I recently bought a Nikon D7000 camera to replace my aging Nikon D70s. Though Nikon has released several DX camera bodies since the D70s, I had never thought the upgrade was worth it till now. Yes, the D80, the D90, and the D300 had many advances in camera technology, but I always felt that the D70s was a tried and true racehorse, still able to take fantastic pictures-- and so I figured, why bother upgrading?

The ol' D70s did suffer in a few areas that I was never happy about. First was its poor ISO which only ranged from 200-1600. Most cameras are able to go ISO 100-3200 or even to 6400. Even with such a small range, the noise was so high at anything over ISO 800. With the new D7000 even noise at ISO 6400 is fairly low. It's amazing that the camera can go up to ISO 25600 but the noise is iffy for me.

Pretty much everything on this camera is better than my previous camera except for the battery life which doesn't seem to last as long. The new autofocus matrix makes capturing images (especially with movement) much easier, and the ability to record HD video is a nice addition to still images. You can tell that Nikon really put a lot of thought and consideration into the design of this new camera. Who would have thought that you needed TWO memory cards in one camera? As a stickler for backing up data, it's nice to have the option to record images to two separate cards (in the off chance that one is lost or corrupted, your images are safe). I'm very happy with this camera and I can see myself using it for many years to come.