Nikon D7200 Review

Overview

Last edited: 02/08/2017

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UPDATE: 02/08/2017:
Want some added proof that the Nikon D7200 belongs in your camera bag? Well you'll certainly want to know that the D7200 was named the Best Enthusiast DSLR Camera in our 2015 Camera of the Year awards, then!

Ready to buy now? Be sure to read our recent article entitled "11 great lenses for your new Nikon DSLR", and we'll give you some handy tips on which lenses you'll want to consider adding to your cart at the same time.

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Since early 2013, if you were a Nikon shooter looking for an enthusiast-grade camera body with an APS-C sized sensor -- DX format in Nikon parlance -- then the camera you'd turn to was the Nikon D7100. Now, with the followup Nikon D7200, that camera has a successor -- and while it looks very similar to the previous model on the outside, there are a fair few worthwhile improvements beneath the skin.

For our money, the most important change in the Nikon D7200 is a significant increase in buffer depths, meaning that it can capture around two to three times as many shots in a continuous burst. That answers perhaps our biggest concern about the earlier model, a camera which we nonetheless loved and awarded a Dave's Pick.

As well as its near-identical dust-and-weather sealed body, the Nikon D7200 retains much the same image sensor as featured in the D7100, although its pixel counts do differ ever so slightly thanks to slight adjustments in sensor masking. But while the sensor is unchanged, the processor isn't -- it's now an EXPEED 4-class chip, rather than the previous-generation EXPEED 3.

Note, though, that EXPEED 4 is, as we just said, a class of processors -- the actual chip used in the D7200 is not identical to that in other EXPEED 4-based Nikon DSLRs to date. Nikon tells us that it has tailored the EXPEED 4 processor in the D7200 to this individual camera model.

And although it's a new processor, performance in terms of frame rate is unchanged from the earlier camera -- a manufacturer-rated six frames per second in the full DX-format, or seven frames per second with a 1.3x focal length crop beyond that already applied in an APS-C camera body. One area in which the next-gen processor looks to have paid dividends, though, is power consumption: CIPA-compliant battery life figures have improved by around 17% since the D7100, for a total of around 1,110 shots on a charge with the exact same battery as used previously.

Another handy change in the Nikon D7200 is a newer Multi-CAM 3500II DX phase-detection autofocus module that now focuses even better in low light. Where Nikon rated the earlier Multi-CAM 3500 DX module in the D7100 as good down to -2EV, it says that the D7200 is capable of focusing all the way down to -3EV. In terms of AF point layout and type, though, the new module is unchanged from its predecessor, with 51 points including 15 cross-types, the centermost being an f/8-compatible point.

The Nikon D7200 is also the company's first DSLR with both Wi-Fi wireless networking and Near-Field Communications support for easy pairing with Android devices, removing the need to rely on clumsy external solutions or Wi-Fi capable SD cards. And there have been various firmware tweaks, too. No longer do you need to enable ISO expansion to access the highest sensitivities, for example, and the D7200 also sports the flat picture control and clarity options found on other recent Nikon DSLRs.

The company has also improved exposure bracketing with both a larger possible step size and a greater number of shots in a bracketed burst, added exposure smoothing for time-lapses, and shown videographers some love with both zebra-striping support and an Auto ISO function in movie capture mode.

And alongside the D7200, Nikon has also launched a replacement for its earlier View NX software package, now called View NX-i, and available free of charge. With support for .NEF raw, JPEG and TIFF images as well as .MOV movies, it lets Nikon D7200 owners manage their artworks, share them on social networks, and even perform basic movie-editing tasks, all free of charge. There's also a new Bluetooth-based wireless lav mic, the ME-W1, that's compatible with the D7200 and allows you to record mono or stereo audio at a distance of 164 feet from the camera body.

In the Box

The Nikon D7200 bundle contains the following items:

• Nikon D7200 camera
• Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens (kit version only)
• Front and rear lens caps (kit version only)
• EN-EL15 lithium-ion battery (7.0V, 1,900mAh)
• Battery terminal cover
• MH-25A Battery charger
• AC wall adapter or power cable (varies by region)
• DK-23 rubber eyecup
• DK-5 eyepiece cap
• UC-E17 USB cable
• BF-1B body cap
• AN-DC1 neck strap
• User's manual
• Warranty card

Recommended Accessories

• Large capacity SDHC/SDXC memory card. Cards with a Class 6 or greater rating are required for movie recording.
• Additional lenses
• Extra EN-EL15 battery pack
• MB-D15 multi-power battery pack (adds portrait grip with duplicate controls)
• Speedlite external flash strobe such as the SB-700 or SB-910
• MC-DC2 remote cord and/or WR-1 or WR-T10/R10 wireless remote
• GP-1A GPS unit
• Camera bag

Optics

The Nikon D7200 is available body-only, or bundled with the Nikkor AF-S DX 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens. Visit SLRgear.com for our full review of the Nikon 18-140mm lens.

Below are our viewfinder accuracy test results for the Nikon D7200.

Viewfinder Test Results

Coverage
Very good accuracy from the optical viewfinder. Excellent accuracy from the LCD in Live View mode.

The Nikon D7200's optical viewfinder tested at just under 99 percent coverage with our Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 macro lens, with no significant tilt or offset. This is very good, though slightly less than Nikon's 100% specification. In Live View mode, the Nikon D7200's LCD tested very close to 100% coverage, which is excellent.

The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Nikon D7200 Photo Gallery .

Exposure

Color

Saturation & Hue Accuracy
Slightly higher than average mean saturation with slightly below average hue accuracy.

ISO Sensitivity
100	200	400
800	1600	3200
6400	12800	25600
In the diagram above, the squares show the original color, and the circles show the color that the camera captured. More saturated colors are located toward the periphery of the graph. Hue changes as you travel around the center. Thus, hue-accurate, highly saturated colors appear as lines radiating from the center. Mouse over the links to compare ISOs, and click on them for larger images.

Saturation. The Nikon D7200 pumps dark blues by quite a bit, dark greens moderately and most other colors by a small amount, but slightly undersaturates bright yellow, light green, and cyans. Mean saturation levels are a little higher than average, but remain quite stable as ISO climbs. Mean saturation at base ISO was 113.3% or 13.3% oversaturated, a little higher than average, but as mentioned, much of that is because blues are pushed so much. Overall, we found the D7200's default saturation levels quite pleasing and vibrant. Most consumer digital cameras produce color that's more highly saturated (more intense) than found in the original subjects. This is simply because most people like their color a bit brighter than life.

Skin tones. The Nikon D7200's Caucasian skin tones looked a bit too pink when using manual white balance in simulated daylight, however Auto white balance produced warmer, more yellowish tones. Both are not bad but ideally skin tones should probably be somewhere in between. Where oversaturation is most problematic is on Caucasian skin tones, as it's very easy for these "memory colors" to be seen as too bright, too pink, too yellow, etc.

Hue. The Nikon D7200 did shift cyan toward blue by quite a bit at base ISO, with smaller shifts in reds and orange. (The cyan to blue shift is very common among the digital cameras we test; we think it's a deliberate choice by camera engineers to produce better-looking sky colors.) With an average "delta-C" color error of 6.34 after correction for saturation at base ISO, overall hue accuracy was a little lower than average (lower numbers are better), but still what we'd consider "good," and hue accuracy remained fairly stable across the ISO range. Hue is "what color" the color is.

Sensor

Exposure and White Balance

Indoors, incandescent lighting
Good color with the Manual white balance setting, but overly-warm results with Auto and Incandescent settings. Average positive exposure compensation required.

Indoors, under normal incandescent lighting, color balance was very warm and reddish with the default Auto white balance setting. (We'd say unacceptably so, though unfortunately this is common.) Unsurprisingly, the D7200's "Keep Warm Lighting" option for Auto white balance produced even warmer results with a strong orange tint. The Incandescent setting was also too warm, with more of a yellow/green cast. The Manual setting produced the most accurate results by far, if just a touch cool. The Nikon D7200 required an average amount of positive exposure compensation here, at +0.3 EV (most cameras require +0.3 EV for this shot). Our test lighting for this shot is a mixture of 60 and 100 watt household incandescent bulbs, a pretty yellow light source, but a very common one in typical home settings here in the U.S.

Outdoors, daylight
Very good results under harsh outdoor lighting.

Outdoors, the Nikon D7200 performed well, requiring +0.7 EV exposure compensation for our "Sunlit" Portrait shot to keep the mannequin's face reasonably bright, though her eyes are still a touch dim. (The average for this shot among cameras we've tested is about +0.7 EV.) We preferred skin tones from the Manual white balance setting as the Auto setting produced tones that were a little too yellow, though they are a bit too pink. Contrast is quite high as you might expect under such harsh lighting, but the camera did a very good job of holding onto detail in the highlights and shadow detail is excellent with low amounts of fine-grained noise. The Nikon D7200 produced vibrant colors and a good exposure without any exposure compensation in our Far-field scene (above right). A few highlights are blown (mostly specular highlights) but shadow detail is excellent. Overall, very good performance for its class here.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Resolution
~2,850 to ~2,950 lines of strong detail from JPEGs, a bit higher from ACR processed RAW files.

Our laboratory resolution chart revealed sharp, distinct line patterns down to about 2,900 lines per picture height in the horizontal direction, and to about 2,850 lines in the vertical direction. Some may argue for higher numbers, but lines start to merge and aliasing artifacts interfere with detail at these resolutions. Extinction of the pattern didn't occur until around 3,400 to 3,600 lines. We weren't able to do significantly better with NEF files processed through Adobe Camera Raw, only about 50 more lines in both directions. Color moiré is more evident in the ACR converted RAW files, however it's not as high as we'd expect for a camera without an optical low-pass filter. Use these numbers to compare with other cameras of similar resolution, or use them to see just what higher resolution can mean in terms of potential detail.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Sharpness & Detail
Sharp images but with visible edge-enhancement artifacts visible on high-contrast subjects. Mild to moderate noise suppression visible at base ISO.

Sharpness. The Nikon D7200 produces images that are crisp and sharp when coupled with a sharp lens as used in the above left crop. Some edge enhancement artifacts are visible on high-contrast subjects such as the halos around the border and text, but default sharpening looks to be a good compromise between crispness and sharpening artifacts when printed. Edge enhancement creates the illusion of sharpness by enhancing colors and tones right at the edge of a rapid transition in color or tone.

Detail. The crop above right shows some mild to moderate noise suppression at base ISO, as the darker and lower-contrast areas of the model's hair show some smudging where individual strands of hair merge. Chroma noise is more effectively controlled than from its predecessor, however subtle details in the red channel can be reduced as a result, as can be seen in the red flowers in our Indoor Portrait shots (click on the hair crop above right) or in the red-leaf fabric of our Still Life shots (click on the bottle label crop above left). Still, a very good performance here considering the difficult lighting. Noise-suppression systems in digital cameras tend to flatten-out detail in areas of subtle contrast. The effects can often be seen in shots of human hair, where the individual strands are lost and an almost "watercolor" look appears.

Aliasing. You can see aliasing artifacts or hints of them in a number of our D7200 test shots, however the Nikon D7200 does a pretty good job at suppressing color moiré in JPEGs for a camera that doesn't have an optical low-pass filter.

