Nikon D3100 - whats in the box? - Newbie guide

[David Mitchell]

Hi all,

Well I have gone and done it, ive bought myself a Nikon D3100 with the 18-55mm kit lens (slight mix up with the exchange rate meaning that this camera was much more expensive than the UK but never mind!)

For all the newbies on here (me included) I thought I would do a few photos of a 'whats in the box' and 'whats it like'? sort of review for everyone to see

One box

Compartments - left is the camera, middle is the accessories, right is the lens

Important bits it comes with - charger (with battery), strap, cable magnets for data transfer and a different view finder rubber

Here is the camera - all angles

Setting - auto plus the presets, then there is a manual, shutter preference, aperture preference and a program setting.

Here is the rear screen with a diagram of exactly what the lens is doing and a light meter reading around the edge

Now the 18-55 lens, it has manual and auto focus as well as vibration reduction

Here it is all together:

I took it out into Canterbury today, took some nice shots - note that the camera doesn't come with an SD card in the box. Please also note that all the manuals I have are in french, I havn't read an english manual, which is good as I can then show everyone how user friendly the camera is for a brand new beginner to DSLRs etc.

Pros:

• Light weight (but still feels solid and rugget)
• Quite compact (but still find to keep hold of)
• Nice display on the rear showing what the lens is actually doing
• Good flash
• Nice easy way to shoot full manual - thumb wheel on the back changes the shutter speed, then hold down the aperture button (just next to the shutter button in the perfect place) and move the thumb wheel and that changes the aperture - I found this to be very intuative and I havn't read any manuals yet!
• Live view flick very easy to use and nice display
• 11 focusing points make it easy to see whats being focused
• Easy lens fitting and solidly locked together
• Well weighted
• Info in view finder useful - ISO, Aperture etc shown
• Apparently the lens doesn't focus very well on very close things - this isn't the case!
• Info/guide button helpful, there is a guide setting, but there is also an 'info' button that makes a comment about which of the preset you should use at certain times (when not shooting manual)

Cons

• Lens cap isn't tethered - dropped it twice so far!
• Strap quite hard to get fitted - quite fiddly
• Flash can still pop up when in auto mode even if its sunny
• No case with the kit

Conclusion

Im very happy with the camera and I feel that its been designed by someone who knows where the most commonly used buttons needed to be - everything is in easy reach, especially impressed with ease to change shutter and aperture settings easily. I recomend this camera a lot if you are just starting out, I watched a review on the Canon 1100D which is the equivilent model in the Canon range and apparently the buttons weren't as well layed out and it felt cheap and plasticy. This Nikon is fairly cheap - even cheaper now the D3200 has just come out! but the textured grips and the solid construction gives you confidence with it but without it being bulky of heavy to take with you - a good 'point and shoot' DSLR!

Here are a few examples of what I have shot - I have converted a few into B&W but these are the colour images with NO touchups of any kind ie exactly as it comes off the card - these are shot in standard jpeg so the detail will be even higher if set to RAW etc

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Yay, a new camera! Have fun with it - looks like you already are. Nice shots for straight out of the camera.

- - - Updated - - -

Correction - VERY nice shots

 

[David Mitchell]

Thanks for the compliment, first time ive ever shot a SLR of any kind - SLR or DSLR lol I have an M42 adaptor ring coming very soon so I can mount my Helios 44-2 lens on it so I can run it full manual the kit lens seems to be quite good in most situations, I am looking at getting a 50mm F1.8 prime lens as well at some point, the M42 adaptor will also let me mount the Tair 300mm lens I have in my Photosniper kit (although not the rifle trigger mechanism due to the D3100 not having a remote shutter connection) I am just going to get as many shots taken as I can in manual mode or indeed aperture mode, trying to stay off auto mode as much as I can so I can learn more its good that the shutter speeds seem to go up to 1/4000 vs up to 1/150 on my Bessa lol

The plan is to set the D3100 to the same settings as my film cameras (which have limits to their shutter and apertures) and see what photos I can take with the ISO 400 film I have to get the correct exposure so that when I do use the film cameras I don't waste film.

NB, I also have a 2x tele convertor which fits the M42 mount, so I could fit it to the 300mm Tair lens and get a 600mm lens...actually due to the crop factor it would be the same as running a 900mm lens! The crop factor on the Helios 44-2 lens would give it a 66mm equivilent, so not too bad as a prime. I guess thats the limitations of the smaller DSLR sensor size vs a 35mm film SLR.

I am currently running the camera on the standard JPEG files, they are just over 3MBs each, I am going to shoot some RAW files tomorrow and report back on the file sizes. At this standard file setting the output is pretty good, im not planning to blow them up to a massive size, but they will be kept digitially, I may print out a few at some point but im happy with the standard quality.

 

[Pete Askew]

Congratulations and it looks like you're making good use of it. That shot of the flowers is very nice indeed.

 

[David Mitchell]

Congratulations and it looks like you're making good use of it. That shot of the flowers is very nice indeed.

