It seems the megapixel wars may be drawing to a close, at least in the upper strata of the market. With the exception of the 36 MP Nikon D800, the digital SLR market has more or less settled in the 16 to 22 MP range- and this number is no longer prominently featured on every flyer. This is good; it's a sign that the digital market is maturing and moving away from the ill-advised marketing metrics of its early years.

Autofocus systems, as good as they are these days, aren't perfect. A modern camera's AF is a complex opto-electro-mechanical system, and while they are manufactured to incredible tolerances, there is usually some final calibration that must be done by the photographer to account for the quirks of his particular equipment. Here's how to do that calibration.

The verdict

The D7000 is Nikon's best all-round camera as of late 2011. If you can't get a particular shot with this thing, you probably won't get that shot with any other camera at any price.

You can spend as long as you want tweaking just about everything on the D7000 to get it set up exactly the way you want it. Then, when you lift it to your eye, it gets out of your way and just works, exactly as it should.