Notice above how the in-camera JPEG on the left has virtually no color moiré compared to an Adobe Camera Raw conversion of the same shot, though you can still see luminance moiré patterns (they're a little difficult to spot because of the reflections in the glass). As mentioned, the Nikon D7200's color moiré suppression seems to work quite well, but it can lead to other artifacts, such as small dots and lines that break up fine patterns, as well as more noticeable luminance moiré in some cases.

RAW vs In-Camera JPEGs
As noted above, the Nikon D7200 does a great job at capturing lots of fine detail in its JPEGs, but more detail can often be obtained from carefully processing RAW files, while at the same time reducing sharpening artifacts. Let's have a look at base ISO:

Base ISO (100)
Camera JPEG, defaults	RAW via Adobe Camera Raw

In the table above, we compare an in-camera JPEG taken at base ISO using default noise reduction and sharpening (on the left) to the matching RAW file converted with Adobe Camera Raw 9.0 (right) using default noise reduction with some moderate but tight unsharp masking applied in Photoshop (200%, radius of 0.3 pixels, and a threshold of 0).

As is frequently the case, the demosaicing in Adobe Camera Raw and sharpening in Photoshop deliver finer detail than the camera JPEG, with fewer sharpening artifacts. Looking closely at the images, ACR extracts some detail that isn't present in the camera JPEG, especially in the red-leaf swatch where the conversion was able to resolve some of the fine thread pattern, while the camera's JPEG engine tended to blur it away as if noise. As expected, the ACR conversion does however show more noise at default noise reduction settings than the camera at its default settings. All-in-all, though, the D7200 did a very good job at reducing noise while maintaining excellent detail in most areas of our target. Still, for maximum detail (and flexibility), using a good RAW converter does yield slightly better results than in-camera JPEGs, as is usually the case.

ISO & Noise Performance
Very good high ISO performance for a 24-megaxpixel APS-C model.

Noise Reduction = Normal (Default)
ISO 100	ISO 200	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 1600	ISO 3200
ISO 6400	ISO 12,800	ISO 25,600

Noise levels are fairly low at ISOs 100 through 400, though some minor loss of detail due to noise reduction is evident even at base ISO. At ISO 800, we see a slight softening of fine detail due to stronger noise reduction, however fine detail is still very good. At ISO 1600, noise levels increase with a touch more blurring in the fine details and more visible grain, but detail is still pretty good and chroma noise remains low. This trend continues as ISO rises, with progressively stronger luminance noise that remains fairly fine-grained but blurs out fine detail, along with low levels of chroma noise. But by ISO 25,600 almost all fine detail is gone, luminance noise is high, and chroma noise in the form of purple and yellow blotchiness in darker areas becomes more evident.

High ISO noise performance does appear to be noticeably improved over the D7100 (apart from the aforementioned loss of subtle detail in the red channel), but most of the improvement is due to more effective noise reduction processing as noise in RAW files looks quite similar. Still, very good noise performance overall for a 24-megapixel APS-C model. See our Print Quality analysis section below for recommended print sizes at each ISO.

A note about focus for this shot: We shoot this image at f/4, usually using one of three very sharp reference lenses (70mm Sigma f/2.8 macro for most cameras, 60mm f/2.8 Nikkor macro for Nikon bodies, and Olympus Zuiko 50mm f/2.0 for Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds bodies). To insure that the hair detail we use for making critical judgements about camera noise processing and detail rendering is in sharp focus at the relatively wide aperture we're shooting at, the focus target at the center of the scene is on a movable stand. This lets us compensate for front- or back-focus by different camera bodies, even those that lack micro-focus adjustments. This does mean, though, that the focus target itself may appear soft or slightly out of focus for bodies that front- or back-focused with the reference lens. We know this; if you click to view the full-size image for one of these shots and notice that the focus target is fuzzy, you don't need to email and tell us. :-) The focus target position will have been adjusted to insure that the rest of the scene is focused properly.

Extremes: Sunlit, dynamic range, and low light tests
Very good detail in both highlights and shadows, with good dynamic range despite high contrast. Excellent low-light performance, capable of focusing and capturing bright images in near darkness.

Sunlight
The Nikon D7200 handled the deliberately harsh lighting in the test above well. Though contrast is high, shadow and highlight detail are both very good. As mentioned, the +0.7 EV exposure did the best job here, producing a reasonably bright face without blowing out many highlights, though some users may prefer the +1.0 EV exposure as the eyes are brighter. It's really up to the user and whether you plan on doing any adjustments in post. Despite the bright appearance in white areas, there are relatively few clipped highlights in the mannequins's shirt and the flowers at +0.7 EV, and shadow detail is very good with very low noise and little color pollution. Excellent performance here, but be sure to use fill flash in situations like the one shown above, or shoot in the shade when possible.

Because digital cameras are more like slide film than negative film (in that they tend to have a more limited tonal range), we test them in the harshest situations to see how they handle scenes with bright highlights and dark shadows, as well as what kind of sensitivity they have in low light. The shot above is designed to mimic the very harsh, contrasty effect of direct noonday sunlight, a very tough challenge for most digital cameras. (You can read details of this test here.)

Face Detection (0 EV)
Off Aperture-priority 0 EV	Auto mode (Portrait) 0 EV	Live View with Face-priority AF 0 EV

Face Detection. Here, we can see the effect of the Nikon D7200's full Auto mode as well as face detection enabled in Live View mode. As you can see from the shots above, full Auto which selected Portrait Scene mode produced a well-exposed subject and background. To do that, it boosted ISO to 800, applied Active D-lighting and selected an aperture of f/5.6. In Live View mode using Aperture-priority, Face-priority AF mode also greatly improved the exposure versus Aperture-priority with the optical viewfinder, selecting a slower shutter speed of 1/30s versus 1/60s to brighten the image (since the other two exposure variables of aperture and ISO were fixed).

Active D-Lighting
Active D-Lighting attempts to preserve detail in both highlights and shadows in high-contrast situations, while maintaining moderate levels of contrast. The series of shots below show the effect of the various Active D-Lighting settings available on the Nikon D7200 on our high-contrast "Sunlit" Portrait scene. Note that Active D-Lighting is different from the touch-up menu's D-Lighting, as it is performed during image capture instead of after. (It does affect only JPEG images though, Nikon very properly doesn't apply tonal adjustments like this to RAW file data. NEF files, however, are tagged so that Nikon software can automatically apply the effect when converted.)

"Sunlit" Portrait Active D-Lighting (0 EV)
	ADL Settings: Auto (Default) Off Low Normal High Extra High

Mouse over the links to see how the various levels of Active D-Lighting affects our "Sunlit" Portrait shot at default exposure. Click on a link to get to the full-res image. (Active D-Lighting's effect can be a little subtle in shots like those above, so we decided to use a mouse-over to better show how each setting compares to Off.)

As you can see from the images and histograms above, enabling Auto Active D-Lighting resulted in a brighter, much more balanced image with boosted shadows and midtones, yet very few highlights were blown. Also notice how the manual strength settings tended boosted shadows and midtones less than Auto, but stronger settings reduced highlights further. Note that the effect of Active D-Lighting will vary quite a bit with the subject and lighting: The camera decides what needs adjusting, and by how much, so the effect can be quite a bit greater or lesser depending on what the camera "sees".

See below for how Active D-Lighting worked on our Far-field shot.

Far-field Active D-Lighting (0 EV)
Off	Auto	Low
Normal	High	Extra High

Here are the results with our Far-field shot. As you can see, Active D-Lighting brought up shadow detail while holding on to more of the highlights, though the difference between different strengths can be subtle.

HDR Mode
The D7200 offers an in-camera high-dynamic-range imaging function, a feature that's becoming quite common these days. When enabled, the D7200 captures two images with one push of the shutter button -- one underexposed and one overexposed -- and combines them in-camera to produce a high-dynamic-range JPEG. (RAW format is not supported.) The Nikon D7200 seems to perform micro-alignment of the two images so the user manual warns of possible cropping but Nikon recommends the use of a tripod, so it can likely only correct for very small amounts of camera movement between shots. Obviously moving subjects should also be avoided.

"Sunlit" Portrait HDR (0 EV)
	HDR Settings: Off (Default) Low Normal High Extra High Auto

Unlike some Nikons which allow you to set the exposure differential between the two images from 1, 2 or 3 EV, and also adjust the amount of "smoothing" that is applied to the boundaries between the two images with selections of Low, Medium and High, the D7200 takes a simpler approach offering just four strengths in addition to Auto. Mouse over the links above to see how various levels of HDR affects our "Sunlit" Portrait shot and click on a link to get to the full-res image.

Although portraits aren't good subjects for HDR images, you can still see higher levels make quite a difference to the overall exposure by opening up shadow detail but they can lead to artificial looking shadows around bright objects or halos and glowing around dark ones.

Far-field HDR (0 EV)
Off	Low	Normal
High	Extra High	Auto

Here are the same HDR settings with our Far-field shot. Again, some settings do a good job of taming hot highlights while bringing up some of the shadows and deeper midtones, while stronger settings cause a lot of glowing and halos. You can also see ghosting in the flag and leaves from movement between the exposures caused by wind. While not perfect, it's still a useful feature for capturing static scenes with dynamic range that exceeds the capability of the sensor for those not willing to use manual HDR techniques (bracketing exposure and then combining images in post-processing).

Dynamic Range Analysis (RAW mode)
While we once performed our own dynamic range measurements based on in-camera JPEGs as well as converted RAW images (when the camera was supported by Adobe Camera Raw), we've switched to using DxO Labs' results from their DxOMark website. As technology advanced, the dynamic range of modern high-end cameras in some cases exceeded the range of the Stouffer T4110 density scale that we used for our own measurements. DxO's approach based on RAW data before demosaicing is also more revealing, because it measures the fundamental dynamic range of the sensor, irrespective of whatever processing is applied to JPEGs, or to RAW data by off-the-shelf conversion software.

In the following, we use DxO's "Print" dynamic range results, which are scaled based on camera resolution. As the name suggests, this scaling corresponds to the situation in which you print at a given size, regardless of how many megapixels the camera might have. (In other words, if you've decided to make a 13x19 inch print, that's the size you're printing, whether the camera's resolution is 16 or 300 megapixels.) For the technically-minded, you can find a discussion of the reasoning behind this here on the DxOMark website. Also note that DxO Labs uses a signal-to-noise (SNR) threshold of 1 when defining the lower boundary of acceptable luminance noise in their dynamic range measurements, which corresponds to the "Low Quality" threshold of the Imatest software we used to use for this measurement.

Here, we compare the Nikon D7200's dynamic range to its predecessor, the D7100, and also to the 7D Mark II, Canon's flagship APS-C DSLR.

As you can see from the above graph (click for a larger image), the D7200's dynamic range is improved over the D7100 at low ISOs, with almost an entire stop advantage at base ISO (14.6 vs 13.7 EV). At other sensitivities the D7200 only has a slight advantage or performs on par, except at maximum ISO were dynamic range tested a tad lower (6.5 vs 6.8 EV) than its predecessor. Still, a worthwhile improvement in dynamic range at low ISO.

The D7200's dynamic range is however significantly higher than the 7D Mark II's at low to moderately high ISOs, with the Nikon producing more than a 2-3/4 EV advantage (14.6 vs 11.8 EV) at base ISO. Only at the Nikon's highest ISO of 25,600 does the Canon slightly best it at about 6.6 vs 6.5 EV.

Bottom line, outstanding dynamic range performance from the D7200, the best score yet from an APS-C camera and better than most full-frame models. Click here to visit the DxOMark page for the Nikon D7200 for more of their test results and additional comparisons.

