Great post. Got any pics to show? I use Duracell rechargeable with my sb900 and have never had the overheat problem come up.

Thanks for the post, Rummer. It sounds like it was a fun event.

Rummer: Very helpful/informative. Thanks for posting this!

Gareth said:
Are you in Tokyo? I'd love to go to Map Camera, they have an amazin selection of lenses.

How much did you pay to rent it?

I rented the 70-200mm VRII for exactly 7 days, which cost me about 15,000 yen. Map Rental definitely has a great selection of all kinds of lenses, including ones that have just come out. It's definitely not cheap, but was well worth it. I'll definitely have to look into Rental Bomber next time.

Nice post Rummer, sounds like you learnt a lot at the shoot. I also shoot with the Black Rapid DR-1 Dual Strap, which I find absolutely invaluable. My set up of choice is a D700 with MB-D10 & 24-70 2.8 on my left, and D3s with 70-200 2.8 on my right. The 70-200 (both types I'm sure but I have the vr2 version) is superb, and gets me most of my candids. I find that for most weddings these 2 lenses will cover 90% of the shots I want to take. The others being covered by my 105 2.8 micro for recording things like the rings and wedding cake, and 14-24 2.8 if space is at an extreme premium. I try whenever possible not to use flash, and if I do, tends to be a few pics with a wireless setup using the D700's wireless pop up flash commander, and a couple of SB900's. Probably for this reason, I haven't experienced the overheating problem experienced by so many SB900 users, it would appear that there is a genuine issue with the 900s in this respect. I am aware from many people that I have spoken to, that battery choice is critical, and that ironically higher output rechargeables, often cause a problem, with lower power ones performing far better. I don't know if anyone else can confirm this? The one issue I found, but you didn't mention with the Black Rapid strap, is that it can foul the bottom of the lens/camera on my right when using it vertically. It helps with the setup I mentioned above, to attach the ring to the 70-200 via the tripod foot, as this allows greater clearance, this is not a problem with the camera on the left, and other than this one issue I think the stap is superb. I don't experience the problems you had with knocking the camera settings while they were at your side, because I always turn them off when I put them down. They both turn on so quickly, that I have 'yet' to miss a shot by doing this. Thanks for sharing your coments/findings. That's what makes this forum so good!

Yes, just to add another "thank you" for such an informative post. I just added a D7K to my equipment. That means, I also have the new D7K and the D90. And I love the D7K over the D90. But I am keeping the D90 as my second/backup camera body.
Thanks again for the interesting post. Hope your friend liked your photos.
Nick V

Are you in Tokyo? I'd love to go to Map Camera, they have an amazin selection of lenses.

How much did you pay to rent it? I notice most shops are very expensive. I like renting from Rental Bomber. It is a part of PC Bomber, which is very cheap for buying things. It costs 2500 to rent the 70-200 VR1 for 1 day, or 3500 to rent it for 2 nights and 3 days. I am in Osaka and if I post it back (they pay) on the 3rd day, they get it on the 4th day, that is fine.

I'm going to rent a wide lens off them for new years, as I am staying in the mountains. I rented the 14-24 off them for the fireworks by the yodogawa, it costs the same as the 70-200 to rent. This time I might try the 20mm.

Thanks, Rx4Photo - I think you're right. I've removed the link.

@Rummer. I think posting that link up there is a NO-NO! Niko will confirm this soon enough.

Regards.

tammyld said:
Thanks so much for the post. I have been trying to decide between the D90 and D7000 for Christmas. I am not a professional, just taking pictures of my 18 month old son. I have a Sony DSLR now and looking to upgrade b/c I have more interest in picture taking. Do you think the D90 will suit me?

I think the D90 will definitely suit you for taking photos of your son. If you buy one with a kit lens, I'd also consider getting a fast prime lens. I love using my 35mm f/1.8G and the 50mm f/1.4D. I've found that you can really get great baby photos with the primes. I would say that in the last two years of owning the D90, the 35mm f/1.8 was attached to it 90% of the time.

Gareth said:
Really nice post.

Where did you rent the 70-200 from?

Damn, I should have waited to buy the D300s, Oh well.

Thanks Gareth, I rented the 70-200mm in Tokyo from a shop called Map Rental near Shinjuku Station.

Thanks so much for the post. I have been trying to decide between the D90 and D7000 for Christmas. I am not a professional, just taking pictures of my 18 month old son. I have a Sony DSLR now and looking to upgrade b/c I have more interest in picture taking. Do you think the D90 will suit me?

Really nice post.

Where did you rent the 70-200 from?

Damn, I should have waited to buy the D300s, Oh well.

Great post. Nice to have such a detailed review.
For the SB900 it's best to get an SD9 battery pack especially while shooting weddings. While I've never had issues with the batteries hearing, the strobe temperature feature can be difficult to adjust to (although it's put there to save your SB900). A friend has the battery pack and he says it prevents the overheating

Last week, a friend of mine asked me to help photograph his wedding in Okinawa, Japan. His photographer had to back out at the very last minute, and he needed someone to shoot "a few photos". I'm just an enthusiast and warned him about my lack of experience, but he went ahead and asked me to be the photographer any way.

