f/8. Of course using the 1.3X DX crop you lose some MP’s, but
15MP is more than enough for most any applications. And with the new Sigma
120-300mm f/2.8 coming out, you can get a 240-600mm f/2.8 equivalent lens in a
manageable size without spending a million bucks!
The AF-system of the D7100 is far and away better than the
D600. While the D600 focus points are all jammed into a tiny spot in the center
the D7100 has a great spread covering most of the frame allowing you freedom to
compose as you want while the D600 required you to either compose loosely and
crop later of focus and recompose which can lead to focus errors especially
when using fast wide-angle lenses. When switched to 1.3X DX crop you get almost
100X frame coverage with your focus points. Once again, great for sports and
wildlife shooters as well as portrait photographers.
At high ISO’s I find the D7100 quite capable for most
situations. The noise is well under control at 3200 and the grain looks
pleasant enough. If you shoot mostly low
light this may not be the best option, but it is quite good for the occasional
foray into darkness.
The D7100 is about as prefect a camera you’re going to find
for under $2000. It’s definitely a step above the D600 in my eyes although the
D600 has the edge in low-light performance. I’d say that the D7100 could replace the D600 if only there were a
10-24mm f/2.8 lens that performed as well as the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G.
So, the D7100 is a keeper for me. It’s one of the best
cameras Nikon has released in awhile. It’s aces compared to the dog of a D600.
I can’t wait to get the new Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 on this thing.
If you’re looking for a new camera I highly recommend the
D7100. Even if you’re considering FX take a look at this camera and give it a
test drive. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. I sure was.
Here are some photos taken with the D7100 and a variety of lenses:
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| Hopdoddy hamburger in Austin TX, taken with the amazing Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM "A" ISO 100, 1/125 @ f/1.4 |
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| Downtown Texarkana AR taken with Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G ISO 3200, 1/8 @ f/2.8 |
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| Somewhere in Louisiana taken with Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G ISO 100, 1/200 @ f/11 |
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| Black's BBQ in Lockhart, TX taken with a Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC OS HSM "C" (handheld) ISO 1000, 1/13 @ f/2.8 |
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| Stairway in Lockhart, TX taken with a Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC OS HSM "C" ISO 125, 1/125 @ f/9 |
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| Downtown Gilmer, TX, taken with a Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G ISO 640, 1/100 @ f/7.1 |
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| Tulip along Front St. in Natchitoches, LA, taken with a Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G ISO 180, 1/200 @ f/2.8 |
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| Cypress tree at Caddo Lake, LA, taken with a Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G ISO 125, 1/500 @ f/8 |
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| Shure SM-55 taken with a Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG HSM ISO 100, 1/250 @ f/1.4 |
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| Poppies in south Austin, TX taken with a Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC OS HSM "C" ISO 140, 1/1000 @ f/4 |
