How Tight can You Go: Nikon D7000

2nd January 2011, Kemensah , Selangor

After having the D7000 for about a month and testing it in the jungle condition, I found that I’ve had to adjust my configuration slightly in order to accommodate the ‘idiosyncrasies’ of this new Nikon body. My previous setup had been a D90 with the 300mm f/4 coupled with a Nikon 1.4x teleconverter. This turned my f/4 into an f/5.6 lens. I found that the D7000, 300mm & 1.4x TC  combo would not deliver  pictures with the level of sharpness that I have been used to from the trusted D90. I tried experimenting the D7000 with just the 300mm glass (TC removed). The resulting photos showed such sharpness and clarity which I wasn’t expecting of a subject in a far distance. Just a sample from my last outing, this Drongo Cuckoo was approximately 70 ft away.   Original Photo My usual crop                                   An extremely tight crop!  The image quality is still more than acceptable.   Another thing about this  simple setup is that I’m now shooting with  a faster lens (f/4) which is good  for thicker jungle condition. I would recommend this lightweight combination to anyone interested in bird photography and do not want to  be spending  a bomb on long lenses.