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Overview
A must-have, full-color guide to the Nikon D7100
The Nikon D7100 is an ideal camera for beginning photographers who may lack structured photography training but are still eager and determined to take great photos. And that?s where this fun-and-friendly guide comes in handy! Packed with more than 300 full-color photos, this introductory guide begins by helping you get a feel for the camera, get comfortable shooting in auto mode, managing playback options, and handle basic troubleshooting strategies. Veteran author Julie Adair King walks you through the D7100's features and encourages you to take creative control so that you can start
capturing stunning pictures immediately.
- Packs in more than 300 full-color photos that exemplify the basic photo skills needed to get great shots
- Shares a wealth of information from one of the most popular digital photography authors
- Walks you through adjusting manual settings to get better results from exposure, lighting, focus, and color
- Contains an entire chapter on video mode
- Explains how to send images to a computer for organizing, editing, and sharing
Nikon D7100 For Dummies helps you get a grasp on your camera's controls so you can start taking memorable photos today!
With the D7100 digital camera, Nikon proves once again that you don't have to give an arm and a leg — or strain your back and neck — to enjoy dSLR photography. The D7100 addition to the Nikon family of dSLRs doesn't skimp on power or performance, offering a great set of features to help you take your photography to the next level.
About The Author
Julie Adair King has been covering digital cameras and photography for over a decade. She has written numerous Nikon and Canon For Dummies guides as well as multiple editions of Digital Photography For Dummies. Julie also teaches digital photography and imaging at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre.
Articles From The Book
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The tools found on the Retouch menu of your Nikon D7100 provide the capability to repair your not-so-great photos right in the camera. Every photographer produces a clunker now and then. When it happens to you, don’t be too quick to press the Delete button, because many common problems are surprisingly easy to fix.
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Your Nikon D7100 gives you three ways to monitor picture settings such as battery status and shots remaining: through the Control panel, from the Information screen, and through the viewfinder.Control panelHere’s a look at this display, found on top of the camera. You can illuminate the panel temporarily by rotating the On/Off switch past the On position to the light bulb marker and then releasing the switch.
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To really take creative control with your Nikon D7100 digital camera, step up to one of these exposure modes, which enable you to adjust aperture (f-stop) to manipulate depth of field and to adjust shutter speed to determine whether moving objects appear sharply focused or blurry. You also gain access to some features not available in the fully automatic modes, such as the option to adjust flash power and tweak white balance.
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For people new to digital SLR cameras, the Nikon D7100 offers automatic settings that enable point-and-shoot photography. To access modes other than Auto and Auto Flash Off, set the Mode dial to Scene. The monitor then displays a list of the available Scene modes; the ones listed here represent those you'll find handy on the most regular basis.
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Self-Timer mode enables you to take up to nine pictures with one press of the shutter button, timing the frames at intervals of a half second to 3 seconds. If you want to record more frames or enjoy more flexibility over the interval between images, bail out of Self-Timer mode and instead enable Interval Timer Shooting.
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Photo programs abound for working with the image files from your Nikon D7100, ranging from inexpensive solutions for beginners to high-end professional options. The good news is that if you don’t need serious photo-editing capabilities, you may find a free program that serves your needs.
Three free photo programs
If you don’t do much retouching or other manipulation of your photos, one of the following free programs may be a good solution:
Nikon ViewNX 2: This program, found on the CD included in your camera box, provides a photo organizer plus a few photo-editing features.
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Setting the Release mode dial on your Nikon D7100 to Continuous Low or Continuous High enables burst mode shooting. That is, the camera records a continuous burst of images for as long as you hold down the shutter button, making it easier to capture fast-paced action.
Here's how the two modes differ:
Continuous Low: In this mode, you can tell the camera to capture from 1 to 6 frames per second.
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If you're not familiar with the Nikon D7100, here's a quick guide to its buttons, dials, and other external controls. The D7100 kit is sold with the lens shown, the Nikkor 18–105mm AF-S DX model. Other lenses may not have the same controls.
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When you have two memory cards installed in the Nikon D7100 camera, you can use the Copy Image(s) option on the Playback menu to copy pictures from one card to the other. Follow these steps:
On the Playback menu, choose Copy Image(s) and press OK.
Highlight Select Source and press the Multi Selector right.
