J. Customise handling

What | These two buttons, easily accessible with the right hand, are programmable buttons to make two personal favourite functions instantly accessible.

Nikon's standard assignments are:

• Fn button: Activate flash exposure lock
• Depth-of-field preview button: Close the aperture down to the currently set aperture.

The naming as preview button only refers to Nikon's default setting, it is a second programmable button. The selection of possible functions for it is exactly the same as for the Fn button.

You can choose from 20 different settings. On other pages where these options fit in thematically, I have referred to possible assignments of these buttons throughout. Decide what appeals to you most by browsing the other chapters, or browse the choices in the menu if you are familiar with the D7000 and know which functions you use regularly.

Where | In the custom settings menu f3 Assign Fn button or f4 Assign preview button.

What | The AE-L/AF-L button is a programmable button with fewer possible functions, six in total. These are

• four variations of exposure and focus lock, matching the AE-L/AF-L label for ”auto exposure lock“ and ”autofocus lock“.
• start autofocus
• flash exposure lock.

Where | In the custom settings menu f5 Assign AE-L/AF-L button.

If you use the D7000 with an additional handle MB-D11, it also has an AE-L/AF-L button. The same settings are available for it, but in a separate menu f10 Assign MB-D11 AE-L/AF-L button.

What | The D7000 is adaptable in several ways when it comes to how the command dials behave:

• Reverse rotation: You can swap the effect of the left/right rotation directions when setting an exposure compensation. This makes sense, because in Nikon's default settings you have to turn them to the left for a positive correction and to the right for a negative correction.
• Change main/sub: Only applies to S, A and M modes; you can swap which dial controls aperture and which controls exposure time.
• Aperture setting: On some modern lenses with their own aperture ring, you can move the aperture selection from the control dial to the lens, just like in the old days.
• Menus and playback: The dials can be used to scroll through menus and photos just like the directional buttons - if you switch it on your D7000.

The menu item On (image review excluded) means that scrolling to other photos with a command dial is not possible during automatic image replay directly after a shot.

In the camera modes P, S, A, M you can use the front dial to adjust either the exposure compensation or the ISO sensitivity. Directly and immediately, without pressing a button or accessing a menu and without taking the camera from your eye.

Where | The items in the above list are bundled in the custom settings menu f6 Customize command dials.

You can enable direct change of exposure compensation or ISO sensitivity in the custom settings menus b3 Easy exposure compensation and d3 ISO display and adjustment respectively.

Exposure lock | You can prevent the D7000 from constantly adjusting the exposure to a changed image frame when the shutter release button is pressed. Instead, it will activate the exposure lock as soon as and as long as you press the shutter button. You can arrange for this in the custom settings menu c1 Shutter release button AE-L.

Starting autofocus | You can shift the start of autofocus from tapping the shutter release button to pressing the AE-L/AF-L button, in the custom settings menu f5 Assign AE-L/AF-L button.

The on/off switch can not only be toggled between ON and OFF, but also be pulled to the right with the index finger. This switches on an illumination for the LCD display.

In the custom settings menu f1 LCD illuminator switch you can make sure that all the indications of the LCD display appear in a nice big size on the camera monitor at the same time.

A very special, less important adjustment during shooting and for manual selection of the autofocus point: The custom settings menu f2 OK button (shooting mode) determines whether the OK button

• immediately selects the centre AF point (default setting)
• highlights the active AF point in red or
• does nothing.

The custom settings menu f7 Release button to use dial allows you to select the behaviour of the many keys as follows:

• No: In the standard setting, a command dial has to be turned simultaneously for various keys while you hold the key down.
  
• Yes: In this variant, you first have to press a key and then release it. Then you can turn the dials at your leisure until you press the setting button again or tap the shutter release.