	1 fc 11 lux	1/16 fc 0.67 lux	1/16fc No NR
ISO 100	2s, f2.8	30s, f2.8	30s, f2.8
ISO 3200	1/15s, f2.8	1s, f2.8	1s, f2.8
ISO 25600	1/125s, f2.8	1/8s, f2.8	1/8s, f2.8

Low Light. The Nikon D7200 performed very well in our low-light tests, capturing usable images at the lowest light level we test (1/16 foot-candle) even with the lowest sensitivity setting (ISO 100). As you'd expect, noise is higher at ISO 3200 but remains well-controlled and very fine-grained. Unsurprisingly, the maximum full-color ISO of 25,600 is however quite noisy with noticeably less detail, and is best avoided except for small prints and in emergencies.

We didn't notice any significant issues with hot pixels or heat blooming, and unlike the D7100, pattern noise seen in deep shadows is very low.

Color balance was good with the Auto white balance setting at one foot-candle, just slightly cool, though there's the strong shift towards magenta at lower light levels we often see from Nikons.

The camera's phase-detection autofocus system was able to focus on our test subject down to below the 1/16 foot-candle light level unassisted with an f/2.8 lens, which is excellent. And the Nikon D7200 was able to autofocus in complete darkness with the AF assist enabled. In Live View mode, the camera's contrast-detect autofocus didn't do as well, only able to focus down to just below the 1/4 foot-candle, and AF assist is not supported in Live View mode.

Keep in mind that the longer shutter speeds here demand the use of a tripod to prevent any blurring from camera movement. (A useful trick is to just prop the camera on a convenient surface, and use its self-timer to release the shutter. This avoids any jiggling from your finger pressing the shutter button, and can work quite well when you don't have a tripod handy.)

How bright is this? The one foot-candle light level that this test begins at roughly corresponds to the brightness of typical city street-lighting at night. Cameras performing well at that level should be able to snap good-looking photos of street-lit scenes.

NOTE: This low light test is conducted with a stationary subject, and the camera mounted on a sturdy tripod. Most digital cameras will fail miserably when faced with a moving subject in dim lighting. (For example, a child's ballet recital or a holiday pageant in a gymnasium.) Digital SLRs like the Nikon D7200 do much better than point & shoots, but you still shouldn't expect a quick autofocus lock with moving subjects.

The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Nikon D7200 Photo Gallery .

Not sure which camera to buy? Let your eyes be the ultimate judge! Visit our Comparometer(tm) to compare images from the Nikon D7200 with those from other cameras you may be considering. The proof is in the pictures, so let your own eyes decide which you like best!

Performance

Image Quality

Below are crops from our laboratory Still Life target comparing the Nikon D7200 vs. the Nikon D7100, Canon 7D Mark II, Pentax K-3, Samsung NX1 and Sony A77 II. These models represent the top current enthusiast APS-C offerings from their manufacturer.

NOTE: These images are best quality JPEGs straight out of the camera, at default settings including noise reduction and using the camera's actual base ISO (not extended ISO settings). All cameras in this comparison were shot with our very sharp reference lenses. Clicking any crop will take you to a carrier page where you can click once again to access the full resolution image as delivered straight from the camera. For those interested in working with the RAW files involved: click these links to visit each camera's respective sample image thumbnail page:Nikon D7200, Nikon D7100, Canon 7D Mark II, Pentax K-3, Samsung NX1 and Sony A77 II -- links to the RAW files appear beneath those for the JPEG images, wherever we have them. And remember, you can always go to our world-renowned Comparometer to compare the Nikon D7200 to any camera we've ever tested.

Nikon D7200 vs Nikon D7100 at Base ISO

Nikon D7200 at ISO 100	Nikon D7100 at ISO 100
With a similar chip but a new Expeed 4 processor, we do see some obvious differences here at base ISO, at least with the in-camera JPEGs. The bottle lettering and mosaic tiles on the D7200 appear crisper with higher contrast, as does the pink fabric swatch, and there are more obvious sharpening haloes along high-contrast edges. Curiously, the red fabric swatch shows far less fine detail than on the D7100.

Nikon D7200 vs Canon 7D Mark II at Base ISO

Nikon D7200 at ISO 100	Canon 7D Mark II at ISO 100
With roughly 4 more megapixels resolution, there's an apparent size difference between these two competitors. The D7200 is capable of more fine detail in most areas, and notably in the pink fabric swatch which the 7D II somewhat misses here.

Nikon D7200 vs Pentax K-3 at Base ISO

Nikon D7200 at ISO 100	Pentax K-3 at ISO 100
Similar resolutions and similar results between these two models, at least in the first two crops. The K3 appears to extract just a wee bit more fine detail in the mosaic tiles area, and certainly more in the red fabric (a very accurate rendition, actually!) but then loses some ground in the pink fabric for both fine detail loss and inaccurate hue rendering (too much towards the magenta side).

Nikon D7200 vs Samsung NX1 at Base ISO

Nikon D7200 at ISO 100	Samsung NX1 at ISO 100
With about 4 more megapixels resolution as well as more aggressive default sharpening, the NX1 displays quite a bit more fine detail here at base ISO than does the D7200. This will be an interesting contest as ISO rises down below!

Nikon D7200 vs Sony A77 II at Base ISO

Nikon D7200 at ISO 100	Sony A77 II at ISO 100
The cameras have roughly the same resolution but the crops were made in slightly different areas, and thus the initial difference in appearance. It's really a very close call between these two here at base ISO. The D7200 has perhaps just a touch more fine detail in the first two crops, while the A77 II reverses that in the red fabric swatch with more detail present.

Nikon D7200 vs Nikon D7100 at ISO 1600

Nikon D7200 at ISO 1600	Nikon D7100 at ISO 1600
Wow... the first two crops from the D7200 are far cleaner than the predecessor, and yet it loses all contrast detail in the red swatch! This is a somewhat startling trend, because Nikons have traditionally handled the red swatch better than most anyone else across the board. The D7200 does do better in the pink swatch though.

Nikon D7200 vs Canon 7D Mark II at ISO 1600

Nikon D7200 at ISO 1600	Canon 7D Mark II at ISO 1600
Similar to the above comparison, The D7200 does a better job at controlling noise while preserving some detail in most all areas except for the red fabric.

Nikon D7200 vs Pentax K-3 at ISO 1600

Nikon D7200 at ISO 1600	Pentax K-3 at ISO 1600
The D7200 slightly bests the K3 in all areas of this comparison, especially in the top bottle crop.

Nikon D7200 vs Samsung NX1 at ISO 1600

Nikon D7200 at ISO 1600	Samsung NX1 at ISO 1600
This is where matters get even more interesting. Where the NX1 shows more fine detail rendering on a first glance, so too does it begin to introduce unwanted artifacts, such as small mottling areas in the bottle, and some smearing in the mosaic tiles. Neither camera performs well with the fabric swatches here.

Nikon D7200 vs Sony A77 II at ISO 1600

Nikon D7200 at ISO 1600	Sony A77 II at ISO 1600
The A77 II also suffers from artifacts due to aggressive attempts at sharpening, displaying some mottling in the bottle crop and smearing in the mosaic tiles. It does however out-perform in the tricky red swatch here.

Nikon D7200 vs Nikon D7100 at ISO 3200

Nikon D7200 at ISO 3200	Nikon D7100 at ISO 3200
At ISO 3200 the D7100 has quite a bit more noise in the first crop, though renders the mosaic tile area a bit more accurately and brings some detail to the red fabric, though again not the pink fabric. Each cameras have good and bad areas here.

Nikon D7200 vs Canon 7D Mark II at ISO 3200

Nikon D7200 at ISO 3200	Canon 7D Mark II at ISO 3200
As with ISO 1600, the D7200 wins this competition handily in virtually all areas except the red fabric.

Nikon D7200 vs Pentax K-3 at ISO 3200

Nikon D7200 at ISO 3200	Pentax K-3 at ISO 3200
Similarly, the K3 can't hold stride with the D7200 as ISO rises, displaying quite a bit of noise in some areas and smearing in others.

Nikon D7200 vs Samsung NX1 at ISO 3200

Nikon D7200 at ISO 3200	Samsung NX1 at ISO 3200
The NX1 images are tough to look at here, and become quite a mess. Best to remain at ISO 1600 and below with that camera, at least if you're shooting default JPEGs. Processing from RAW files will likely yield better results than the camera can do on its own.

Nikon D7200 vs Sony A77 II at ISO 3200

Nikon D7200 at ISO 3200	Sony A77 II at ISO 3200
The A77 II is no match here, losing ground in all areas except the red fabric.

Nikon D7200 vs. Nikon D7100, Canon 7D Mark II, Pentax K-3, Samsung NX1 and Sony A77 II

Nikon D7200 ISO 100 ISO 3200 ISO 6400	Nikon D7100 ISO 100 ISO 3200 ISO 6400	Canon 7D Mark II ISO 100 ISO 3200 ISO 6400	Pentax K-3 ISO 100 ISO 3200 ISO 6400	Samsung NX1 ISO 100 ISO 3200 ISO 6400	Sony A77 II ISO 100 ISO 3200 ISO 6400
Detail comparison. This is always an interesting table, and often yields somewhat different results than we see in the above tables, as fine detail is often rendered differently than other areas of our test target. The D7200 does a good job at balancing the detail without going overboard on the processing, most evident in the small red lettering. The NX1 brings a good amount of detail out of the Pur bottle letters, but we do start to see a trace of the smearing as ISO rises much as we saw in the above higher ISO tables. The 7D II and A77 II both do fairly well here, while the D7100 and K3 lose a bit of ground to the rest.

Nikon D7200 Print Quality

ISO 100/200 deliver excellent prints at 30 x 40 inches and higher, as large as you can go until resolution begins to show up, with rich, vibrant colors and nice overall tonal depth.

ISO 400 prints are almost as good as at the top two ISOs, with only the faintest hint of noise in a few flatter areas of our target, and useful for all but the most critical of applications. For our official rating, we'll call 24 x 36 inch prints "good" here.

ISO 800 yields 20 x 30 inch prints that are quite good, with only subtle traces of noise in a few of the flatter areas of our target, and just a hint of softness in a few fine detail areas. It's also beginning to lose all evidence of fine detail on our tricky target red swatch, which is normal for most cameras except Nikons, which tend to do it better. They must have changed their default noise processing engine somewhat radically, though it works quite well in all other areas except for that one.

ISO 1600 produces a nice 16 x 20 inch print, quite good for an APS-C camera body at this ISO(!) and is also the first setting at which the D7200 outperforms its predecessor by a print size. Virtually all contrast detail is now lost in our target red swatch, but that's the only issue as all other areas look very good for both accurate color and fine detail.

ISO 3200 delivers an 11 x 14 inch print that looks similar in quality to the 16 x 20 at ISO 1600, where only the red swatch detail is lost, and all other areas work well including full color reproduction.

ISO 6400 prints an 11 x 14 that shows a bit too much noise to warrant our "good" rating, but are more than adequate for less critical applications. We'll give the 8 x 10's our full seal of approval here.

ISO 12,800 yields a very good 5 x 7 inch print. Unless you super-scope the image with a loupe you'd never know you were looking at an ISO this high, except for the loss of all fine detail in the target red swatch.

ISO 25,600 shows the D7200 once again besting its predecessor, as it's able to deliver a good 4 x 6 inch print with minimal visible noise, where the D7100 was unable to do so at this ISO.

