Nikon D7000 manual Image Size, Jpeg Compression, NEF RAW Recording

240 David Busch’s Nikon D7000 Guide to Digital SLR Photography

Image Size

The next menu command in the Shooting menu lets you select the resolution, or num- ber of pixels captured as you shoot with your Nikon D7000. Your choices range from Large (L—4928 ⋅ 3264 pixels, 16.1 megapixels), Medium (M—3696 ⋅ 2448 pixels,

9.0megapixels), and Small (S—2464 ⋅ 1632 pixels, 4.0 megapixels). Personally, I think it’s pretty cool that after using a Nikon D70 (with 6MP) and a Nikon D200 (with 10MP) for several years, my D7000 has a medium resolution that exceeds or nearly matches both of them.

You can select image sizes by holding down the QUAL button on the back left panel of the D7000, while spinning the sub-command dial until the resolution you want appears on the monochrome LCD status screen. (This provides you with a status panel estimate of the number of exposures available at each setting.) Or, you can use this menu to per- form the task (usually because you find the color LCD easier to view under the partic- ular circumstances). There are no additional options available from the Image Size menu screen.

JPEG Compression

This menu entry is a simple one, offering you the choice of specifying either Size Priority (variable compression) or Optimal Quality (minimal compression) when the D7000 creates JPEG files. I’ll explain image compression in more detail in the next section.

■Size priority. When this option is selected, the D7000 will create files that are fairly uniformly sized at about 7.8MB for a JPEG Fine image. Because some photos have content that is more easily compressible (for example, plain areas of sky can be squeezed down more than areas filled with detail), to maintain the standard file size the camera must apply more compression to some images, and less to others. As a result, there may be a barely noticeable loss of detail in the more heavily compressed images. The uniform file size also means that the D7000’s buffer will hold the max- imum number of shots during continuous shooting, allowing you to shoot longer sequences without the need to pause and wait for some images to be written to the memory card.

■Optimal quality. Choose this option if you want to maintain the best image qual- ity possible at a particular JPEG setting (Fine, Normal, or Basic) and don’t care if the file size varies. Because the D7000 will use only the minimum amount of com- pression required at each JPEG setting, file size will vary depending on scene con- tent, and your buffer may hold fewer images during continuous shooting.

NEF (RAW) Recording

You can choose the type (amount) of compression applied to NEF (RAW) files as they are stored on your memory card, and whether the images are stored using 12-bit or