Easy ISO Adjustment with the Nikon D7000
Warning: Camera nerd talk follows. Â You’ve been warned. 🙂
I’ve been playing around lately with the Show ISO/Easy ISO adjustment feature of the Nikon D7000 (menu feature A3), and I have to say I love it. Â In a nutshell, the setting changes the camera’s behavior to:
- Display the ISO setting in place of the shots remaining (on both the top LCD panel and in the viewfinder) whenever the meter is active
- Allow the ISO to be changed without pushing any other buttons when in Program, Shutter priority, or Aperture Priority shooting modes.
- The number of shots remaining can be found by either turning off the camera (where it is displayed on the top LCD), letting the meter turn off, or by turning on the INFO display.
For me, this setting overcomes two of the issues I’ve had with the Nikon user interface in the past, namely that you have to press the oddly placed ISO button to change or display the current ISO setting. Â Given that ISO is so much more important to any given shot than the number of shots remaining, I find that having this information readily available very useful.
The main downsides I’ve found with the Easy ISO setting are that:
- The ISO setting can get changed if the controls get bumped. Â But this isn’t any worse than the shutter or aperture settings, which can get changed by bumping the controls, too.
- It’s sometimes difficult to remember which dial controls what. Â That’s because the ISO adjustment dial changes places depending on what mode you’re in:
- In Program (P) and Shutter priority (S) modes, the front dial controls the ISO
- In Aperture priority (A) modes, the rear dial controls the ISO
- In Manual (M) mode, you still need to manage the ISO setting with the ISO button
Fortunately, the logic here isn’t too hard to follow: The ISO control piggybacks on the control dial that isn’t otherwise used. (In Manual they’re both used, so there’s no place to put ISO, thus it reverts.)
On the whole, I’ve found that the benefits outweigh the downsides, so I’m a happy camper. Â It’s definitely nice to be able to control the camera’s interface to this level, and nice that Nikon’s engineers seem to have spent a good bit of time thinking out how this would all work.
Hello,
EASY ISO is great, you’re right. I use the ‘A’ mode most of the time and the fact to be able to control the ISO value is more than helpful.
I prefer this option to the AUTO ISO which does not give me the feeling that I control what I am doing. In fact, Easy ISO forces me to check the speed in the viewfinder.
UNFORTUNATELY, I do not find this feature on the D4 (received mine 2 days ago) !!! AND IT HAS THE AUTO ISO … seems strange because I thought that AUTO ISO was more an option for beginers…
Also on the D4 I would have liked more than 1 fn button…
I’m not going to get rid of my D7000 because of the arrival of the new (big) baby. The only thing is that the buttons on the D4 are placed like on my D300 (which I’ll probably give to one of my daughters) and the disposition is different on the D7000.
Other thing on the D7000 (I like to be out of topic) : My hands are not that big but I cannot feel comfortable without the MB-D11 grip. I ordered I for each along with the cameras and they are always plugged in. On top of that, in terms of battery autonomy it is a great plus !!! (which I loose with the D4.
Only bad point I see on the D7000 : the size of the buffer ! Twice that size at least would have been great. When you shoot sport or wild life close to a Canon 7D user, you see the difference in capabilities on this topic : even in raw mode the 7D user is not that bothered with the end of buffer blackout… (that’s one of the 2 main reasons why I have chosen the D4 to the D800. (the second is that on the D800 the pics are too big. 50Mb in raw is far too much.
Cheers !