The Nikon D7200 is a clear step up compared to the already very good D7100, besting it at two settings by a size but appearing better in general at all ISOs. It shows less noise all around, and yet somehow loses the target red swatch by about ISO 1600, which is unlike most Nikon bodies. One can only assume that they've tweaked their processing in order to further minimize noise in flatter areas, with the downside of the tweak showing up in the loss of detail in the red swatch. Still, this APS-C body delivers a super-solid 16 x 20 inch print at ISO 1600, and that's a worthwhile achievement. Well done on this one for image quality, Nikon.

Field Test

Field Test Part II

It's time to beat the heatwave with one mighty cool camera!

By Mike Tomkins | Posted: 07/10/2015

60mm-equivalent, 1/160 sec. @ f/6.3, ISO 100

On paper at least, the Nikon D7200 is a camera whose design appeals to me. Much like my own daily shooter, Ricoh's Pentax K-3, the D7200 is an enthusiast-grade DSLR that packs features into a relatively compact body, and comes with an affordable price-tag as well. As well as the K-3, the D7200 competes head-on with the Canon 70D.

Before we get started, if you want to see how its specifications compare with its rivals, as well as both its predecessors -- the D7000 and D7100 -- you'll find side-by-side comparisons at the links below.

Nikon D7200 vs. Pentax K-3
Nikon D7200 vs. Canon 70D
Nikon D7200 vs. Nikon D7100
Nikon D7200 vs. Nikon D7000

Although I didn't personally write our Shooter's Reports for the earlier D7000-class cameras, whose heritage the Nikon D7200 builds upon, I've shot with and enjoyed both cameras. And I have to say, I really like the basic body design, which is inherited almost unchanged from the D7200. Sure, it's not quite as compact as my K-3, but it's comfortable in-hand and most controls are very well-placed.

Really, my only minor complaints in the ergonomics department are the locations of the metering and function buttons. The metering button is a bit of a stretch for my index finger, and at 6'1" tall, I probably have larger hands than many of you. And the function button, tucked as it is alongside the bottom right corner of the lens mount, is even trickier to reach. (It's easiest to press with my pinky finger, but with even a moderately-large lens on the D7200 that motion is a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps that's just the onset of carpal tunnel from my job as a camera reviewer, though!)

I certainly appreciate the sheer profusion of dedicated controls, though. It takes a little while to get used to them, and can be a bit intimidating when you first start shooting with the Nikon D7200, but everything very quickly becomes second nature. And once you've become one with the camera's layout, you save a lot of time that, with a less control-rich camera, you'd have spent digging through the menu system.

120mm-equivalent, 1/125 sec. @ f/5.3, ISO 900

And that's definitely a good thing here, because even though it's fairly well-organized compared to some cameras I've shot with, there is such a profusion of options that you can still get a bit lost in the Nikon D7200's menu layout. There are no less than seven tabs lining the left side of the screen, and most of these contain anywhere from two to four pages of options. The Custom Setting menu is even more gargantuan, at a whopping seven pages long, although it's at least placed behind an overview screen that helps you start off at the right page if you know where the option you're looking for is to be found.

One feature I definitely appreciate in this class of camera is weather-sealing. It's nice to know your camera can keep on shooting even if the heavens open up -- assuming you're using a weather-sealed lens, of course. That certainly wasn't going to be a concern on this particular shoot, though, because the temperatures were absolutely blazing hot. In fact, I'd decided to go on an impromptu roadtrip to Lexington, Kentucky with my family, partly in search of new and interesting subjects, and partly because we wanted to escape temperatures that were threatening to break into the triple digits. (For those of you who don't speak Fahrenheit, it was around 36-38 Celsius!)

I'd never been to Lexington before, and was immediately taken by this very lovely city. Arriving late on a Saturday evening, I had a little while to familiarize myself with the Nikon D7200 before I headed out the following morning to the nearby Pleasant Hill Shaker Village, a beautifully-preserved religious community that was first formed in the early 1800s, and was finally dissolved around 1910. And as well as the village itself, I had some extra color for my lens thanks to an antique show taking place on the village grounds.

As I browsed the antiques -- and thanked my lucky stars I hadn't arrived with cash in hand, because there were far too many things I'd have loved to buy -- I focused instead on getting some nice shots. The Nikon D7200 made light work of that task, perfectly recording the rich colors in some of these beautiful antiques, and putting the point of focus just where I wanted it.

135mm-equivalent, 1/80 sec. @ f/5.3, ISO 100

Given that I'd been anticipating shooting subjects at all manner of distances, I'd settled on the AF-S DX Nikkor 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens for my day's shooting, and the combination proved more than up to the task of giving me soft, smoothly-blurred backgrounds when I wanted it to, as well. All things considered, I was really enjoying shooting with the Nikon D7200!

There was one feature which I really did find myself missing, though. I've shot quite a few mirrorless cameras aimed at enthusiasts recently, and while they lack the D7200's lovely thru-the-lens optical viewfinder -- even the best electronic viewfinder has yet to really match an optical finder for that sense of connection to your subject -- they definitely bested it in another respect. To help make the most of the full-time live view of a mirrorless camera, manufacturers often add articulated LCD monitor, which really helps when framing from awkward angles.

With the Nikon D7200, there's no such convenience, which is a shame. Its live view mode doesn't focus as quickly as when shooting through the viewfinder, certainly, but it's plenty fast enough for handheld shooting in good light -- and under the blazing sunshine I had that in spades.

A couple of times, I found myself wanting to get a really low-to-the-ground shot -- in one case, with the camera almost sitting on the lush lawn, so that the foreground would blur out and give a sense of depth. There was no way I was going to get my eye to the viewfinder from this angle, obviously, and so I switched to live view mode, where I quickly realized that framing the shot accurately was going to prove nearly impossible.

The problem was that with the camera so low, my view of the LCD monitor was absolutely filled with reflections, even if I kneeled as low as I could get. To get the shot, I ended up having to prostrate myself on the lawn, shooting one-handed while trying to shield the monitor with my free hand.

Is there anything we photographers won't do to get the image? My wife was greatly amused -- and got a quick blackmail shot -- as I prostrated myself on the Shaker Village lawn. I had no choice, since the Nikon D7200's LCD won't tilt and couldn't be seen through all the reflections. Yes, I look ridiculous, but I got the photo I was after!

On a slightly less sunny day, I could probably have gotten away with just crouching as low as possible, but on a day as bright as this one I was left with no other choice. A tilt/swivel screen would've saved me the slightly curious looks I received from passers-by, not to mention the mirth of my wife, who took the chance to get some blackmail-worthy photos of me laying on the lawn.

90mm-equivalent, 1/500 sec. @ f/5.6, ISO 100

I can understand the lack of a tilting screen on a professional DSLR, as it's potentially a weak link in the chain when you're rushing around trying to get the best angles, perhaps juggling several different cameras at the same time. Much as they tend to shun built-in flash strobes, pros look at articulated screens as something that could easily be broken. For an enthusiast camera like this, though, an articulated screen -- and preferably, a side-mounted tilt/swivel type -- is a huge plus, and were I shooting the competing Canon 70D, I'd have had one.

But other than that complaint, I must admit that I was really having a lot of fun with the Nikon D7200. (And getting some really great results, as well.) It shoots quickly, confidently, and it was rapidly beginning to feel like an extension of my own body.

After a quick family pow-wow, we decided that we were getting rather too hot and sweaty wandering around the Shaker Village, though, and we'd heard tell that the village also operated a paddlewheel steamer on a nearby river. Getting under shelter and feeling a nice breeze down by the water struck us as a good way to cool back down, so we set out in search of the Dixie Belle, the village's 20-ton, 115-seat paddlewheel. (That's tiny by paddleboat standards, but still pretty large for the section of river she roams.)

She has a rather storied history, having broken free of her moorings during flooding on the Kentucky River a few years ago, and floated unmanned over the top of a dam before being rescued several miles downstream. With the lock alongside the dam no longer serviceable, the Dixie Belle had to be partially dismantled and returned home by road.

Our river trip was a very fun experience, and it gave me the perfect opportunity to test out one of the Nikon D7200's upgraded features, although ideally, I would've used a much longer lens. (The other optics I have in hand for my review are even shorter than the 18-140mm lens I was using on this particular day, unfortunately.) The subject that presented itself was a bald eagle, something I'd never seen in person since I first moved to the USA about 16 years ago.

Even without seeing the bald eagle, I'd have been happy enough with the shots I got down by the river. Again, image quality was great, and the Nikon D7200 performed well. It was once I started rattling off lengthy bursts of raw+JPEG frames as the eagle circled our steamboat that I really got an appreciation for how burst depth had improved, however.

I'm not sharing any of the images in the gallery simply because, with the lens I had on hand, the D7200 couldn't bring the bird close enough to be very noticeable without very strong cropping of the image. (And we like to share work straight out of the camera in our reviews, so that you can judge what the camera is capable of, rather than our editing chops.)

Bald Eagle on the Kentucky River: I'm not including the original version of this photo in my gallery because I didn't have a powerful-enough lens to do this beautiful bald eagle justice. (The bird itself is only some 450 pixels across in the original image.) With that said, I learned plenty about the Nikon D7200's much-improved burst depth as I rattled off dozens of shots while the eagle gracefully circled our paddlewheel steamer.

Suffice to say that with the earlier D7100, I'd have been lucky to get six raw frames in a row before the camera slowed down, with subsequent frames taking well over a second each. With the Nikon D7200, I could happily rattle off around a dozen 14-bit, losslessly-compressed raw files before the camera slowed down, which was easily enough to get a good selection of frames as the eagle reached the closest point in its circuit to our boat. (And if I'd wanted more, Nikon's specs suggest that switching to 12-bit lossy compressed raws would have likely increased this by about 50%.)

51mm-equivalent, 1/125 sec. @ f/5.6, ISO 100

Being rather pleased with my photo, and wanting to see it on a bigger screen -- my Android-based Sony Xperia Z2 smartphone has a rather gorgeous one -- I decided to try out the Wi-Fi functionality of the Nikon D7200. I must say that I really appreciate the fact this function is now in-camera, with no need for clumsy external accessories or Wi-Fi flash cards.

Given that my phone runs Android and the Nikon D7200 includes an NFC radio, I figured that the first step would be to gently bump phone and camera together, ensuring that their NFC logos were in close proximity. Curiously, though, this just popped up the rather opaque message "New tag collected: Empty tag." Not what I was expecting, as in most NFC-equipped devices I've tried to date, the same technique would open the Google Play store to the right page for the required app, saving me searching for it myself.

A little digging turned up the cause: Before you can use the NFC tag, you must first go into the Setup menu and enable NFC. That's a rather curious design. I don't think it's being done to save power, because NFC uses so little power in the first place. Nor does it really help security either, because NFC has a range of at best an inch or two. By the time somebody is close enough to pair with your camera, they're close enough to go into the menu and enable NFC for themselves -- or just take your camera and flash card with them, if they have nefarious intent. ;-)

39mm-equivalent, 1/250 sec. @ f/8, ISO 100

Whatever the reason for this odd behavior, enabling NFC resolved the problem, and a quick tap of phone to camera brought me to the somewhat awkwardly-named Nikon WirelessMobileUtility app in Google's Play Store. I downloaded it, and one more tap of the devices launched the app, enabling Wi-Fi on the camera and pairing the devices for me. (I did have to agree to the terms and conditions on my phone, but that's a one-time process.)