You see a screen listing both memory cards (Slot 1 and Slot 2).
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By default, only File Information mode and Overview mode on your Nikon D7100 are enabled. To access the other modes, along with an option that enables you to view the focus point that the camera used to establish focus, head for the Playback Display Options setting on the Playback menu.
The menu options work as follows:
Focus Point: When this option is turned on, a red rectangle marks the focus point (or points).
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Almost every review of the Nikon D7100 contains glowing reports about the camera’s picture quality. As you’ve no doubt discovered, those claims are true: This baby can create large, beautiful images. What you may not have discovered is that Nikon’s default Image Quality setting isn’t the highest that the D7100 offers.
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Built into the ViewNX 2 software for your Nikon D7100 is a handy image-downloading tool called Nikon Transfer 2. Follow these steps to use it:Attach your camera to the computer or insert a memory card into your card reader.Depending on what software you have installed on your system, you may see a dialog box asking you how to download your photos.
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In File Information display mode on your Nikon D7100, the monitor displays the data shown in the following figure. Note that the illustrations here apply to still photos.
Here’s the key to what information appears, starting at the top of the screen and working down:
Frame Number/Total Pictures: The first value here indicates the frame number of the currently displayed photo; the second tells you the total number of pictures on the memory card.
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In Highlights display mode on your Nikon D7100, areas that the camera thinks may be overexposed blink in the camera monitor. One of the most difficult photo problems to correct in a photo-editing program is known as blown highlights in some circles and clipped highlights in others.
Both terms mean that the brightest areas of the image are so overexposed that areas that should include a variety of light shades are instead totally white.
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Like other digital devices, your Nikon D7100 creates pictures out of pixels, which is short for picture elements. You can see some pixels close up in the right example, which shows a greatly magnified view of the eye area in the left image.
You can specify the pixel count of your images, also known as the resolution, in two ways:
Qual button + Sub-command dial: Hold down the Qual (Quality) button while rotating the Sub-command dial to cycle through the available settings.
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When you're interested in taking more control over how your videos are recorded than the Nikon D7100's default settings offer, start by exploring the following basic settings:
Frame Size/Frame Rate and Movie Quality: Together, these settings determine the quality of your video as well as the movie file size.
Microphone: This setting determines how audio is recorded.
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Near the upper-right side of the viewfinder on your Nikon D7100 lens is a dial that enables you to adjust the viewfinder focus to accommodate your eyesight. The dial is officially known as the diopter adjustment control.
If you don’t take this step, scenes that appear out of focus through the viewfinder may actually be focused through the lens, and vice versa.
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With a dSLR like the Nikon D7100, you can change lenses to suit different photographic needs, going from an extreme close-up lens to a super-long telephoto, for example. Whatever lens you choose, follow these steps to attach it to the camera body:
Turn off the camera.
Remove the cap that covers the lens mount on the front of the camera.
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Assuming that your lens supports autofocusing when mounted on the Nikon D7100, familiarize yourself with these two controls, which set the focusing method to manual or autofocusing:
Lens focus-mode switch: Assuming that your lens offers autofocusing as well as manual focusing, it has a switch that you use to choose between the two options.
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Your Nikon D7100 camera organizes files into folders that are assigned generic names: 100D7100, 101D7100, and so on. You can see the name of the current folder by looking at the Storage Folder option on the Shooting menu. (The default folder name appears as just 100 on that menu.) You also can create custom-numbered folders.
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One of the biggest differences between a digital point-and-shoot camera and a dSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera is the lens. To decide which lens is the best partner for your Nikon D7100 camera, start by considering these factors:
Lens compatibility: You can mount a wide range of lenses on your D7100, but some lenses aren’t fully compatible with all camera features.
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The first setting to consider when working with a Nikon D7100 is the exposure mode, which you select via the Mode dial. To rotate the dial, you must press and hold its center button, labeled in the figure as the “Mode dial unlock button.”
Your choice determines how much control you have over two critical exposure settings — aperture and shutter speed — as well as many other options, including those related to color and flash photography.
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With the USB cable that shipped with your Nikon D7100 camera, you can connect the camera to your computer and then transfer images to the computer’s hard drive.
Check the level of the camera battery.
