Beautiful bird (and capture!!!). I also like the third

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

I have David Busch's Field guide and full version. They are both great. Very easy to read and very informative.

Congrats!!! You will love the camera. I got it one year ago and paid twice what you did. The buffer size is the biggest problem with the D7100 so if you are going to burst shoot, get the fastest write card out there. I bought the Sanyo Extreme Pro and have been very happy with it. I had another older SD "high speed card" and compared the two shooting RAW at 6 fps. After about 3-4 shots at 6 fps, they both started lagging but the Sanyo extreme Pro was much better than the older Promaster card.
The IQ of the D7100 is superb (I don't have a FF to compare it with but maybe I will one day when I have another GAS attack!!). have fun with it!!

Got mine this summer. You will love this lens. So much fun!!

The Sigma also fits nicely on my Nest Gimbal head (also thanks to Carter at Camera Cottage)

Here are a few shots with the Sigma:

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-332803-1.html

I went through your exact dilemma a couple of months ago. After reading many many reviews, most gave the edge to the Sigma lens at the 600 focal length. Add onto that the ability to lock throughout the focal length range (I have found that to be handy), and the Sigma dock. That all pushed me into purchasing the Sigma C. I have not regretted the decision. the IS is incredible. I hand held this thing in low light at a shutter speed of 1/15 (at 600 mm) and a screen in my bedroom at night was crisp!!! Without the IS on, I could not even see the screen I was focusing on it was so blurry!!! You will love either lens so I wouldn't worry too much. I posted some pictures earlier in the year. I will add that link in another post

I agree Erv, rarely see those in flight!! I had one fly through a window in our house a few years ago but I didn't see it happen.

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Beautiful shots!! Just fly that bird in my direction for a week from next Thursday!!

Like the others said, Do your cropping in PP. The only time I ever use the crop function on the D7100 is when I want to extend my burst shooting because of the small buffer of the camera. Even then, I only do that when I want to remain in RAW because you can get more out of the buffer by changing to jpeg than by using the cropped frame setting

I got mine a year ago (new) at $899 from B&H. It is a great camera which I am still learning. The manual is great and I use it all the time as a reference but I would start with either David Busch or Daryl Young's book on the D7100. They make more sense than a manual when you first start looking at the camera.

I also am learning the hard and more expensive way. I started cheap then moved up to a nice Manfrotto aluminum, now I want a carbon fiber one which I should have got right from the start!!!

I only use P mode in two situations;

1) To get the exposure settings the camera picks if I want to manually dial that in.

2) I learned once on Nikonites that using P mode on Nikon cameras is a good way to do a quick and dirty fill flash outdoors. It works well when using an external flash (ie. Nikon flash in the hotshoe) in the Nikon CCL-BAL flash mode (meaning you don't have the camera set to spot exposure (ie. matrix or center weighted)). If you use A mode and CCL flash mode (using spot metering for exposure) you generally have to dial the Flash exposure down about 1.7 EV. Of course you can do all of this in M mode using flash exposure compensation but if I want fill flash quick, the P mode and Nikon flashes CCL-BL mode works very well in most cases.