The Wireless Mobile Utility app -- which is not-so-descriptively named "wmu" in my phone's app list, although the icon does at least include a Nikon logo -- presents two very straightforward options when you start it up: Take Photos or View Photos. I started off with the latter, and was pleased to see a pretty full feature set. Not only could I download my JPEG images, either at VGA, "recommended size" or original resolution, but also raw files and even high-definition movies shot with the D7200. That's pretty rare, in my experience -- most cameras limit you only to JPEG transfer.

("Recommended size", by the way, turned out to be 1,620 x 1,080 pixels for me. I'm guessing that this may change depending on the resolution of your device's screen, paring down the device resolution to match the aspect ratio of the image you want to transfer. I didn't have another device handy with which to confirm this assumption, though.)

And transfer speeds were very good indeed, with photos taking just a second or two, and even short 10-second Full HD movie clips transferring in just a few seconds. That's the good news. Less so is that the feature-set in Take Photos mode is very limited indeed.

You can select whether the camera itself will be used to trip the shutter, or you want to do so from the phone remotely. If you're shooting with the camera, you don't get a live view feed or any remote control functionality. In this mode, photos can simply be transferred to your phone or tablet as they're shot. Alternatively, you can get an optional live-view feed that you can tap to focus, and options to automatically download images as they're captured, or to use a self-timer.

142mm-equivalent, 1/160 sec. @ f/5.3, ISO 1100

If you desire, you can also have the camera's time automatically updated to match that from your phone, and piggyback on its GPS receiver to geotag your images (although this is bound to drain both phone and camera's batteries fairly quickly -- much more so than a dedicated GPS receiver in the camera would have done.)

But that's really about it. You can't change any settings from your phone, and the controls on the camera body are all disabled when live view is active. There's a workaround which at least allows you to control exposure variables, but it's a bit clumsy -- you have to either configure the camera before switching to Take Photos mode, or switch briefly to using the camera's shutter button, make your changes to aperture or shutter speed, then return to live view from your phone. On the plus side, at least the Wi-Fi connection remains paired.

And that last is doubly important because I found Wi-Fi quite finicky. My phone would connect to the Nikon D7200 fine on the first try, and maybe a few times after that when I used the NFC pairing. Very quickly, though, I would get into a situation where no amount of trying would get phone and camera to connect to each other -- even power-cycling them, disabling and reenabling Wi-Fi, or connecting to the camera's visible Wi-Fi network manually wouldn't resolve the problem. The only fix at this point was to enter network settings on the camera and then reset them. I could then re-pair phone and camera, and everything would work normally until the next lockup. And speaking of lockups, Wireless Mobile Utility did so entirely at one point, with Android asking me to force-close the app report the problem to Nikon.

45mm-equivalent, 1/200 sec. @ f/7.1, ISO 100

Even when paired, the live view was a little stuttery from a range of just a foot or two. Move to a distance of ten feet or so from the camera, and the live view feed would struggle to keep up, pausing once every few seconds for a good half-second or more, and then suddenly catching back up to near-real time. With a wall between myself and the camera, the connection would be near-unusably slow, and two walls or a distance of 40-50 feet was enough to cause the connection to be dropped altogether. (At which point, the devices wouldn't reconnect with each other automatically, and I'd have to reconnect them with a tap or manually myself.)

I'm hopeful that these problems are specific to my phone, or perhaps to Android devices. (Although saying that, my phone is pretty modern, powerful, and plays nicely with many other recent cameras.) There's a little more good news, though: Unlike many such apps, Nikon's Wireless Mobile Utility app didn't force me to use portrait mode on my phone.

That meant that when live view was working properly, I could get a much, much larger preview on my phone's screen than that provided on the camera's LCD monitor. The tradeoff is that the limited status information -- shutter speed, aperture, shots remaining and battery level -- which are shown in portrait mode aren't visible in landscape. You can, however, see them easily enough by rotating your phone briefly, then rotate it back to get a bigger live view once more.

All things considered, I think the Wi-Fi app shows some promise. If its reliability issues and somewhat limited range can be improved -- perhaps by giving user control over the live view feed resolution -- and if Nikon can allow for some remote settings control capabilities, it could have a real winner on its hand. Quirks aside, I already found it pretty useful for transferring images I'd already shot, and it's much more seamless than a clunky external Wi-Fi dongle.

(Especially when you consider that with a Wi-Fi accessory plugged into the camera, your weather-sealing is compromised, meaning that you can't shoot in inclement conditions. Here, you get Wi-Fi in a weather-sealed body, and weather-sealed phones and tablets are readily available these days too, for a closed loop of weather-sealed, wireless connectivity goodness.)

And that brings me to the end of my first Nikon D7200 field test -- and with more than half a charge remaining on the battery still, after around 400 images captured, a good bit of chimping and ages spent playing with Wi-Fi. Still to come in my second field test, I'm planning to look at how the Nikon D7200 does in low light and at higher sensitivities. I'd also like to take a look at some of its new movie features, and perhaps try out its time-lapse exposure smoothing function.

Do you have anything you'd like me to test on the Nikon D7200, or any questions you'd like answered? Sound off in the comments below, and I'll do my best to include your requests in my second field test, coming soon!

Field Test Part III

High ISO, long exposure and a smorgasbord of movie goodness!

By Mike Tomkins | Posted: 08/28/2015

142mm-equivalent, 1/160 sec. @ f/5.3, ISO 3200

In the first part of my Nikon D7200 Field Test, I found much to love in this rugged, enthusiast-grade DSLR. Its weather-sealed body might come with a bit of a learning curve due to its extremely generous array of controls, but after a while becomes second nature, and helps keep your attention focused on your subject.

And while I found its Wi-Fi wireless networking connectivity a little rough around the edges, and missed the presence of any articulation mechanism for the D7200's monitor, I felt it was otherwise a camera that's a whole lot of fun to shoot with. And the results spoke for themselves: On a spur-of-the-moment trip to Lexington, Kentucky, I got a whole raft of photos that I was very happy with.

Exposure and white balance were accurate, and colors convincing. And there was detail by the boatload, just as you'd expect from its 24-megapixel image sensor. But that was all in the daytime: I still had quite a bit more testing to do before I drew any final conclusions.

Running down my To-Do list

For my second Field Test, I wanted to take the Nikon D7200 out for a late afternoon / evening shoot, and with nearby downtown Knoxville beckoning, that's just what I did earlier this week. Top of my list to check was the D7200's movie-recording chops, as Nikon has beefed up its feature set quite substantially in this area. And I also wanted to see how still image quality fared once the sun set, both for high sensitivity and long-exposure captures.

75mm-equivalent, 1/60 sec. @ f/4.8, ISO 25,600

Perhaps most of all, though, I was excited to try out the D7200's updated time-lapse mode, which now features an exposure smoothing function. I've been on a bit of a time-lapse kick lately, and this new addition seemed pretty much ideal for recording the transition from day to night. I'd been meaning to do just that in Knoxville's World's Fair Park for a while now, as I think it makes for a rather pretty transition as the sun sets and the lights come on. Doubly so with Knoxville's iconic Sunsphere standing in the foreground, crowned by its golden sphere reflecting the warmth of the last few sunrays.

Choosing the right angle

And so it was here I started my shooting, scouting around downtown for a good angle about an hour before sunset. To help out, I had one of my favorite Android apps on hand: Adam Ratana's excellent Sun Surveyor Lite. (I've been meaning to try out the payware version, but this wasn't the day for it as I was running a bit behind schedule. iOS users, too, can get both the free and paid apps on their platform, incidentally.)

Initially, I was planning to try and catch the sunset right behind the Sunsphere, and Sun Surveyor let me figure out right where and when it was going to take place. As it transpired, though, I couldn't find an angle I liked, mostly because of the rather curious decision to build the Sunsphere in a slight depression that's surrounded by higher ground, way back when Knoxville was preparing to host the 1982 World's Fair. And for a change, I actually found myself hoping for a cloud or two with which to give the scene a bit more motion and excitement in time-lapse, but the sky was clear in that direction.

And so, instead, I set up down in World's Fair Park itself, shooting pretty much at right-angles to the sunset. I ended up choosing my position about 20 minutes before the sun was set to make its exit, stage right, and that gave me just enough time to shoot a few trial time-lapses to make sure I was fully prepared.

Exposure smoothing isn't infallible, but definitely helps

And it's a good thing I did, because I very quickly made a discovery: Nikon's new exposure smoothing function is no panacea, by any means. Even when enabled, you can still get some very noticeably flickering in your videos, as you'll see in the clip above.

By the time I'd realized this was going to prove to be an issue, I only had limited time left before I wanted to start my time-lapse, so I went with the first thing that seemed to improve the situation: Switching to a longer two-second interval instead of my original one second.

That did largely resolve the problem, leaving only relatively minimal flicker towards the end of an otherwise very nice result in my final video. I'm not quite sure why that would be, though. The metering mode was set to matrix, and although I was shooting in program mode, two exposures of an essentially identical scene just a second apart shouldn't yield significantly different exposures.

Be that as it may, though, the exposure smoothing function is certainly still very useful for evening out longer changes in scene brightness that you get in day/night transitions, as weather rolls through, and so on.

Higher frame-rate 60p video definitely shows less stutter

Another of the new video-mode features of the Nikon D7200 is the ability to record Full HD video at 60 frames per second. There's a proviso, though -- you have to opt for a 1.3x focal length crop, making wide-angle video a bit more challenging.

But if you're shooting far-away subjects, that little extra crop can actually be a good thing. And honestly, a 1.3x crop isn't really as much as it might sound like, as you can see in the side-by-side comparison below, shot from the same location and at the same lens focal length.

And if you want smoother, less stuttery motion in your video, shooting at 60p can help. I'm personally a big fan of higher frame-rate video, as I find that it gives a more natural feel to things, but I know that not everyone agrees. (Some complain that it gives the video a "soap opera" look, and I can certainly understand what they mean. If you've grown accustomed to a more movie-like 24 frames per second, even 60p can seem too smooth initially.)

It's a bit tricky to compare the two videos above for their smoothness, though, since they have different effective focal lengths. For that reason, I shot another comparison showing 30p vs. 60p video, this time using the same 1.3x crop mode for both clips. (And it's handy to know that the crop mode is there, should you not favor the extra frame rate but still want to bring your subject closer than your lenses alone will allow.)

Auto ISO puts the control in your hands

Another new addition to the Nikon D7200's video feature set is auto ISO sensitivity. This is particularly handy because it allows you to set both your frame rate and aperture, and still have the camera keep your exposure at the right level by ramping sensitivity as needed. In the clip below, the D7200 opted for a sensitivity around ISO 500-equivalent at the start, but as I panned towards a brighter subject, this dropped back down to ISO 100 equivalent, all without changing my shutter speed or aperture.

Full-time autofocus is pretty obtrusive, but likely good enough for consumers

Full-time autofocus isn't new to the Nikon D7200's movie mode, but I consider it a pretty important checklist item for consumer use. It's pretty commonplace now, but implementations vary wildly: Some cameras offer very usable AF during movie capture (particularly mirrorless models), while others are much more limited in this area.

I'd have to put the Nikon D7200 into the latter group, after having spent some time playing with full-time AF as I was shooting movies around downtown Knoxville. The function is there, certainly, and it works fairly well. The problem is that it's very obtrusive -- you're not going to get results reminiscent of a pro pulling focus manually, or even close to it.