Running out of battery power during downloading can cause problems, including lost picture data. If you purchased the optional AC adapter, use that to power the camera during downloading.
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You can record sound using the Nikon D7100’s built-in microphone, labeled on the left, or you can attach the optional Nikon ME-1 stereo microphone to the jack labeled on the right in the figure. You can even attach headphones via the headphone jack, also labeled in the figure, to monitor sound recording.
One way to adjust audio-recording options is to select Movie Settings from the Shooting menu, press OK, and then select Microphone, as shown on the left.
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The Slide Show feature sets the Nikon D7100 camera to automatically display all photos and movies one by one on the camera monitor. Note these details:
Pictures displayed in the show depend on the setting of the Playback Folder option on the Playback menu.
Any pictures that you hid through the Hide Image function do not appear in the show.
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To switch your Nikon D7100 camera to playback mode, just press the Playback button. Then press the Multi Selector right or left to scroll through your pictures.
Adjusting playback timing
You can adjust the length of time that the camera displays photos as follows:
Adjust the timing of automatic playback shutoff.
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For still photography, the Live View display on your Nikon D7100 appears by default as shown on the left. You can tweak the display in the following ways:
Change the data display: You can choose from the following display styles, each of which adds different types of information to the screen. Press the Info button to cycle through the styles.
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You can erase pictures from a memory card when it’s in your Nikon D7100 camera in three ways: one at a time, all at once, or in batches.
Regardless of which delete technique you want to use, you can’t delete photos that you protected or hid by using the Protect or Hide Image features.
Deleting images one at a time
The Delete button is key to erasing single images, but the process varies depending on which playback display mode you’re using, as follows:
In single-image view, press the Delete button.
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In Calendar display mode on the Nikon D7100, you see a calendar. Select a date, and you can quickly navigate to all pictures you shot that day. A thumbnail image on the calendar indicates that you took pictures on that day.
The key to navigating Calendar view is the ISO button:
Press the ISO button as needed to cycle through the thumbnail display modes until you reach Calendar view.
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You can connect your Nikon D7100 camera to an HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) device to see the Live View output on that screen. This feature is often used by studio photographers who want a larger view of their subject than the camera monitor provides.
A few issues arise when you take advantage of this option:
You must buy an HDMI type-C mini-pin cable to connect the camera to the TV.
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You can use the Hide Image option on your Nikon D7100's Playback menu to hide some photos while showing others during playback. Suppose that you took 100 pictures — 50 at a business meeting and 50 at the wild after-meeting party.
You want to show your boss the photos where you and your co-workers look like responsible adults, but you’d rather not share the ones showing you and your assistant dancing on the conference table.
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After displaying a photo in single-frame view on your Nikon D7100, as shown on the left, you can magnify it, as shown on the right. You can zoom in on still photos only, however; this feature isn’t available for movies.
Here’s how to use the magnification function:
Zoom in. Press the Qual button. You can magnify the image to a maximum of 19 to 38 times its original display size, depending on the resolution (pixel count) of the photo.
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In Nikon ViewNX 2, you can convert your Raw files to the JPEG format or, for top picture quality, to the TIFF format. Although the ViewNX 2 converter isn’t as full-featured as the ones in Nikon Capture NX 2 and some other photo-editing programs, it does enable you to make some adjustments to your Raw images. Follow these steps to try it out:Open ViewNX 2 and click the thumbnail of the image that you want to process.
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Through the NEF (RAW) Processing option on the Retouch menu of your Nikon D7100, you can create a JPEG version of a Raw file right in the camera — no computer or other software required. Follow these steps to get the job done:Press the Playback button to switch to playback mode.Display the picture you want to process in the single-image view.
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You can safeguard pictures from accidental erasure by giving them protected status on your Nikon D7100's memory card. After you take this step, the camera doesn’t allow you to erase a picture by using the Delete button or the Delete option on the Playback menu.
Formatting your memory card, however, does erase even protected pictures.
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Video enthusiasts will appreciate the fact that the Nikon D7100 enables you to tweak a variety of movie-recording settings, such as frame size, frame rate, microphone volume, and the like. But if you're not up to sorting through all those options, just record your movies using the default settings. (You can restore the critical defaults by opening the Shooting menu and choosing Reset Shooting Menu.
