I've only had a short time to explore the video capability of the D7000 but I'm very excited by the possibilities. There are downsides too of course... manual focus seems to be the order of the day since the contrast detection autofocus is often too slow and indecisive in many shooting situations.
Unfortunately, my aging eyesight is not working in my favor here... when I reach my arm around the camera to grab the focus ring, my nose is about a foot from the LCD, and my closeup vision has really gone south since I hit 50. I end up with my head tilted back so I can see thru the lower part of my old-fart gradient lenses... trying to maintain this posture while panning a subject is a sadly comical sight.
A loupe might address my problem, they can be adjusted for infinity focus so it would let me use the "normal" portion of my glasses. Also under consideration are the larger (5"-8") off-camera LCD monitors. I can't spend many hundreds of dollars, but I'm wary of the cheaper models that only have composite inputs, I suspect they may not be sharp enough for critical focusing. It looks like the entry point for HDMI monitors is about $400, with the exception of a couple of models from Lilliput that are under $300.
Since it looks like this is going to be an essential piece of gear for a lot of us, I'd be really nice to hear from anyone who's already taken the plunge. I'm not sure of the forum rules on specific product recommendations, but I assume it would be permissible to at least exchange technical information and feedback. For example, are composite monitors sharp enough for focusing, do some models perform better than others under bright light, what are your experiences using a monitor vs. a loupe, etc.