Since it is using solely contrast-detection to determine the point of focus, the D7200 can take quite a while to notice that your subject distance has changed, noticeably hunt around the point of focus, and even set off in completely the wrong direction initially. And when the focus change happens, it's very swift. That's something of a mixed blessing, because it helps get your subject back in focus sooner, but makes the change in focus all the more obvious as it's happening.

I think enthusiasts and pros will almost certainly favor pulling focus manually -- which you can, of course, still do -- or simply maximizing depth of field and setting up their shots to avoid focus changes during each scene. For consumers, though, the Nikon D7200's full-time autofocus is certainly still better than nothing, as pulling focus manually is a difficult art to master. If you're planning on shooting a lot of video and want responsive yet unobtrusive AF adjustment, though, you'd probably do better to consider a different camera.

No focus peaking, but zebra stripes are handy

Unfortunately, if you do opt to pull focus manually, you'll have to rely on the live view feed to judge whether things are in focus without any assistance. You can use a magnification function to set things up before you start recording, but not once capture is underway. Nor is there a focus peaking function, sadly.

There's a nice new addition if you want manual exposure control, though. Admittedly, it's a little bit hidden, accessible only under the i-menu, but the Nikon D7200's new highlight display function makes it easy to spot overexposed areas within your scene. (And this function, unlike the focus magnification, can be turned on or off during movie capture. That means it's not a distraction, but there when you need it.)

More commonly known as "zebra stripes", what this function does is to simply fill any clipped highlights in your scene with a fine pattern of diagonal black and white stripes. Once I figured out how to enable it, I found it pretty handy.

Aperture can't be adjusted in movie mode if live view is active

Something which had me scratching my head, though, was Nikon's decision to prevent aperture adjustment when movie live view mode is active. I can understand not allowing this function if movie capture was underway, as changing the aperture causes a brief but very obvious change in scene brightness, even if you're using program or priority exposure, or have auto ISO enabled.

But not allowing it prior to capture makes little sense to me, because it puts extra hurdles in the way of your aperture adjustment. And there's no technical reason not to allow access to the function -- after all, you can change the aperture while the live view is active if you're in still image live view mode. (And indeed, that's the quickest way to change your aperture and preview the effect for movie shooting: Switch to still image live view, dial in your desired aperture, and then switch back to movie live view.)

This behavior, frankly, needs to change. Sure, you probably won't change aperture that often in movie mode, but there's no good reason to force that jump to still image live view mode. It's an unintuitive design that will leave new D7200 users baffled, asking themselves "I'm in manual mode. Why on earth can't I change the aperture?"

Good video quality at night, too

And that leaves just one more item on my video checklist for this Field Test: Low-light image quality. The clips above pretty much speak for themselves, but briefly, I thought video quality was pretty good even after dark under typical city street lighting. Enabling the 1.3x focal length crop did introduce a little bit more flickering around finer details, but noise levels were fairly low, and sharpness good.

It's time for some stills

With all of my video shooting out of the way, it was time for some stills. Actually, a little beyond time for them, as my decision to shoot an hour-long timelapse meant that I was rapidly running out of light. I decided to focus mainly on long exposures to make good of what remaining light I had, and then come back the following night for some high-sensitivity shooting.

Fortunately, even though downtown Knoxville is pretty quiet on a Monday evening, there was plenty of motion nearby courtesy of the landscaping of World's Fair Park, which includes a large splash pad, lake with fountains and a simulated mountain stream. All of these struck me as interesting long-exposure subjects, so I started from where I'd shot my long-exposure scene by the splash pad, and worked my way down the park, setting up my tripod for shot after shot at base ISO and with the aperture stopped down some to help blur out all the moving water.

The virtual horizon is accurate, but well-hidden

My very first shot at the splash pad was an early favorite, even if I forgot to reenable exposure bracketing after I got done with my movie shoot. (The time-lapse photography function can't be accessed if exposure bracketing is switched on, even though that function clearly has no relation to time-lapse shooting.)

It did teach me a lesson, though: Rely on the D7200's own built-in electronic level gauge, rather than the bubble level on my tripod head. The latter looked to be pretty-much perfectly centered, but the shot's clearly off by half a degree or so. Right out of the box, the level gauge on the D7200 is more accurate than my tripod, apparently. By default, the virtual horizon function is hidden away somewhat, though.

You have a choice of either shooting in live-view mode (where the horizon display is one of the optional overlays on the live view feed), or you can view it in the viewfinder. To do the latter, though, you have to enable it as the function assigned to either the function or preview buttons, through the custom settings menu. There's no way to enable a virtual horizon display on the main LCD when you're not in live view mode, unfortunately.

Good results from the kit lens, although with some distortion

Moving on towards the World's Fair Park lake, I stopped for another shot that caught the brightly-lit cascade of water which is pumped back up from the end of the "stream" at the bottom of the park. Again, I've tweaked the exposure above a little to try and bring back some of the color to the sky, but you can see the unedited original in the gallery.

The Nikon D7200's kit lens did a pretty good job, I thought, picking up plenty of detail. And for this shot at least, I hit the sweet spot on distortion as well. (You'll notice more distortion in some of my other gallery shots.) Somewhere around the 22mm focal length used here, this optic switches from the barrel distortion exhibited at wide angle to the more complex pincushion / mustache distortion seen at focal lengths above 24mm. You'll find more on that in our review of the 18-140mm kit lens at our sister site, SLRgear.com.

Twilight comes to its end

The long-exposure shot I really wanted to get, though, was one of the Sunsphere with a fountain in the foreground. I wanted to shoot it as a portrait-orientation shot, framing in fairly tightly, but I'd not thought about that when selecting my tripod. The video head was great for the panning night videos I needed to get, but it didn't allow for shooting in portrait orientation -- at least, not without mounting the camera sideways.

With my light fast disappearing, I didn't feel like fumbling to reconfigure everything, so I opted for the shot above with the amphitheater at left balancing out the fountain at right. As you can see in the original shot, the sky was almost black by this point. (Well, to the naked eye it was completely black, actually.) A long exposure and processing the raw file was enough to bring back at least some of the late twilight color, though.

With the light now basically gone, I headed down to the main road at the bottom of the stream for one last shot, looking up towards one of the pedestrian bridges in the park itself. Here, you can see a bit more of that kit lens distortion which I was referring to earlier, at least if you look at the original image out of the camera. I'll admit that I've never put a spirit level on it, but that handrail doesn't wave up and down from one end to the other -- it's pretty much level. Still, for a reasonably affordable kit lens (it only adds $500 to the list price), this isn't too bad, and the distortion is relatively easily-tamed in Photoshop or your image editor of choice.

As it happened, some people happened onto the bridge right as I set up my shot. They stopped to admire the view, and I quickly tripped the shutter, hoping they'd stay still long enough to outlast the 10-second exposure I'd dialed in, plus a two-second self-timer to give the tripod a moment to settle. And at least one of them did. (Thank you, random stranger, whomever you are!) Not that they're really prominent enough in the shot to catch your attention, but I think their presence still adds a little something.

Back once more for a final gallery shoot

With the light gone and downtown so empty, I figured there wasn't too much point hanging around, so after a handful of high ISO shots, I headed back home. The following night, I returned for the rest of my gallery -- and do check the Nikon D7200 gallery, because you'll find a good couple of dozen high ISO shots at a wide range of sensitivities amongst its number. I've only room enough to sprinkle a handful through this page, so you'll miss out unless you follow the link...

Returning on a Tuesday -- and starting from right at sunset -- Knoxville's Market Square was a lot busier, packed with locals watching a free live jazz show. I wanted to get a shot looking towards the crowd from behind the band, as you can get backstage of the pavilion pretty easily at these shows. With quite a bit of gear in the way, though, I had to get the camera pretty high above my head to frame the shot, and once again found myself wishing for an articulated LCD.

That meant I didn't get quite the framing I was looking for, as I could barely see the LCD screen. (In fact, I had to take the shot several times just to get one which was level.) That said, though, noise levels were pretty decent for a shot at ISO 9000. It never ceases to amaze me how far we've come -- and how much we take high ISO for granted -- since my film days...

Noise reduction can be slightly heavy-handed

While noise levels were good, I did think the default noise reduction was a bit on the heavy-handed side, though. And at higher sensitivities, color saturation was a bit on the low side. The white balance also struggled quite a bit with the harsh lighting used in Market Square, but that's true of pretty-much every camera I've shot there with, so don't hold it against the D7200 too much -- I certainly don't.

I found I was happier with the high ISO results if I worked from raw, though, and used less agressive noise reduction that I'd tweaked to the particular shot. Take, for example, the shot above of a fire engine alongside Market Square. In the image above, I've tweaked white balance and saturation from a DNG-converted raw, and manually tuned the noise reduction to my tastes.

Sure, there's more noise visible in the 100% crops above, but it's reasonably tight and film-like I think, and certainly within the realms of reason for a shot at ISO 12,800. And there's definitely noticeably more detail, especially in the fire hydrant and ladder pictures on the badge, as well as the smaller fonts towards the center of the badge.

You can get more detail out of raw images

That difference stood out for me even more in the picture below, a shot of one of the jazz band members performing for the crowd. Here, I've also tweaked the tone curve a little, bringing back some of the blown highlights in the saxophonist's face. The biggest difference, though, is my handling of the noise. First, let's take a look at the full image...

Here, there are a couple of crops I find particularly telling. The Nikon D7200's noise reduction has some difficulty with the fine pattern in the saxophonist's shirt, as you can see below:

And another area where you can see a quite noticeable difference is in the microphone, where fine lines in the grilles are obscured by the D7200's noise-processing algorithms.

With all of this said, it's not unusual to find a bit more detail on offer in raw files, and whether it's actually useful will depend on the size at which you're printing or displaying, as well as your tolerance for a greater level of visible noise. I could certainly have dialed up the noise reduction a bit more, and there would still likely have been a bit more detail than in the out-of-camera JPEGs, but not as significant as the difference that we see here.

Closing thoughts

And that concludes my second and final field test with the Nikon D7200. I've had a lot of fun with this enthusiast-grade shooter, and while there are certainly some things I'd change -- key among them being the lack of an articulated LCD monitor and better Wi-Fi -- I think there's a whole lot to recommend it, especially if you're already a Nikonian shooting an entry-level or older enthusiast-grade camera and looking for a replacement with plenty of room to grow.

If you're primarily a video shooter, you'd probably do well to consider other options, but as a still camera, you're getting a whole lot for the Nikon D7200's reasonably affordable price-tag!

Flash

Nikon D7200 Flash

Built-in Flash Test Results

Coverage, Exposure and Range
A fairly powerful pop-up flash with narrow coverage. Average exposure compensation required.

Coverage
18mm @ f/3.5

Coverage. Flash coverage was very narrow at wide angle (18mm or ~27mm eq.), with dark corners and edges. We no longer test coverage at telephoto, as it's invariably much better.

Exposure. When it came to exposure, the D7200's built-in flash underexposed our Indoor Portrait subject slightly at its default setting, requiring +0.7 EV flash exposure compensation which is about the average required for this shot. The camera's Slow-Sync flash mode produced a bright exposure without flash exposure compensation (0 EV), though with a strong orange cast from the background incandescent lighting as a result of the slower shutter speed.

