e4 Modeling Flash
The Nikon D7000, and certain compatible external flash units (the SB-900, SB-800,
SB-700, SB-600, and SB-R200) have the capability of simulating a modeling lamp,
which gives you the limited capability of previewing how your flash illumination is going
to look in the finished photo. The modeling flash is not a perfect substitute for a real
incandescent or fluorescent modeling lamp, but it does help you see how your subject
is illuminated, and spot any potential problems with shadows.
When this feature is activated, pressing the depth-of-field button on the D7000 briefly
triggers the modeling flash for your preview. Selecting Off disables the feature. You’ll
generally want to leave it On, except when you anticipate using the depth-of-field pre-
view button for depth-of-field purposes (imagine that) and do not want the modeling
flash to fire when the flash unit is charged and ready. Some external flash units, such as
the SB-900, have their own modeling flash buttons. Although the SB-600 does not have
this button, it works fine with the D7000’s modeling flash feature.
e5 Auto Bracketing Set
The Nikon D7000 can automatically take several pictures using slightly different set-
tings within a range that you specify, and apply the changes to automatic exposure, elec-
tronic flash, or white balance. This setting allows you to specify whether bracketing is
used for both automatic exposure andflash (AE & flash), automatic exposure only (AE),
flash bracketing only (Flash only), or white balance color bracketing alone (WB brack-
eting). No autoexposure or flash bracketing will be performed when white balance
bracketing is activated. Because you can specify white balance manually when import-
ing a RAW file, WB bracketing is not available when Quality has been set to NEF
(RAW) or NEF (RAW)+JPEG. The results you get with flash bracketing can vary quite
a bit, depending on the amount of ambient illumination and flash mode you’ve cho-
sen, but exposure bracketing is fairly consistent. I tend to leave this option set to AE
most of the time. White balance bracketing is useful when you’re not quite sure of the
color balance of your illumination.
Chapter 9 ■Setup: The Custom Settings Menu 303
Tip
If the Nikon SB-400 flash unit is attached and turned on, this menu choice is not
available, because the SB-400 unit, unlike the D7000’s built-in flash and other
external flash units, cannot function in Commander mode. You’ll be able to set
flash compensation and flash mode for the built-in flash as well as individual
“groups” of flashes (Groups A and B) and the triggering channels. As you’ll see,
using electronic flash with the Nikon D7000 is worth a book of its own, but I’ll
do my best to explain the vagaries in Chapter 12.