f Stop Blues

Yesterday my new D7100 camera arrived. I unpacked the box, inspected the camera body, and pulled the battery and charger out. My objective was to simply get the battery charged up. I placed the body back in the box, with all the manuals and other stuff that came with it. I said to MeAsWe, that I needed to think of a good first shot to inaugurate a new era of photography for me.

This morning I got up at 5, took a shower, put the coffee on and grabbed the battery that had been charging all night. It was time to put the camera all together. I had 2 32g cards still in the packaging and would be perfect for the camera, it takes 2 cards if you want. Grabbed my D5100 taking the 35mm prime lens off, put the kit lens on that came with the d5100. Grabbed the D7100, spun the body cap off, snapped the 35 mm prime in place, inserted the charged up battery and inserted the cards.

Turned the camera on and all I see is Japanese characters on the screen. Oh I have to set the language and other stuff. Set the date, time, time zone. Camera is ready.

Played around the knobs and then realized, even though I had read the manual a little bit, all of the controls are  very different from the D5100 and I pretty much forgot what I had read. Tried to put into Aperture Priority mode and the wheel wouldn't spin. Tried again and nothing. Oh you have to press the lock on top of the wheel to get it spin. Very nice !!. I don't how many times while out on the bike putting the D5100 in my tank bag that the camera wheel turned setting the camera to Shutter Priority from Aperture Priority, snapping off a bunch of pics, to found out I had to take them all over because the wheel turned.

Changed a couple of other settings like Auto Focus Mode, Image Quality, how to configure the 2 SD slots, and how to name the JPG and NEF files. This all went pretty smoothly since I was familiar with the look and feel on the Nikon Menu System.

I have still not figured out what the first picture is going to be. I put the camera up to my eye, with the intent of only testing the focus by pushing the shutter release button 1/2 down to see how it works. I hear the beep and a clunk.

DAMN I just took a picture. SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHH. So much for that special first shot.




Great pic eh. The feel of the shutter release was totally different than my D5100. I immediately set the camera up for Back Button Focusing, which moves the focus function from the shutter release to another button on the camera and makes the shutter release only for grabbing the picture.