For the cost of Digital SLR, do not think you can do better. The low light performance is through the roof. As a wedding photographer who shoot regularly with a professional team of high-end Nikon and I was surprised how much this camera is a pro. Let me now be more specific. By comparison, I looked at 100% of the respective camera-files I have.
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| Nikon D3000 Vs |
* Lens = The D3100 is the only camera that comes with a lens at it's normal price
* ISO Performance = Tie between D3100 and D700! (It could be Nikon's new processing but the JPEG looks fantastic I was shooting D3100 on 6400iso with very little noise at all)
* Low Light Focusing = D700
* Focus Speed = D700
* External Buttons & Controls for Pros = D700
* Menu Navigation = D3100
* Ease of Use = D3100
* Megapixel = D3100 (14.2)
* Sensor size = D700 (Much more important than megapixels but I won't get into this)
* Can use older lenses with functionality = D700 & D300
* Video = D3100 of course! 1080P video looks amazing.
* Frame Rate = D300 at 6 photos a second
* Weight = D3100 (light as a feather)
* Ergonomics = D700 (big enough for all my finger)
About Video:
I purchased the 3100 specifically to shoot video, so I put on Nikon's brand new 85mm 1.4g Nano lens and shot video with it. The lens costs more than double the camera but I wanted to see how the 1080P video looked. It has the look of a cinematic movie. After the 85mm, I put on Nikon's 50 1.2 manual focus lens and was able to take very cinematic video in manual mode. In order to make it brighter or darker you either need to use a really old lens like the 50mm 1.2 and hit the AE-L (auto exposure lock) and twist the aperture to change exposure. Or you can hit the AE-L button when you get the exposure you like. Its not a perfect system but it works well for me. Inside the menu options you can change the AE-L button to hold the setting until you reset which is helpful.
Lens:
The lens is a kit lens, it will work outside but not so great in low light. The Vibration Reduction will help indoors but Vibration Reduction can't stop a child or pet in motion indoors. Consider buying a 35mm 1.8dx AFS for around $200 and you will be super happy with this camera.
Takes excellent pictures and gets out of the way while doing it
is an ideal treatment for non-professionals, the rest of us, people, pictures of family travel and want to take. DSLR I have since 2004, starting with a Nikon D70, then go to D40, D200 and Canon Digital Rebel XTi 12.2 MP Canon SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS (Black) Canon EOS 40D 10.1 MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only). These are all good cameras, but is better than all in one crucial area, the region that counts: it is excellent pictures without having to play with the settings between shots. Yes, other cameras are better at other ways: (Who is an advantage), they have more buttons to change settings without changing the menus are larger, heavier (another? ), And have better product information (1 / 500 sync speed flash for the D70 and D40), but in the end had to play with the settings for best results, change the white balance, playing with the ISO (my taxes are failing to 400 for flash shots, ISO why? Who knows. ie, ISO auto, and manually select the ISO setting), exposure (+0.7 interior, 0 outdoor), and so on. D200 was noisy at high ISO images D70 tended to be fresh (ie not hot), 40D was cool custom buttons (C1, C2, C3, very cool), but I noticed that ergonomics XSi or Nikon worse than no why, rather than / out of the lower half of the body?
Who knows. Fortunately, the new guns is fixed this problem).
It also makes D3000 D3100 D5000 and outdated. The D3000 is slow and noisy high sensitivity. The D5000 Just Shoot 720p (not 1080p), no autofocus in video mode, the lower resolution. Old technology.
What distinguishes the D3100, apart from other cameras is up as follows: the camera to P (program), auto white balance mode, -0.3 exposure compensation, slow sync mode (to get the picture), Auto Keystone Correction (! great), automatic correction of chromatic aberrations (great!), and that's it, now you can focus on one aspect of photography that matters: composition, namely the development of their plans for the best possible way. Rights should be a mantra that says, you have to buy the D3100, D3100 and will make you free. Now, if you shoot jpeg. If the RAW format, you can play a program like DXO, 3 Aperture, or Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 to more with the images. My workflow with the XSi's RAW shooting, use DXO all batches of photos based on two parameters: the people (poor contrast, saturation, not the original) and landscape (contrast, saturation, etc.), then remove DXO Lot lens distortion correction , chromatic aberration, vignetting, apply custom curves, change the white balance, if necessary, and implement them (almost magical) automatic brightness adjustment to the pop shot. For now DXO not a custom module for the D3100 (still too new of a camera) so I'm shooting jpeg for now. Once a module D3100 DXO has led me to compare fine shots on both RAW and JPEG and JPEG images with camera raw images processed with DxO. I'm curious to see the comparison.
