PRODUCT SPECS

14.2 Megapixels
23.1 x 15.4mm Sensor
DX Image Sensor

THE CHOICE

For quite some time I’ve been looking to purchase an SLR camera. Although my only real SLR experiences were with with Canon, I decided to explore both Canon and Nikon DSLR cameras. I should set it up that I’m not looking to do professional photos, just have some fun with a DSLR camera. Through my work we have a rewards program where you can shop for items when you accumulate points, and somehow I managed to accumulate enough to get a camera — this, of course, limited my choices drastically. I hopped onto the site and found I had the choice of the D3100 or the D5000. The D5000 was not a whole lot more; however, I started to check out reviews.  Although technically speaking, the D5000 is in a higher class, the D3100 is a newer camera so it had some advantages. I also had played with a couple people’s SLR cameras in the past, so I decided to compare them against some of those cameras and overall I found the D3100 seemed to stack up pretty good. After much research I settled on the D3100 as there were a few things that just tipped the scale over picking the D5000. For example, the D3100 tends to have less noise at higher ISOs, it had a higher true resolution and more importantly to me the D3100 was physically smaller and lighter. Although the D5000’s sensor is SLIGHTLY better, they are practically the same and I believe strongly that the best camera is the camera you have on you – which is why I placed such priority on size. I ordered up my D3100 and within days I had it.

THE MANUAL

As  I waited for my camera to arrive I hopped onto the Nikon website and downloaded the full manual for my camera. As I mentioned I’ve rarely used a DSLR before so I felt a read was very important. I found myself easily getting through page by page and more importantly easily understanding what it meant. I found the manual extremely helpful and it gave me a crash-course it using the camera. That being said you will have to have some familiarity with terms such as aperture and exposure. Regardless, if you’re new to a DSLR I can’t emphasize more to READ THE MANUAL – it’s very helpful.

THE UNBOXING

Going forward I hope to take pictures of product unboxing but for now you’ll have to just tolerate words. I opened up the box and was extremely impressed with how everything was packaged. It came with an 18-55mm lense, which of course was in the same box that you’d find if you bought it individually, the items were all easily packed and more importantly I found the packaging of everything real easy to open. Nikon seemed to pride itself on making sure it was easy to open and more importantly put together. I put the battery in, put the lense on, and fired up the camera – I was ready to go.

FIRST USE

Your foot or your leg… that will be your first picture. For whatever reason it seems as if humans (or at least myself) always accidentally snaps a picture of their leg right out of the box. Regardless, after this I started to play around with some settings – exploring what the menus looked like, changed some settings that I had no idea what they did, and then decided to stop the nonsense and go take some pictures. I flipped it back to automatic (still a little afraid of the other modes) and headed to the living room. Sadly it was dark outside so I couldn’t take pictures there. From Cats to speakers I started to snap whatever I thought would be interesting. After about 20 or so pictures I decided to head back to the computer and look at them on the computer. I opened them up and instantly was impressed with the clarity of the pictures. Things that I know were never crisp on my old digital camera suddenly were. More importantly motion (like my cats beating eachother up) seemed to be clean and no blur was detected. I made the right decision.

PRACTICAL USE

A few months went by and I will be the first to admit that I did not get a huge chance to use the D3100. Like most new camera owners, initially I took it some places and had some fun, but after a while it ended up back in the bag waiting for the right occasions to be used. October rolled around and with that came my cruise vacation – this was my opportunity to put its practicality to the test. Knowing that I’ve never had to carry around an SLR before I made sure to take with me a small pocket sized camera that was loaned by my father-in-law because remember — the best camera is the camera you have on you.

I brought my camera in a sort of backpack with one strap bag and although I’m not super happy with the padding in it, I have to recommend a bag like this to everyone. When the camera’s lighter weight is combine with the comfort of a bag like this, its super easy to take the camera with you and not feel like its a burden — which is what I did. Every time I visited a port I took my camera with me and often I found that I forgot all about it. It was easy to keep with me and was easy to pull out if I need to take pictures. The big advantage to having it in a 1-strapped bag like this was it was super easy for me to pivet the bag to my side to pull out the camera, or if I was somewhere sketchy (which happened a few times) – put it toward my front to keep an eye on it. Regardless, I found that I was snapping photos all the time on it, and I only ended up using the pocket camera a handful of times. My comfort with the camera is greater now so I also found myself throwing it onto manual or an assisted mode in order to get the shot I want. At the very least I encourage all DSLR cameras to play with the manual focus before you go on a vacation. Every camera owner will have had experience in the past with getting home and realizing that your camera focused on the SLIGHTLY wrong object and the pictures you thought were great, are useless. Most of the time I left the camera on auto focus for lazyness; however, there were also several times that I ran into auto-focus issues OR I wanted to change the focus for effect. I haven’t had a chance to look through my photos in detail; however, thumbing through them the majority seem to look great and I think many of them may make their way into printings for around the house.  SUMMARY: The D3100 is easily a practical camera to take with you… with the right bag of course.

SUMMARY

Overall the D3100 is a great camera. By no means is it the best camera on the market; however, its an easy to use, simple camera. If you’re looking for lightweight however, I should note that although this seems fairly light for Nikon models, I’d suggest checking out the Canons. Overall I’ve found that Canons do tend to be lighter than their Nikon counterparts. That being said, the D3100 feels solid when using and yet conversely doesn’t seem too heavy. I still have a lot of playing to do and I still need to get more comfortable with non-automatic modes. I’m comfortable enough where I can switch off automatic to get the picture I want if its not doing the job, but not comfortable enough to keep it off automatic most of the time – but that, of course, is simply user issue. I’d suggest the D3100 to anyone who is considering it for home use or an entry level DSLR. It’s a great camera especially considering the price.