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After 7 years of using my old Sony DSC-828 camera, I finally made the decision that it was time to upgrade, especially since I have begun successfully selling photography prints. After weeks of researching camera bodies that had features I wanted, I made a decision to go with the Nikon D7000 two weeks ago, and boy I have not been disappointed! So far, images are cleaner, they don't have the nasty chromatic abberations my old Sony had, and the feature list is a mile long. Moving up from an 8 megapixel sensor to a 16.2 megapixel sensor has been amazing. I'm already hatching plans to do star trail photography, long exposure photos, and other nifty tricks I could only have dreamed of doing on my old Sony.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my Sony and it still has a lot of life left in it, but for the quality of stuff I need to produce to continue to sell prints, a change was needed. Let's compare the two cameras, side-by-side - green indicates winner (stats courtesy of dpreview.com, an amazing camera review website):

OK so, let's be honest. The Nikon D7000 blows the Sony out of the water, clearly. This isn't even a full list of features, either. The image quality difference is just absurd. Here are two shots I took tonight, one with the Sony and one with the Nikon.

This is the one taken with the Sony. Mouse over it to see the image taken by the Nikon.

Both were set using auto settings. The Nikon clearly shined in the darker room, where it needed to lower ISO to 1600 (the Sony only goes up to ISO 800). It captured far more sharpness in the image than the Sony, not to mention resolution. Low light is where the D7000 really shines.

All in all, the Nikon D7000 rules. I am going to love my new options available to me - long exposure shots, interval shooting, in-camera processing, a larger ISO range, interchangable lenses... the list goes on and on. I will miss two things about my Sony though: in live-view shooting (with the LCD on), the Sony could show you a live histogram of your composed shot, as well as the actual way it will look after the shot is made. The histogram is a wonderful tool to determine exposure accuracy. The Nikon has a similar feature in the viewfinder, but it is not as robust. Lastly, the Sony would also show the focal length of your focus, so you always knew if you were properly focused at infinity for good landscapes. Other than that, I welcome the new challenges the Nikon D7000 presents to me.  It has already challenged me to look at countless articles online on photography techniques and composition, etc. It has literally renewed my interest in photography at a higher level. I can't wait to see what it can do this summer for my backpacking trips! If you want to upgrade your camera, a great place to check out is Adorama.com, and best of all, if you shop there, it helps support this site.

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