This is great, not only for themselves but also for non-photographer spouse, took my pictures XSi phenomenal, but I had to know how to configure it. Can you imagine my wife going photographer and say, Well, if you images of our children, the camera in A mode (fresh expose for ambient light and adjust the flash mode booster, which is great), 0.7 exposure compensation, ISO 400 or 800, white balance, clouds, and shoot. good My wife has gone missing from. Of course, the custom modes on the 40D would have helped, but the 40D is an old technology, it can 1080p video? I do not think so. So what is the use of this stock 40D? The 17-55 IS? great goal, but who wants to close to $ 1000 for a time step 17-55 spend dust (google Canon 17-55 and dust)? 17-55 enough for your shots with a telephoto lens? From his son baseball games? I think not. What about the Canon 18-200? poor quality, noisy, too expensive.
Back to the D3100. Auto white balance (the second most important thing after editing) works very well, even indoors (no clouds necessary adjustments), the only changes are extreme situations (outdoors in the shade or fluorescent in or tungsten lights in the night, but what happens to all cameras. Why is a mystery to me, they can better camera to take these situations as well)? Movie mode is very good, and the microphone mono, but it's ok for the family (and thus the purchase of equipment, if you are a professional who landed on the wrong side), if you really want to go, Do not use this button video camera, iPod / iPhone for an application such as four track audio, audio and video synchronization in the mail for the excellent software program unique Double Eye.
Your choice. The question is, can look amazing video DSLR when used properly, but note its limitations: the pan jumps enter the infamous jelly effect (courtesy of the CMOS sensor), so that gradually pan. You have to play with the parameters of the two manual focus vs auto focus, I have the camera auto-focus, but it worked very well so far.
What goal (s) must be used with the D3100. You will have to sell (very poor) recorded from 18 to 55 with the camera. The quality is good, but not far enough. You can sell for $ 140 or less. Take the money and use it for more important things. What is the purpose? The target market for this device is fathers and mothers who want to take pictures of their children, even advanced amateurs, and I do not want a camera bag full of primes and heavy travel zoom lens that change every 10 minutes, so this is the year 2010 (almost 2011), for the love of God, choose a single life and enjoy the zooming and photography, I use the good, but little known Nikon 18-105mm f/3.5 -5.6 AF-S DX VR Nikkor ED Nikon digital SLR, the very good (but expensive) Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5-5. Objective 6G ED AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor wide-angle telephoto lens for Nikon digital SLR, or my choice among all occupations, the Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED AF-S VR Nikkor telephoto zoom for Nikon DX format digital SLR II. Yes, yes, if you visit Web sites like photo area, they will tell you the optical quality of the 18-200 IS is not as good (or compatible) with 18-105 or 16-85, but good enough for mothers and fathers photography bug. A large photo of her son at 200 mm is better not to do any of the other two lenses. 16-85 optical superiority disappears at 135 mm or 200 mm, simply because he can. The 16-85 and 18-200 are about the same price. The 18-200 will make you free. It will not help you if your children play baseball at night (very slow), but we have to live with if you're willing to $ 2000 Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR AF-S II Zoom-Nikkor lens type digital SLR cameras are for. Of course we would all like a 16-300 VR lens VIII, down VR 20-stop, constant aperture of 1.4, with a perfect view and weighs only 500 grams and less than $ 1,000, but unfortunately, our engineers are not so good as random mutations and natural selection, giving us our eyes.
Conclusion: Price is an amazing offer! If the most of their income from photography or booking old lenses (the camera's autofocus with AFS lenses) make this camera is the camera of the year. If you have good composition skills and an eye of light, your pictures is worthy of a magazine with this. Seriously, do not regret buying this. If you do this, do yourself a favor and purchase an additional Nikon AFS lenses with maximum aperture of 2.8, 1.8 or 1.4. These objectives will be better pictures and better treatment to target low-light kit.