I. Manus and shooting information

The MENU button is the obvious and certainly the most common way to open the camera menus.

Instead, you can also open the menu with the Fn or preview button if you select Access top item in MY MENU in the custom settings menu to f3 or f4.

To select menu items, you can use the arrow keys on the back.

However it is quicker to turn the command dials after you set the item Menus and playback item to On in the custom settings menu f6 Customize command dials. Then 

• the front dial acts like the left/right direction keys and
• the rear dial acts like the up/down direction keys.

My preferred variant of menu operation is:

• Jump straight to the custom menu with the dim key.
• Then navigate with the two dials: Turning the front wheel to the left takes me to the first item of the custom menu. From there I quickly move on to the normal menus with a second click or down with the rear dial.
• This way I can reach all menus much faster and only with my right hand.

To open a selected menu item, you can press the OK button, the direction button to the right or (if you follow my tip) turn the front dial to the right.

The WB button with a question mark displays help texts for menus when a question mark is visible at the bottom left of the monitor.

There are two options, but you can have only one of them at a time:

• My Menu is a menu that you can populate with up to 20 of your most frequently accessed menus in any order.
• Recent Settings is a menu that always contains the twenty menus you have used most recently, sorted by the order in which they were last accessed. Hence it is constantly changing.

No matter what you choose, the lowest menu item is always Choose tab to switch between these two options.

I prefer My Menu. Once you get to know the camera, there will only be a small number of menus that you use regularly. It can save a lot of searching and clicking to arrange them here once.

Filling My Menu happens as follows:

• Scroll all the way down, to Add items and select what you need.
• When all your favourite menu items are there, you can use Rank items to move them in order.

The Shooting menu and the custom settings menu have a Reset item at the top. This resets only the respective menu to Nikon's default values. There is no factory reset for all menus on the D7000.

Tip: Avoid resetting menus, you can easily bypass it. Take some time to set the D7000 completely to your preferred settings and save everything in camera modes U1 and/or U2. Then, with a twist of the camera mode, you can return everything to your preferred settings in record time.

What | Shooting information are

• a set of important camera settings such as aperture, exposure time and more displayed on the monitor, matching what is also displayed on the LCD.
• additional settings that the D7000 displays at the bottom of the monitor, and which you can change there more quickly than via the camera menus.

Shooting information is not displayed when the D7000 is in Live View mode.

How | There are two ways to show and hide the shooting information:

• info button. One press shows the shooting information, another one allows it to be changed, a third one hides it again.
  

• Pull the on/off switch to the right so that the light bulb icon comes next to the white cord. This is a shortcut to display the shooting information if you have selected  and information display in the custom settings menu f1 LCD illuminator switch − differently from Nikon's default settings.

If not, pulling the shutter button only turns on the LCD display illumination, which is nice in the dark.

What | The shooting information may appear dark against a bright bluish background or grey against a dark background. The D7000 changes automatically depending on the brightness; to see the difference, turn on the shooting information in bright ambient light and then cover the viewfinder with your fingers.

Instead, you can set the D7000 to use only one of the two displays.

Where | In the custom settings menu d9 Information display.

I ignore this setting, leave the sensible default value. In darkness, the darker display is more pleasant; in brightness, the other is more suitable because it is easier to read.

What | The settings displayed at the bottom of the monitor can be changed directly, provided the camera mode allows it. Only in P, S, A, M and U1, U2 you can change all of them.

How |

• When the recording information is displayed, press the info key.

One of the settings appears highlighted in yellow.

• Use the arrow keys to the right of the monitor to select a setting, the OK button opens the corresponding camera menu to make changes.

My opinion | There is nothing in the shooting information to be changed that I use regularly. I have taken thousands of photos with the D7000 without using this option. With personal favourite settings in My Menu, I had everything at hand in one place.

What | When editing settings in the shooting information, bubble-like hints appear indicating which setting you have just selected. If this bothers you, you can hide the bubbles.

Where | In the custom settings menu d5 Screen tips.