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Anyone else experience this problem with D7000..........?

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Ray Roberts

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Hi guys, did a test the other day at a photo lab with my D300, 16-85 Nikon and D7000. let me tell you my images taken on the 300 were at least 7% sharper wide open as against the d7000. I then thought maybe it is ME as I am not 35 anymore so out came my tripod and I tested again with 16-85 & then did a few with the Nikon 35 1.8 g. Well again no difference D300 superior in every shot, so my question why do we want more pixels or was this d7000 body faulty? If any of you have had similar experiences with your D7000 please let me know as I am contemplating buying one as 2nd camera as my Fuji which was my 2nd camera has just died. By the way we set the D7000 to same standerds as my D300. Did not bother keeping any of the d7000 images as I have asked the store to get me another body to compare.
Regards,
Ray.
 
Ray Roberts said:
Hi guys, did a test the other day at a photo lab with my D300, 16-85 Nikon and D7000. let me tell you my images taken on the 300 were at least 7% sharper wide open as against the d7000. I then thought maybe it is ME as I am not 35 anymore so out came my tripod and I tested again with 16-85 & then did a few with the Nikon 35 1.8 g. Well again no difference D300 superior in every shot, so my question why do we want more pixels or was this d7000 body faulty? If any of you have had similar experiences with your D7000 please let me know as I am contemplating buying one as 2nd camera as my Fuji which was my 2nd camera has just died. By the way we set the D7000 to same standerds as my D300. Did not bother keeping any of the d7000 images as I have asked the store to get me another body to compare.
Regards,
Ray.
Click to expand...
I have both a D300 and D7000.... and I don't see any sharpness issues on both. I shot with the 2 cameras together on a shoot, and the output were very similar. Hard to tell the images apart. Maybe you can post samples so we can see where the fault was.

1st things 1st... did you shoot in RAW or JPG? JPG images have alot of factors in camera that can affect the final output.
 
Might need to calibrate the body to the lens. Might also be the extra MP giving the effect of softer pics.
 
Ray Roberts said:
Hi guys, did a test the other day at a photo lab with my D300, 16-85 Nikon and D7000. let me tell you my images taken on the 300 were at least 7% sharper wide open as against the d7000. I then thought maybe it is ME as I am not 35 anymore so out came my tripod and I tested again with 16-85 & then did a few with the Nikon 35 1.8 g. Well again no difference D300 superior in every shot, so my question why do we want more pixels or was this d7000 body faulty? If any of you have had similar experiences with your D7000 please let me know as I am contemplating buying one as 2nd camera as my Fuji which was my 2nd camera has just died. By the way we set the D7000 to same standerds as my D300. Did not bother keeping any of the d7000 images as I have asked the store to get me another body to compare.
Regards,
Ray.
Click to expand...
I doubt the body was faulty. More megapixels means you need to apply more sharpening. Assuming you are shooting JPEGs, What were your in camera sharpening settings Ray? Did you view the results on the same computer screen? BTW, How did you come up with the 7% figure?

Best regards,
Jon
 
Post some samples, please.
 
Shot Jpeg only, camera sharpening was set to + 5 on both cameras. Guys I seriously think it is the body as I tried a D90 in another store with great results.
 
Jon, I guessed at 7% might be 5 might be 10% , I know I should have posted samples but I was so disappointed with D7000 results that I did not bother, see my other reply.
 
Ray Roberts said:
Shot Jpeg only, camera sharpening was set to + 5 on both cameras. Guys I seriously think it is the body as I tried a D90 in another store with great results.
Click to expand...
I usually use +6, but +5 should be adequate. I wonder. Are you only viewing the images on the camera's LCD in a store, or are you viewing the images on your computer?

Do these images look sharp to you on your computer?









Best regards,
Jon
 
Let me expand on that a bit. The D7000, D5100, K5, etc are sharp as a tack. Sharper and cleaner (more important) than any D300 or D90. If there is a lack of sharpness, it is not the camera body in all likelihood.
 