Manufacturer-Specified Flash Range
9.9 feet ISO 200

Manufacturer Specified Flash Range. The Nikon D7200's flash is rated with a Guide Number of 12/39 (m/ft) at ISO 100. That works out to about 9.9 feet at f/5.6 and ISO 200. As you can see in the flash range test shot above taken with those parameters, the Nikon D7200 produced a bright flash exposure (actually slightly overexposed by about 0.5 EV), indicating the flash output rating is credible.

Note: Here we shoot with manufacturer-specified camera settings, at the range the company claims for the camera, to assess the validity of the specific claims. The specified range has been calculated for the sensitivity, lens and aperture used in the test shot above.

High ISO Noise Reduction

Nikon D7200 High ISO Noise Reduction

The Nikon D7200's four noise-reduction settings ("High, "Normal", "Low" and "Off") provide good flexibility in choosing how you want to make the trade-off between subject detail and noise levels. The Nikon D7200 user manual doesn't say when High ISO NR kicks in, so we've included crops from the base ISO on up in the tables below.

See for yourself how the Nikon D7200's "Normal" and "Off" High ISO NR settings compare to RAW without noise reduction under daylight-balanced lighting. (Note that these RAW images have no sharpening applied, so they look softer than camera JPEGs at low ISOs.) Click on any of the crops below to see the corresponding full-sized image.

High ISO Noise Reduction Comparison Daylight-balanced illumination
	"Normal"	"Off"	RAW (no NR)
I S O 1 0 0
	"Normal"	"Off"	RAW (no NR)
I S O 2 0 0
	"Normal"	"Off"	RAW (no NR)
I S O 4 0 0
	"Normal"	"Off"	RAW (no NR)
I S O 8 0 0
	"Normal"	"Off"	RAW (no NR)
I S O 1 6 0 0
	"Normal"	"Off"	RAW (no NR)
I S O 3 2 0 0
	"Normal"	"Off"	RAW (no NR)
I S O 6 4 0 0
	"Normal"	"Off"	RAW (no NR)
I S O 1 2 8 0 0
	"Normal"	"Off"	RAW (no NR)
I S O 2 5 6 0 0

The Nikon D7200's "Normal" High ISO Noise Reduction setting provides a good overall tradeoff between noise and detail to our eye, though as you can see the new EXPEED 4 processor struggles to maintain definition in our difficult red-lead swatch already at low ISOs. Turning High ISO NR down helps (as you can see in the crops from the "Off" setting), however noise is more visible as expected.

Nikons usually perform very well with that challenging subject matter but like other recent Nikons, the D7200's EXPEED 4 image processor applies more effective chroma noise reduction which causes stronger blurring in the red-leaf swatch than what we're used to seeing from older Nikon image processors at the default setting. Still, we're sure most users will appreciate the overall reduction of chroma noise and other improvements in their high ISO JPEGs, and users can always shoot in RAW or RAW+JPEG mode if they'd rather have better control over noise reduction processing.

Technical Info

Nikon D7200 Technical Info

by Mike Tomkins

Sensor

The Nikon D7200 digital SLR is, just as was its predecessor, based around an APS-C sized CMOS image sensor. (That's DX-format in Nikon parlance.) Effective resolution is 24.2-megapixels, and total resolution is 24.72-megapixels. Both figures are just fractionally higher than for the D7100, but we're assured that it's the exact same sensor. It seems that there are just very slight differences to sensor masking that cause these variations on the spec sheet. Note that image dimensions -- a maximum of 6,000 x 4,000 pixels -- are unchanged.

Just as in the earlier camera, the Nikon D7200 forgoes an optical low-pass filter, maximizing resolution at the risk of moiré and false-color artifacts.

To combat the effects of dust on the image sensor, Nikon has included its sensor cleaning function, which uses piezoelectric vibration at four different frequencies to shake dust from the sensor cover glass, just as done in the D7000 and D7100.

Processor

Output from the Nikon D7200's image sensor is handled by a proprietary Nikon EXPEED 4-series image processor, said to be completely unique to this camera.

Performance

Although that processor is new, performance -- at least in terms of burst-capture rate -- is unimproved. According to our lab testing, the Nikon D7200 is capable of 5.8 frames-per-second capture at its full DX-format resolution in JPEG format, although this falls to 4.9 frames per second if shooting in raw format. Nikon further claims a seven fps rate with a 1.3x crop in addition to that already inherent in an APS-C sensored camera, although we didn't time this ourselves.

But while the maximum APS-C burst rate is unchanged, buffer depths have hugely improved, according to our lab tests. That's likely down to an increase in buffer memory, although its possible the faster processor could have also improved card writing performance to some degree. Whichever is the biggest contributor to the improvement is of little import, though -- the big news is that you'll get around three times as many shots before the camera slows down, buffer filled.

The D7200's buffer depths now allow for 18 frames in 14-bit lossless compressed raw format, or 56 JPEG-compressed frames. (Our hard-to-compress target yields a much lower figure than Nikon's claim of 100 JPEG-compressed frames here.) By contrast, we measured the D7100 as capable of just five lossless 14-bit raw frames or 12 JPEG-compressed frames in a burst.

Sensitivity

Given that it retains its predecessor's image sensor, there's no surprise that the Nikon D7200's sensitivity still ranges from ISO 100 to ISO 25,600 equivalents, exactly the same range offered by the D7100. What's new, though, is that the entire range is now available by default, where in the earlier D7000 and D7100, you had to enable ISO sensitivity expansion to access anything above ISO 6400-equivalent.

Of course, you can also opt for Auto ISO control if you prefer -- and while in the past this was only for still imaging, it now also applies to movie capture. The Nikon D7200 also has the ability to shoot at ISO 51,200 or 102,400 equivalents, so long as you don't mind shooting in black-and-white only.

Optics

The Nikon D7200 provides a Nikon F-mount with autofocus coupling and contacts. That means it will autofocus with older "screw-drive" AF lenses, as well as with AF-S lenses that have their own focusing motor. The D7200's viewfinder also includes an electronic rangefinder indicator to determine focus status and even adjustment direction to assist manual focusing.

The Nikon D7200's lens mount includes an AI aperture ring connector, a little metal vane located just outside the lens mount flange (at about 1 o'clock), that interfaces with old AI Nikkor manual focus lenses. This engages with the aperture ring on AI-style Nikkor lenses, and lets the D7200 support aperture-priority metering mode and provide manual-exposure metering with them.

So, as you'd expect, the D7200 is compatible with almost every F-mount lens made since 1977, although some lens types will have a few limitations.

Autofocus

The Nikon D7200's autofocus system is based around that featured in the D7100, but with tweaks for improved low-light performance. Where previously, the D7100 was rated as good down to -2EV, Nikon says the D7200 will manage to focus all the way down to -3EV thanks to its tweaked Multi-CAM 3500II DX autofocus module.

As with the earlier Multi-CAM 3500DX, this new AF module features an array of 51 autofocus points, with 45 of these in a 9 x 5 grid, spanned on each side by a column of three points. The center-most three columns of five points are all cross-types, sensitive to detail on both horizontal and vertical axes. One single point at the very center of the array can operate all the way down to f/8, which is great for teleconverter fans.

As in the D7000 and D7100, the Nikon D7200's autofocus sensor works in concert with the 3D Color Matrix Metering II sensor, allowing better focus tracking since this color information allows subjects to be better identified.

You can opt to shoot either in focus-priority (the shutter won't release until a lock is achieved), or release-priority (the shutter releases as soon as possible, irrespective of focus lock). And Autofocus Fine Tuning is still available, allowing you to compensate for lenses that front- or back-focus.

Viewfinder

The Nikon D7200's optical viewfinder is identical to that in the D7100, right down to the Organic LED display used for on-demand notifications in the viewfinder.

Just as in the earlier camera, the Nikon D7200 has 0.94x magnification, a 19.5mm eyepoint, and a ~100% manufacturer-rated viewfinder coverage. The diopter adjustment range is also unchanged, at -2 to +1m^-1.

LCD monitor

Beneath the optical viewfinder, the Nikon D7200 retains the same LCD panel featured in its predecessor. With a 3.2-inch diagonal and 4:3 aspect ratio, the air gapless-type LCD monitor has a four-dot-per-pixel RGBW design, allowing better outdoor visibility compared to a standard RGB LCD, and lower power consumption indoors. Pixel resolution is unchanged, at 640 x 480 (307,200 pixels). If you prefer to look at the dot count instead, resolution is around 1,228,800 dots.

Metering

As we mentioned previously, the Nikon D7200 supports the company's 3D Color Matrix Metering II system, as did both of its predecessors. The system relies on an RGB metering sensor with a resolution of 2,016 pixels. The metering sensor ties into not only autofocus, but also the D7200's Scene Recognition System, and so helps optimize focus, exposure, flash control, and white balance variables.

As well as Matrix metering, the Nikon D7200 provides center weighted and spot modes. Just as in the earlier cameras, working range for the metering system is from 0 to 20 EV for matrix and center-weighted metering, or 2 to 20 EV for spot metering (ISO 100, f/1.4 lens, 68°F / 20°C).

Exposure

The Nikon D7200's exposure mode options include Auto, Program, Aperture-priority, Shutter-priority, Manual, Flash Off, and Scene, as well as two User modes, and an Effects mode. Scene mode choices include portrait, landscape, child, sports, close-up, night portrait, night landscape, party/indoor, beach/snow, sunset, dusk/dawn, pet portrait, candlelight, blossom, autumn colors, and food. Effects mode choices include silhouette, high key, low key, night vision, color sketch, miniature effect, and selective color. The two User positions are used to store and quickly recall camera setups for later use.

Just as in the D7100, available shutter speeds in the Nikon D7200 range from 1/8,000 to 30 seconds in 1/3 or 1/2EV steps, plus a bulb position for longer exposures. The Nikon D7100's shutter mechanism still has a rated lifetime of some 150,000 cycles.

Exposure compensation is available within a +/-5.0 EV range, in 1/3 or 1/2 EV steps. The Nikon D7200 also offers exposure bracketing, but it's much more capable than in the past. As well as the D7100's two or three frame bracketing with a step size of 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, or 1EV, the D7200 can bracket five, seven or nine frames, and allows step sizes of 2 and even 3EV between frames.

Flash

Of course, the Nikon D7200 still includes both a built-in, automatic-popup flash strobe, and an ISO 518 intelligent hot shoe for external strobes. Just like its predecessor, there's no built-in PC sync connector. Flash X-sync is at 1/250 second, but can be increased to 1/320 second at the expense of flash range.

The built-in flash is unchanged from that in the earlier cameras, with 16mm coverage, and a guide number of 12 meters / 39 feet at ISO 100, 68°F / 20°C. It pops up automatically only in Auto and Scene modes; for other modes it deploys manually as requested. -3 to +1 EV of flash exposure compensation is available, and the Nikon D7100 also offers two to five frame flash exposure bracketing, with a step size between exposures of 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 1, 2, or 3 EV.

The Nikon D7200 retains in-camera support for Nikon's Creative Lighting System and Advanced Wireless Lighting with the built-in strobe, and with compatible external strobes, as well as Auto FP high-speed sync and modeling illumination support for all Creative Lighting System-compatible strobes except the SB-400.

Creative

Of course, the Nikon D7200 includes the typical features you'd expect on a modern Nikon DSLR: a multi-shot HDR function, Nikon's optional Active D-Lighting function (Auto or four strength presets), and its Picture Controls function. The latter applies to both stills and movies, and now offers seven presets. The earlier Standard, Neutral, Vivid, Monochrome, Portrait, and Landscape picture controls are now joined by the Flat picture control seen on some of Nikon's other recent DSLRs, which lends itself towards color-grading post-capture.

