Dynamic range
Image: Even the colour and contrast of JPEG files can be edited to reveal shadow details, without introducing chroma noise
Although there is a great amount of detail in shadow areas and some recoverable detail in the highlights, the D7000’s dynamic range can appear to be a little lower than that on other digital cameras. However, when editing the raw images it is clear that a lot more detail is captured than is visible in JPEG files. With this in mind, I would suggest adjusting the contrast (via the picture controls) to recover some of this detail. Obviously, if you have more time, shooting and editing raw images allows details to be recovered.
The Nikon D7000 also has an Auto D-Lighting feature, which alters the contrast curve to lighten shadows and darken highlights in JPEG images. When set to its normal setting, I found that the results are quite subtle and serve to act as a slight lift. Even in its high setting, the D-Lighting looks natural and, thankfully, it doesn’t produce a pseudo-HDR effect. Again, if you shoot JPEG images it is a good idea to combine the D-Lighting effect with a tweak of the picture control settings to get the most out of the camera’s dynamic range.
