You don’t want good pictures from your new Nikon D7000—you demand outstanding
photos.After all, the D7000 is the most advanced mid-level camera that Nikon has ever
introduced. It boasts 16.2 megapixels of resolution, and blazing-fast automatic focus.
But your gateway to pixel proficiency is dragged down by the slim booklet included in
the box as a manual.
You know everything you need to know is in there, somewhere, but you don’t know
where to start, and you probably don’t like the idea of having to read your manual on
a computer screen. In addition, the camera manual doesn’t offer much information on
photography or digital photography. Nor are you interested in spending hours or days
studying a comprehensive book on digital SLR photography that doesn’t necessarily
apply directly to your D7000.
What you need is a guide that explains the purpose and function of the D7000’s basic
controls, how you should use them, and why. Ideally, there should be information about
file formats, resolution, aperture/priority exposure, and special autofocus modes, but
you’d prefer to read about those topics only after you’ve had the chance to go out and
take a few hundred great pictures with your new camera. Why isn’t there a book that
summarizes the most important information in its first two or three chapters, with lots
of illustrations showing what your results will look like when you use this setting or
that? This is that book.
If you can’t decide on what basic settings to use with your camera because you can’t fig-
ure out how changing ISO or white balance or focus defaults will affect your pictures,
you need this guide. I won’t talk down to you, either; this book isn’t padded with dozens
of pages of checklists telling you how to take a travel picture, a sports photo, or how to
take a snapshot of your kids in overly simplistic terms. There are no special sections
devoted to “real world” recipes here. All of us do 100 percent of our shooting in the real
world! So, I give you all the information you need to cook up great photos on your own!
Preface