My setup was the following:

Nikon D7000 with MB-D11 Battery Grip
Nikon D90 with no battery grip
Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G VRII
Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR IF (non-VC version)
Tokina 11-17mm f/2.8
Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8G
Nikon Ai 50mm f/1.2
Nikon SB-900 strobe (on D7000)
Nikon SB-400 strobe (on D90)
Sandisk Extreme 16GB Class 10 SDHC cards on both bodies
Black Rapid DR-1 Dual Strap

The wedding took place in three different locations - a buddhist cultural center (strong florescent lighting), a hotel ball room (dimly lit to almost pitch dark setting), and to a local bar/restaurant (dimly lit). For the most part of the wedding, the 70-200mm, which I rented, was attached to the D7000, and the Tamron 17-50 was attached to the D90. Occasionally, the other three lens were used to either body (except for the manual-only 50mm which was attached only to the D7000). I occasionally switched the lenses to different bodies to see how each lens performed on both the D7000 and the D90. I took all photos in JPEG Fine.

While I did not conduct a scientific experiment, I must say that I was impressed by both the D90, which I have used for the past two years, and my new D7000, which I've had for only a week. On the 70-200mm, Tamron 17-50mm, and the Tokina 11-16mm, I found that the D7000 autofocused faster and more accurately, especially in dim light. Especially on the Tamron, I found that the D90 sometimes had to hunt for the subject in low light.

The D7000 also had very noticeable advantage over the D90 in the frame rate per second. Not only is the FPS faster, but the buffer seems much larger, allowing to take continuous high frame rates over a longer period of time. At one point, using the same lens and same settings, I counted about 22 continuous frames on the D7000, while the D90 could only handle about 6 frames before slowing down.

As many in this forum have already noted, the D7000 does have very good low-light capabilities. When I only had the D90, I was often afraid to take it above ISO 800 for really high quality, noise-free photos. With the D7000, shooting at ISO 1600 produced very high quality photos with little noise increase from ISO 800.

I also found the MB-D11 battery grip invaluable when shooting with a heavy lens like the 70-200mm. In fact, since I returned my lens, I've kept the MB-D11 attached, just because of the high quality feel of the rubber in the grip, which feels more like holding a D3/D700/D300 than a D90/D5000/D3000 series. To be honest, without the battery grip, the D7000 does not feel that different at all from the D90. The D7000 may have a slightly more rubbery feel, but nothing compared to its higher-end siblings. The grip definitely adds a professional feel when holding the camera. Despite this, parts of the grip, especially the lever that opens the battery compartment feels extremely plasticy.

I did have several problems with the D7000. First, the autofocus would sometimes stop working. I would have to turn the camera off, and take the lens off and mount it back on for the the AF to work again. This happened several times during the wedding that led me to miss several key shots.

I also found the command dial on the top of the camera to change the Manual, Aperture, Shutter, Program, Scene, etc, would accidentally move around during shooting. This may not be a problem for casual shooting. But using the Black Rapid DR-1 dual strap, I found that the camera would often bump into my body or something else and accidentally move the dial to a different setting. The D90's command dial seems to be a bit tighter to move, and I did not encounter this problem at all.

In addition, I found that the SD card slot door often opened accidentally as I was grabbing the camera to shoot. Because the memory card slot door on the D7000 is twice as long as the D90, sliding my hand into the grip of the D7000 often caused the door to accidentally open, which often slowed me down. Again, this should't be a problem for most D7000 shooters, but it gets in the way if you need to shoot something immediately.

Overall, from a non-professional photographer's perspective, the D7000 is an excellent DX camera that is a great improvement over the D90. If DX can be this good, I truly would look forward to what the future of FX will be like. I also wonder what will happen to the D300s, which is now selling at a lower price than the D7000 in Japan. The venerable D90 worked as expected, and I find that in well-lighted conditions, there really wasn't a huge difference in photo quality between the two cameras (again from a non-professional perspective).

P.S.
While it's not directly related to either camera, I found the 70-200mm to be a invaluable asset when shooting weddings. I've used the 55-700VR and the 18-200 VR before. Neither of these lenses compare to the sharpness and the low-light capabilities of the 70-200mm VRII. If I had $2000 more, I may look into buying this amazing lens. That said, I found that when using it with the Black Rapid strap, the lens would bang against my legs or my waist, causing the VR and AF switches to accidentally move. I sometimes found myself shooting with the VR accidentally turned off.

I was very disappointed in the SB-900 speedlight. While I worked with Panasonic EVOLTA alkaline batteries and no external power source, the strobe would overheat every 5 to 10 minutes. The EVOLTA batteries lasted about an hour per set, and the batteries seemed so hot when they were taken out to be replaced, I actually thought they would explode or melt.

The SB-400 on the other hand worked well, though its low guide number was no match for lighting subjects far away. That said, it never overheated, and the battery was never replaced during the five hour shoot.