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With your Nikon D7100's Resize tool, you can resize single images or batches of images. To create small copies of several photos on your Nikon D7100's memory card, use the following alternative in-camera resizing process:Press the Menu button and then display the Retouch menu.Select the Resize option, as shown on the left, and then press OK.
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The Resize tool is found on the Retouch menu of your Nikon D7100. Your resized images are saved in the JPEG format, which is the web-friendly format. To create a small copy of just one image, take these steps:Press the Playback button to set your camera to playback mode.Display the picture in single-image view.
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You can save a single frame of any movie that you shot on your Nikon D7100 as a regular image file. Here’s how to save a single frame as a still image:
Begin playing your movie.
When you reach the frame you want to capture, press the Multi Selector down to pause playback.
Press the i button to bring up the Edit Movie screen.
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To play a movie you recorded on your Nikon D7100, press the Playback button. In single-image playback mode, you can spot a movie file by looking for the little movie camera icon in the top-left corner of the screen.
You also can view other movie-related data, including the image area, frame size, frame rate, and Movie Quality setting.
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If you don’t want to rely on the camera to make that judgment, your Nikon D7100 offers Scene modes, which are designed to automatically capture specific scenes in ways that are traditionally considered best from a creative standpoint. For example, most people prefer portraits that have softly focused backgrounds.
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The AF-area mode setting tells the Nikon D7100 what part of the frame contains your subject so that it can set focusing distance correctly. To adjust the setting, press the AF-mode button to temporarily highlight the setting icon.
While holding the button, rotate the Sub-command dial to cycle through the available settings.
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You can do some limited movie editing in camera on the Nikon D7100 — limited editing. You can trim frames from the start of a movie and clip off frames from the end, and that’s it.
To eliminate frames from the beginning of the movie, take these steps:
Display your movie in single-image view.
Press OK to begin playback.
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When you install two memory cards in your Nikon D7100, you can specify how you want the camera to use the card installed in Slot 2. You have three choices:
Overflow: This setting is the default; the camera fills the card in Slot 1 (the top slot) and then switches to the second card.
Backup: The camera records each picture to both cards.
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You're no doubt familiar with Self-Timer mode on your Nikon D7100, which delays the shutter release for a few seconds after you press the shutter button, giving you time to dash into the picture. Here's how it works on the D7100:
After you press the shutter button, the autofocus-assist illuminator on the front of the camera starts to blink.
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Instead of displaying each Nikon D7100 photo or movie file one at a time, you can display 4 or 9 thumbnails, or even a whopping 72 thumbnails. (Movie files are indicated by little sprocket holes along the thumbnail edges.)
Here’s how things work in thumbnails view:
Display thumbnails. Press the ISO button, labeled “Zoom out,” to cycle from single-picture view to 4-thumbnail view, press again to shift to 9-picture view, and press once more to bring up those itty-bitty thumbnails featured in 72-image view.
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You can connect your Nikon D7100 camera to an HDTV (high-definition television) and view your pictures and movies on that screen. To take advantage of this option, you need a Type C mini-pin HD cable to connect the camera and TV.
Before making the connection, visit the Setup menu and explore the HDMI option, which offers the following two settings:
Output Resolution: By default, the camera decides the proper video resolution to send to the TV after you connect the two devices.
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Like many dSLR cameras, the Nikon D7100 offers Live View, a feature that enables you to use the monitor instead of the viewfinder to compose photos. Turning on Live View is also the first step in recording a movie; using the viewfinder isn't possible when you shoot movies.
In most respects, the process of shooting pictures in Live View mode is the same as for viewfinder photography.
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For manual focusing in Live View mode on your Nikon D7100, set the Focus mode selector switch on the front-left side of the camera to M. If you’re using a lens that has a focus method switch, set that switch to M as well. Then turn the lens focusing ring to focus. But note a few quirks:
The focusing frame doesn’t turn green when you set focus as it does with autofocusing.
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Instead of recording images on film, digital cameras store pictures on memory cards. Your Nikon D7100 uses a specific type of memory card — an SD card (for Secure Digital).
To enable you to shoot oodles of pictures without having to swap out cards, the D7100 has two card slots. Open the cover on the right side of the camera to reveal them.