Also new is a Clarity adjustment function, which mirrors the similarly-named control in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. And if you like to shoot time-lapse photography, you'll be pleased to see that the Nikon D7200's 9,999-frame interval timer function now includes exposure smoothing functionality, helping to reduce flicker in your final time-lapse clip.

Movie capture

In terms of its movie-capture feature set, the Nikon D7100 was already a pretty capable camera. Although it lacked full-sensor readout, it was capable of shooting Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixel) movies at 24, 25 or 30 frames per second, or at 50 / 60 interlaced fields per second with a 1.3x focal length crop beyond that inherent in an APS-C camera. It also included a built-in stereo microphone, a 3.5mm stereo mic jack for external microphones, and a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack for audio levels monitoring. Levels could be adjusted within a 20-step range, and movies were saved with MPEG-4 AVC / H.264 compression and are limited to a maximum length of 29 minutes, 59 seconds. (Or, depending on the quality setting, a shorter limit of 20 minutes.)

The Nikon D7200 builds on this with several key tweaks. Most notably, the 1.3x crop mode now allows progressive-scan 50 / 60 frames per second capture, rather than the interlaced capture of the earlier camera, though it's limited to only 10 minutes of continuous recording at the highest quality setting. There's also a zebra-striping function to help confirm correct exposure, and it's now possible to shoot movies in Manual exposure mode using automatic ISO sensitivity control.

Wireless connectivity

Where its predecessor relied on proprietary Secure Digital cards or external accessories to provide wireless networking capability, the Nikon D7200 includes both Wi-Fi wireless networking and Near-Field Communications support for easy pairing with Android devices -- a first for a Nikon DSLR. Branded as Nikon Snapbridge, the system will help make light work of getting your images onto an Android or iOS smartphone or tablet.

Wired connectivity

The Nikon D7200 also includes a generous range of wired connectivity, with USB 2.0 High Speed data, Type-C Mini HDMI high-definition video, microphone, headphone, and GPS / wired remote / wireless remote connectors. The HDMI port allows for a simultaneous live view display, and supports uncompressed Full HD output for capture with an external device. It also supports the Consumer Electronics Control standard, for remote control of playback functions from an attached high-def TV's remote. The accessory port, meanwhile, is compatible with the GP-1 and GP-1A GPS receivers, and the MC-DC2 remote cord.

The D7200 is also compatible with Nikon's WR-R10 and WR-T10 radio remotes, which have a range of about 197 feet. Or you can control the camera from a really long way away -- up to 394 feet, or more if you daisy chain remotes -- using the 2.4 GHz WR-1 transceiver. The latter also allows for all sorts of multi-camera configs using a variety of channels and groups, trigger delays, and so forth. It even lets you change some camera settings remotely.

Storage

The Nikon D7200 stores images in dual Secure Digital card slots, as did its predecessor. Compatible cards include both the higher-capacity SDHC / SDXC types, and the higher-speed UHS-I cards.

Power

The Nikon D7200 draws its power from the same EN-EL15 lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack as did the D7100, but its battery life is noticeably better, to CIPA testing standards. Where the D7100 was rated as good for 950 shots on a charge, the Nikon D7200 should manage 1,110 shots on a charge.

You can supplement battery life with the MB-D15 portrait / battery grip. This accepts either one EN-EL15 or six AA batteries, and supplements the pack mounted in-camera. (You can choose which will be drained first -- the internal pack, or the external batteries.) And external power is catered for with an EH-5b AC Adapter coupled to an EP-5B Power Connector.

Tech2

Nikon D7200 Walkaround

by Mike Tomkins

Take a look at the Nikon D7100 and D7200 side-by-side, and bar the name badge, they appear near-identical. Body size and weight is unchanged from the earlier camera, and so too is the control layout. There are, however, a few subtle differences. Let's take a look at what's the same, and what's been changed.

Examining the front of the Nikon D7200, there's really nothing to distinguish it from its predecessor beyond the name badge. You can see all the same controls, including lens mount release button, depth-of-field preview (Pv) button, function button and front control dial. Also unchanged are features such as the front infrared remote control receiver snugged into the top left shoulder of the D7200 body (as seen from the rear), and the autofocus assist lamp which sits directly across from the IR receiver on the other side of the lens mount.

Just as in the earlier D7100, the dust-and-weather sealed body has magnesium-alloy panels top and rear, but is polycarbonate on other sides, including this front surface. (A magnesium-alloy chassis underlies all of this, incidentally.)

Things are also much the same on the top deck. At left is the locking mode dial, and at right, the power switch, shutter button, movie button, metering mode button and exposure compensation button, all sitting directly in front of the top-deck LCD info display. At center is the popup flash strobe and hot shoe, between which are two eight-hole grilles for both channels of the built-in stereo microphone.

You may be spotting a trend here, as once again, everything looks basically identical from the rear of the Nikon D7200, as well. (We're coming to the changes, such as they are, in just a moment -- stay with us!) Seven buttons line the left side of the camera, while at right of the LCD are the autoexposure / autofocus lock button, rear control dial, a lockable multi-controller, still / movie live view controls and info button. There's also a card access lamp between the multi-controller and live view controls, the rear infrared receiver just a little below and to the right, and a five-hole grille for the speaker next to the info button. Oh, and lest we forget it, the diopter adjustment dial sits snug just to the right side of the viewfinder eyecup.

And finally, your patience pays off: We have the first notable changes. At the top of the Nikon D7200's left shoulder sits a new Wi-Fi logo, hinting at this new model's ability to communicate wirelessly with smartphones and tablets. And beneath, the bottom-most of the protrusion of access panels is no longer marked to indicate that the remote control terminal can be used with an optional GPS receiver to geotag your photos. It's a bit of a curious change, because the capability is still there -- you just have to crack open the manual to see where the GPS receiver is plugged in.

And it's on the right side of the Nikon D7200 that we can see the sole remaining change we spotted. Inset into the side of the handgrip, just forward of the flash card compartment door, is a small logo indicating the presence of a Near-Field Communications antenna. Hold the NFC antenna of your Android smartphone adjacent to this logo, and the Wi-Fi connection will pair automatically, saving you a little time. Sadly, most Apple devices lack NFC antennas, and those few which provide them have locked them down for Apple's sole use, so iOS users will still need to pair manually.

Conclusion

by Mike Tomkins

At first glance, the Nikon D7200 might seem to be a very minor upgrade. Visually, it's nearly identical to its predecessor, with the exact same weather-sealed body and control layout. If you're familiar with its rugged enthusiast-grade predecessor, you'll be right at home with the D7200. But that's not to say that there's nothing to separate the two: The Nikon D7200 is going to give you a lot more camera for your money if you're a sports shooter, or even just like to snap family photos of your hyperactive kids and pets.

Finally, the buffer we've been waiting for

The reason for that is simple: When it was creating the D7200, Nikon worked to resolve one of our main complaints with the earlier model. In our D7100 review, posted in the summer of 2013, we called out the limited buffer depth as a key concern. Now, the Nikon D7200 has triple the buffer depth of its predecessor, if not more.

That's a huge step forwards, and enough of an improvement that it would sway us towards the Nikon D7200 over its predecessor even bearing in mind that the older camera is now being discounted to some US$300 below the street price of the new model. It's not just sports and wildlife photography where you're likely to need that buffer, after all. Pets and kids can be just as active a subject, if not more so, and so the family photographer will doubtless make good use of that extra buffer capacity, as well.

An already-great camera is now even better

And we'd point out at this point that even with the limited buffer of the earlier camera, the Nikon D7100 was good enough to merit selection as a Dave's Pick in our earlier review. With our main concern answered, this camera is even better than ever, and it gives you an amazing amount for your money.

Image quality of the Nikon D7200 is superb for its class, and thanks to that rugged, weather-sealed body you can rest assured that it will give good results no matter where you take it. And this is a very responsive camera, as well, making it truly a pleasure to shoot with.

A steep initial learning curve, but it's worthwhile

That's not to say you'll feel immediately at home, at least unless you're already a Nikon shooter trading up from an earlier enthusiast-grade model. With around 30 or more controls scattered around its body and countless pages of menus offering controls over every aspect of its operation, the Nikon D7200 is a camera which is going to take a while to master. But while initially a bit daunting, that's a good thing, because it also means it's a camera which isn't going to feel limiting down the road.

There's plenty of room for you to grow here, and to tune the D7200's operation to your particular tastes. And as you shoot with it, you'll learn the locations of all of those controls to the point where they become second nature -- at which point they'll free you from needing to dive into the menu system repeatedly, as you would with a more consumer-friendly camera. And that is really good news, because every moment in the menus is a moment spent disconnected from your subject, and a moment that's potentially a missed photo opportunity.

A camera which you can become one with is just what you need if you don't want to miss those moments when they arrive unexpected. And that, in the Nikon D7200, is just what you have.

Some newer features are a little unpolished

That's not to say everything is perfect here, incidentally. There are still some rough edges in the Nikon D7200, and some areas in which we found it somewhat wanting. Perhaps the most significant of these is in its Wi-Fi connectivity, which we found to be rather troublesome, often failing to connect to our phone without first resetting both camera and phone's connectivity options completely.

And the Wi-Fi feature-set is also more limited than that of some competitors, which was rather surprising in a camera of this class. While remote live view and shutter release is possible, and the Nikon D7200 can also piggyback on your phone for GPS geolocation information, you can't change settings remotely. Nor can you even make settings changes on the camera body itself, without first disconnecting the Wi-Fi session.

If video is your primary focus, you may want to look elsewhere

And although there have been some worthwhile upgrades in the Nikon D7200's video feature-set -- key among them being zebra stripes to indicate overexposure, a new Auto ISO sensitivity function and 60p video frame rate at the highest resolution, in some respects the D7200 feels limiting in this area too.

Consumers will find the slow and somewhat erratic full-time autofocus in video mode isn't the equal of their long-retired camcorders. Pros will find the absence of focus peaking a great shame, as it's hard to really nail focus manually on the small live view image. And both will be frustrated by the fact that to change aperture, you have to exit video live view mode entirely, a limit that makes no sense at all given that the aperture can change without significant disruption to the still image live view.

An excellent buy for the enthusiast, particularly if you're already a Nikon shooter

But these concerns aside, the Nikon D7200 gives you a whole lot of camera for your money. It's not the best video shooter on the market, but its among the best options for an enthusiast-friendly still shooter, and it gives more than enough to satisfy if video capture and robust Wi-Fi aren't your primary goals. (And it's quite possible that the wireless connectivity situation will improve over time: Firmware updates for the body and app updates on the Android and iOS platforms could go a long way to making it easier to share your shots on Facebook.)

If you're a Nikon shooter looking to upgrade from an earlier enthusiast DSLR or to step up from a entry-level camera, the D7200 is a no-brainer: It will take your existing lenses and give them new life. Even if you don't already own any Nikon glass, the D7200 is still worthy of a close look if you enjoy the experience of shooting through a true optical viewfinder. There's something to be said for the immediacy and connection with your subject that a good viewfinder will give you that electronic viewfinders just don't match.

A clear Dave's Pick, the Nikon D7200 is the company's best effort yet in the enthusiast DSLR market. This rugged all-weather shooter will serve you well, give you room to grow as a photographer, and capture high-quality memories rain or shine for years to come!