Ray Roberts said:
Hi guys, did a test the other day at a photo lab with my D300, 16-85 Nikon and D7000. let me tell you my images taken on the 300 were at least 7% sharper wide open as against the d7000. I then thought maybe it is ME as I am not 35 anymore so out came my tripod and I tested again with 16-85 & then did a few with the Nikon 35 1.8 g. Well again no difference D300 superior in every shot, so my question why do we want more pixels or was this d7000 body faulty? If any of you have had similar experiences with your D7000 please let me know as I am contemplating buying one as 2nd camera as my Fuji which was my 2nd camera has just died. By the way we set the D7000 to same standerds as my D300. Did not bother keeping any of the d7000 images as I have asked the store to get me another body to compare.
Regards,
Ray.
Click to expand...
Should be very easy to figure out the problem....since shooting JPG only, simply post an out of camera unaltered pic to your gallery so we can down load the original and adjust/see the settings. Should be any easy fix. Good Luck
 
Jon, those are amazingly sharp on my computer and by the way for another poster, I have been a professional photographer for close on 40 years, so i think I should know a little bit about technique!
 
Well, since you are shooting jpg, and we know the firmware is different on the 2 bodies, it could just be the algorithm that compresses the jpg. I fairer test would be to compare the 2 raw files. And as far as what do we need the extra pixels for, IMO for cropping only.
 
Ray Roberts said:
Hi guys, did a test the other day at a photo lab with my D300, 16-85 Nikon and D7000. let me tell you my images taken on the 300 were at least 7% sharper
Click to expand...
Just out of curiousity, but why 7%?
Ray Roberts said:
Well again no difference D300 superior in every shot, so my question why do we want more pixels or was this d7000 body faulty?
Click to expand...
What is the relationship between "why do we want more pixels" and the fact that you have a possible faulty body?
Ray Roberts said:
By the way we set the D7000 to same standerds as my D300.
Click to expand...
In my experience camera settings differ per camera as they have other soft/firm/hardware. A sharpness setting of "5" on one camera can be softer then a "5" on another. I get what you mean, but I would not use such settings for hard comparisons.
Ray Roberts said:
Did not bother keeping any of the d7000 images as I have asked the store to get me another body to compare.
Click to expand...
This makes it very hard for others to say anything about your situation. As allready mentioned, one possible cause is having a bit of back/front focus. Without the images we only have your "7% sharper" which is very subjective.

Good luck with your next body.
 
Ray

The first thing you must check is your Auto Focus Fine Tune to see if your camera is correctly calibrated with your lens.

And be aware that with a zoom lens you may get different AFFT settings for varying lengths of zoom . . . which can be a real pain.
Set your AFFT at optimum for a certain focal length and then test for sharpness.

There is a very high likelyhood some tuning will be required . . . and this could be your prob . . . and the first thing to check.

Good luck with it!

Best,
V G
 
VG, thanks have not tried calibrating my lens to the body as I was really in the stage of just comparing it to my D300, which by the way was also not calibrated but was perfectly sharp. I will go back to the shop, calibrate & retry.
Thanks to all for the replies.
Regards,
Ray.
 
Ray Roberts said:
Jon, those are amazingly sharp on my computer and by the way for another poster, I have been a professional photographer for close on 40 years, so i think I should know a little bit about technique!
Click to expand...
OK then, I guess it was a defective body you were using! I can't think of a defect other than front or back focus that would cause soft images compared to your D300, but I am no expert on camera defects ether. I hope you have better luck with your next D7000 body.

Best regards,
Jon
 
Ray Roberts said:
VG, thanks have not tried calibrating my lens to the body as I was really in the stage of just comparing it to my D300, which by the way was also not calibrated but was perfectly sharp. I will go back to the shop, calibrate & retry.
Thanks to all for the replies.
Regards,
Ray.
Click to expand...
If you need to fine tune AF a lens more than 10, I would either find another body to buy or have it send lens and body to Nikon for AF calibration. So far, the most I have had to fine tune a lens is +3 for the Nikkor 70-300G VR. My FT for the Tokina 16-50 f2.8 is only -1. Sigma 10-20= No fine tune.

Best regards,
Jon
 
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