Is the D7000 overexposure in bright light / probematic AF still an issue? -

You are not being honest with the OP here...many D7000 owners reported a REAL AF issue, including myself. And I'm tired of hearing the "user error" excuse - that one was worn out long ago. I owned a D90 for 2 years and a D700 for 6 months before selling the D90 and getting a D7000. What I'm getting at is that I knew how the AF was supposed to function and had two perfectly performing cameras to judge the D7000 against.  The issue was fairly severe with my copy, and was always a back-focus problem. Some lenses exhibited the problem worse than others, so I limited my usage to a couple of lenses and lived with it (and used the D700 far more, especially for anything important since the D7000 could not be relied upon). Live view was always accurate, but viewfinder photography was terrible.

I came across a post here where someone adjusted a hex screw inside the mirror box to tune the distance between the mirror and the sensor, so I tried it out. Long story short, it worked, and my camera has been flawless ever since, with every lens I own (Nikon 24-70 f2.8, 70-200 f2.8 VRII, 50 f1.8G, 18-105 VR, Tokina 11-16 f2.8, Sigma 17-70 f2.8-4 OS, and Tamron 70-300 VC). I have turned AF fine-tune off, and no longer need any fine-tune with any lens. I even borrowed a 18-200 VRII and a 55-300 VR, and both of those were dead-on accurate.

It is my opinion, based on my own personal experience, that many cameras came out of the factory with improperly calibrated mirrors, which was the source of so many owner's frustration. It makes perfect sense as to why the AF was so poor when using the viewfinder, and so good using live view. Live view uses contrast-detect AF directly from the sensor (no mirror reflecting the image), but viewfinder photography requires the image from the lens to be reflected to the phase-detect sensors in the camera. If the reflection is too far away or too close to the sensor because of the improper mirror position, then when the mirror is raised, the camera uses the distance that was improperly reflected to the sensors to set the AF, resulting in, in this case, back-focus.

The 39 point AF in the D7000 is very good and very accurate, but you can see why it would make anyone having an issue, blame their problems on bad AF, when it is simply a poorly calibrated mirror. I believe that newer copies coming from the factory are calibrated much better than earlier copies were, and that is why there is much less discussion about AF problems lately. If you buy an older copy, it may or may not have a problem, but I am sure that, if it does, it can be corrected if sent to Nikon. I am certain that they know how to fix it perfectly by now. Test that copy out before buying it...don't buy it if it sucks. Pretty simple!

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K.B.