I got a notice from Nikon Service and Repair folks that my D7000 is winging it’s way back to my eager hands. For those of you who missed it, the shutter failed some time ago, right around 95,000 clicks. It took me a little while to get it into a box that wouldn’t do more damage to the camera in shipping, and then it sat in a “parts hold” with Nikon for a bit. The hold cleared, the payment was processed, the repair has been finished, and it looks like I may yet catch the tail end of spring photography.

While my camera has been out for service, I’ve been leaning heavily on a borrowed D100 and my iPhone 4S. I’m realizing how I’ve come to rely on the incredible sensor and the frame rate of the D7000. The D100 produces clean shots in reasonable light (far better than the iPhone), but it’s frame rate is incredibly slow and the buffer maxes out at 2 or 3 RAW images. The iPhone runs a much higher buffer, but the crispness of the image, even in broad daylight, isn’t all that good. And for both of them, noise is unusable in anything approaching poor lighting.

It’s going to be nice to fit an f1.4, dial it up to ISO6400, and head out at night. I’ve been missing that.