I wanted to see how the D7000 high iso compared to the D7100 high iso when the latter was downsized to the same size as the D7000. A bit to my surprise (given the acclaim accorded the D7100,) the D7000 was superior to the D7100 above iso800,even after downsizing. It would appear that the claims about reduction equalizing the noise apply only to really small prints. At a 11" x 17" 300dpi print size (native D7000)the differences favor the D7000 (slightly less noise, finer grain.)

To do the comparison, I downloaded the high resolution still life JPEG shots from the "Comparometer" part of the Imaging Resource web site, at iso800, iso1600, iso3200, and iso6400....all within the rated range for each camera. This was done after viewing the iso200 and iso400 files which showed that below iso800 there was no discernible difference. There is a barely discernible difference at iso800.

The D7100 shots were resampled and reduced in Nikon NX2 to the exact same long pixel dimension as the D7000, which also brought the short dimension within a few pixels of being equal.

WARNING: These are very large photos. The D7000 photos are on the top row; directly below them are the D7100 photos at the same iso, making comparison simply a matter of viewing first one, then the other just above or below it. (For those not familiar with the Pbase site, you enlarge and go back to the thumbnail simply by clicking on the photo.) You can examine other attributes beside noise as well, such as color depth (the patterns in the damask fabrics) and acuity (the clarity of the threads on the yarns). But for noise, check each shot between the right-most bottle and the coffee cup holding the pencil. There you will find a range of grey shadows that clearly show the low-light iso behavior.