Hi Cait,
In summary, I bought a D7000, played with it overnight, returned the camera the next day, luckily got a full refund and then bought a D3100, which I'm really happy with.
Want the whole story?
;-)
In March 2009 I traded a black FM3 and black 45mm/P lens, all mint, for a D60 and twin lens kit, 18-55 and 55-200.
I'd had Coolpixes since 2000 (990, 995 and 4500s) but I resisted getting a DSLR until finally I sucumbed when I was offered the trade/swap above.
Was very happy with the D60, but within six months after purchase I'd traded both kit lenses for other, better lenses (DX & FX ) and had also sold two manual focus lenses during the course of my buying and selling.
When the D7000 was announced about twelve months ago, I was hot to trot and ready to "trade up" to a "better" DSLR, I thought.
Shortly after the Japanese earthquake earlier this year, I finally committed and traded in my two-year-old D60 for the D7000.
Like many of us, I'd read the spec sheets for the D7000, followed the reviews, absorbed the discussions and figured that this is the one for me.
So I got the camera home, did the unboxing, charged the battery and then spent eight hours (7pm-3am) playing with everything and settting up the camera as I thought I may use it.
Toward the end of the session, around 2.30am, I was feeling dissatisfied, partially with the camera, but mainly with myself and my purchasing decision.
Over the two years of owning the D60 I'd become very accustomed to its small form-factor and low weight, I liked having only three focus-points in the D60's screen, and the lack of a front wheel selector hadn't been noticed.
The D7000 was 300gm heavier than the D60, the menus were unnecessarily convoluted, the thicker body was a concern, and the viewfinder screen real estate was too full of sensors and information, distracting me from the composition.
So the next morning I returned to the camera store that I deal with, and have also done a lot of secondhand buying and selling over the years.
I told them of my bad decision, to my mind, about the D7000 purchase and after a brief discussion, they refunded my money in full.
When I asked if I could have the D60 back, they laughingly said it was out of the store 30 minutes after I traded it in on the D7000.
I waited two days before making my next decision, thinking i should be less impetuous - and then bought the D3100.
I am very happy with the D3100 after eight months, it's substantially better then the D60, fits all the DX & FX lenses that I settled on, and is slightly lighter than the D60 was.
One of the reasons I wanted the D7000 was to use some legacy AI & AIS manual focus lenses with auto exposure that the D7000 provides in the non-CPU lens function. But the histograms of the D3100, and use of the LCD screen to assess exposure works just fine for me.
So now my only "missing preferences" from both the D60 and the D7000 are these: audio-in socket; wireless remote front and rear: intervalometer; higher rez LCD screen; and maybe the non-CPU lens menu.
So this is simply a tale of wondering what we really want from our machinery, and how "good" does a body have to be before it's capability is irrelevant to the output we can achieve.
For me, the smaller form factor of the D40/60/3000/3100 line was/is the main consideration.
I used Minox 35 film cameras for many years, amongst other devices, and the output from those small cameras was great.
Michael
Adelaide AUSTRALIA
PS: my current lens kit is 35/f1.8 DX, 12-24/f4 DX, 24-85/f3.5-4.5FX and a 1979 28mm/f2 AI manual focus