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One component of the optical system of your Nikon D7100 camera is a mirror that moves every time you press the shutter button. The small vibration caused by the action of the mirror can result in slight blurring of the image when you use a very slow shutter speed, shoot with a long telephoto lens, or take extreme close-up shots.
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With the D7100 digital camera, Nikon proves once again that you don't have to give an arm and a leg — or strain your back and neck — to enjoy dSLR photography. The D7100 addition to the Nikon family of dSLRs doesn't skimp on power or performance, offering a great set of features to help you take your photography to the next level.
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In addition to the Release modes you can select from the Release mode dial on your Nikon D7100, you have access to a couple of other features that tweak the way the shutter is released — Exposure Delay mode and remote-control shooting.
Exposure Delay mode
As an alternative to mirror lockup, you can use the Exposure Delay feature when you want to ensure that the movement of the mirror doesn't cause enough vibration to blur the shot.
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Overview mode on your Nikon D7100 is the second of the two default photo-information modes — meaning that it’s already enabled on the Playback Display Options item on the Playback menu. In this mode, the playback screen contains a small image thumbnail along with scads of shooting data — although not quite as much as Shooting Data mode — plus a Brightness histogram.
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From Highlights mode on your Nikon D7100, you can press the Multi Selector down to get to RGB Histogram mode, which displays your image as shown on the left. (Remember: You can access this mode only if you enable it via the Playback Display Options setting on the Playback menu.)
The data underneath the thumbnail shows the White Balance settings used for the shot.
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Normally, your Nikon D7100 captures photos using the entire image sensor, which is the part of the camera on which the picture is formed — similar to the negative in a film camera. However, you have the option of telling the camera to record the picture using a smaller area at the center of the sensor.
When you use this alternative setting, the result is the same as if you shot the picture using the entire sensor and then cropped the image by a factor of 1.
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The Movie Quality setting on your Nikon D7100 can be accessed via the Movie Settings option on the Shooting menu or the Live View control strip. Remember, you display the control strip by simply pressing the i button.
For this option, you can choose from two settings, High and Normal. Your choice determines how much compression is applied to the video file, which in turn affects the bit rate, or how much data is used to represent one second of video, measured in Mbps (megabits per second).
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Before you can access the Shooting Data Display mode on your Nikon D7100, you must enable it via the Playback Display Options setting option on the Playback menu. In this mode, you can view up to four screens of information, which you toggle among by pressing the Multi Selector up and down.
The fourth screen appears only if you include copyright data with your picture.
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Most of the steps involved in taking a still picture in Live View mode on your Nikon D7100 are essentially the same as for viewfinder photography.
By pressing the i button, you can display a control strip that offers quick access to the settings labeled in the figure.
After you display the strip, use the Multi Selector to highlight the option you want to change and then press OK to display a list of the available options for that setting.
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Your Nikon D7100 camera offers 16 Scene modes, each designed to produce a specific result in terms of lighting, color, and focus. Before you start exploring the Scene choices, note these general pointers:
For modes that permit flash, you may be able to select a different Flash mode; press the Flash button while rotating the Main command dial to cycle through the available settings.
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Auto and Auto Flash Off are two of your Nikon D7100's easiest exposure settings. The following steps walk you through taking a picture in Auto and Auto Flash Off modes. A couple of notes before you start:
The steps show you how to take the picture using autofocusing. To focus manually, ignore the autofocusing instructions.
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Your first step in taking advantage of easy-breezy shooting on your Nikon D7100 is to set the Mode dial to Auto, or Auto Flash Off or Scene. Remember that you must press and hold the center button in order to rotate the Mode dial.
Here's a recap what each setting offers:
Auto is a general purpose, point-and-shoot type of option.
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When shooting with the Nikon D7100, this setting determines the resolution, or frame size, of your movie, as well as the number of frames per second (fps), both of which affect video quality.
You can access this setting via the Movie Settings option on the Shooting menu or through the control strip. If you travel by way of the menu, you're presented with the options shown i.
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Some Nikon lenses offer Vibration Reduction. This feature, indicated by the initials VR in the lens name, attempts to compensate for small amounts of camera shake that are common when photographers handhold their cameras and use a slow shutter speed, a lens with a long focal length, or both. That camera movement during the exposure can produce blurry images.