So the update (I received from my gf) is that the whole meeting took less than 5 minutes. After seeing the screen issue, the Nikon employee simply said that this should not have happened, and took the camera in for repair. He promised that if we don't get the camera fixed or replaced before our next trip, we will be provided with the use of another D7000 body for our trip. He also said he is not sure about what may have caused the problem, but that it wasn't the battery - perhaps they will know better when we pick up our camera after repair. I will ask at that point again what the issue may have been to avoid it in the future, and will post an update... if any.

Hey guys,

I also bought a new battery (legit nikon - no knock-off), and checked the serial no. to make sure it's not one of the recalled ones. It was not right off the charger as we took maybe 20-30 pics before the issue happened. I was also using the SB-700 with it at the time, but I used the flash on several prior occasions with no issues.

We're taking it to the service center tomorrow so I'll let you know what happens. I'll try to get some info from them so I can share and hopefully help some of you guys prevent the same issue from happening.

It was on this forum - possibly about a year ago.

Whether there is any truth in or not is another matter. Nikon do say that the difference between their overpriced batteries and the cheap Chinese copies is that theirs has some 'protection' built in that the others don't. I see this as marketing B.S. myself as it would be difficult to fast charge a battery which had over-voltage protection built into it...

@spraynpray: Do you have a cite for that? I've done a Google search to find out more information but haven't found anything except the the six-month old report about Nikon recalling some batteries. http://www.dpreview.com/news/2012/04/25/Nikon-EN-EL15-battery-recall

There is a concern that inserting batteries straight off the charger into the camera can cause damage because it takes a little while for the excess voltage from charging to dissipate (think about the foam on the top of your beer). This voltage could 'life test' the electronics in the camera if switched on before it dissipates.

It happened to me a few weeks ago. I had just bought a D7000 and went to the Lake District for a planned holiday to shoot the landscape.It failed after the first ten shots ever taken with the camera. The failure of the screen was exactly how you described yours.

I was lucky as Amazon exchange immediately once I got home. I was also unlucky in the fact that the failure occurred within 10 minutes of the start of my 4 day photo trip. My fault I suppose for not having a back up camera.

When I got the camera I also bought a spare battery I not sure whether the failure was connected to a power surge from the battery that was in the camera at the time of the failure. The battery I did not send back(the spare)has now a battery life number down at 3 after one charge. I did not pick up on this until after I sent the camera back with the other.I have not done anything about this as I cant prove the age of the battery.

I bought a D7000 a couple of months ago together with my gf, and we couldn't couldn't be happier with the camera. We already have quite a few amazing pics! Unfortunately, we just encountered our first issue with the D7000. I thought I would throw it out there to see if anyone had anything similar happen...

While in the middle of taking some pictures, all of a sudden, after hitting the "play" button to review an image, the display went funny: dark background (black) with various patterns of light vertical lines. The lines seem to change somewhat when I hit the wheel as I normally would while scrolling through the menu. Everything else still works. It seems like a technical issue with the display or some connectors to the display. In other words, it seems like the camera is actually scrolling through the pictures or menus, but the display is showing just vertical lines.

We take great care of the camera, and the problem happened literally from one image to the next while shooting a few pics of our friends. The camera has never been dropped, wet, etc., etc. etc.

Anyone have anything similar happen to them? We're gonna take it to the service center this week as it's still under warranty. Hopefully, it will get resolved before our next planned trip in 2 weeks (fingers crossed). The funny thing was that we were just showing our friends what a great camera we bought when it happened... guess that's what we get for bragging. ;-)