Thank you im just shooting as much stuff as I can with it at the moment, still getting the hang of the different settings, the auto ISO seems pretty handy although I just need to be careful that it doesn't pick a very high ISO else I get a lot of noise, noise can look good on film photos ie grain, but not on digital photos lol

I am going to order myself a few more SD cards and I think I will start shooting on either the 'fine' JPEG settings or on full RAW settings plus JPEG, I think I will just start out with upping it to just the 'Fine' setting and take lots of photos, then go fully RAW when I take some more serious photos - a RAW file is around 11MBs on this camera it seems

I can also see that mirrorless cameras with interchangable lenses will become more common soon, I can see the reason why SLRs are around is due to being able to see what the film would 'see' before you took the photo, now that the sensor is digital you can 'see' what the lens is doing whilst it not exposing or taking a record of the light coming in.

I can see this camera lasting me a while though, I know its not full frame so will have a crop factor but it still gives nice clear images

 

[Pete Askew]

But don't forget that the image should be in your mind. The camera is just the instrument used to record it (or the first stage of it)!!

 

[Hamish Gill]

If you want to mask the noise you can try converting to black and white and adding a subtle grain in post process

Good luck with it, be interested to see how you progress with it! Great start!

 

[David Mitchell]

Tis true, its why I don't see a reason to need to 'upgrade' for quite a while, even though this is just an entry level camera it still takes a great image of whatever I wish to record I have learnt what most of the different functions are on the camera now and find it easier to change the settings quickly to what I want to use at any given time

 

[Andy Boardman]

Cons

Lens cap isn't tethered - dropped it twice so far!
Strap quite hard to get fitted - quite fiddly
Flash can still pop up when in auto mode even if its sunny
No case with the kit

I do not see any of those as CONS as these days none of the cameras come with cases anyway, regret you will not have the UK 2 year warranty either as imported from France, it is a great camera to.IT IS A FULL FRAME CAMERA THOUGH, just a different format please please can we all stop refering to them as non full frame or I will start saying your Canon's/Nikons are not either as I have shot 10 x 8 in the past & even dare I say it had the Polaroid 20x24 camera in a showroom I worked at in the past, HEHE get my drift LOL

 

[David Mitchell]

Ah, sorry I should refer to it as a DX sized sensor, those are just the cons I found for a first time newbie like myself who has no previous experiance of DSLRs, they aren't really issues, just points I wanted to make from my first initial experiance of the camera. I have had it for a few weeks now and its a really good camera, everything seems to make sense and doesn't have a million different buttons or complex settings all over it making it a joy to use and the photos are good

Yeah I do like large format lol I have a few medium format cameras as well, plus a few 35mm SLRs (my collection is growing at around 1 camera per week lol - I even have a Sputnik stereographic camera lol)

 

[David Mitchell]

Just thought I would update this thread slightly, I also have a Nikon EM camera and have just got the E series 50mm F1.8 prime lens for it, the photo below shows the fact that all Nikon lenses are interchangeable, however I can't use the newer lens on the older body due to the fact that I can't change settings on it as its all electrically driven! I can however use the older lens on my D3100 if on full manual, this will allow me to practice my exposure when taking photos without the need to waste film doing so - as my older cameras have no light meters and very limited settings.

Please note that as the D3100 is a crop sensor DSLR the 50mm lens is actually a 75mm equivilent - its actually quite cool as the 50mm lens is REALLY small, conversly at the minimum 18mm on the newer camera on the EM body I get vignetting around the edges due to the lens being a DX size.

Just thought I would post this up as the F1.8 lens I have got wasn't that expensive and is actually faster than the kit lens it came with - minimum is F3.5 which shows that its always good to have a prime lens as well as a tele lens.

Im quite amazed at the size difference between the 2 lenses, the kit lens is an 18-55mm vs a 50mm prime, I guess the zoom mechanism is taking up a lot of space if you see the 2 lenses together lol

 

[Paul Lange]

I had a D3000 and that certainly wasn't a bad camera and as far as I can tell the D3100 is a little better so not a bad choice at all David. You have a fast prime as well which will give you loads of creative freedom. I wouldn't worry about the flash pooping up in bright situations in auto mode as it won't be long before you forget about that setting in favour o fmanual or semi manual settings .

 

[Chris Dodkin]

You forgot to mention the 'new electronics' smell you get when opening a new toy box

Love that smell - they should bottle it and do an aftershave

Eau de Expensive Camera

 

[David Mitchell]

You forgot to mention the 'new electronics' smell you get when opening a new toy box

Love that smell - they should bottle it and do an aftershave

Eau de Expensive Camera

Mmmm new electronics smell lol I will be taking some photos with the prime lens soon, at least I don't need to wait to get them developed to find out how good it looks, I guess the options are:

Expensive DSLR camera, lower resolution, no maintanence costs
Cheap SLR camera, very high resolution, requires film, requires scanner to get images online

So I guess the costs work out the same once you factor in the costs of getting a photo scanner for the negatives, will be interesting to see what the newer technology looks like using older optics

 

[Paul Lange]

I guess you will find that the resolving power of your old prime lens will be greater than that of the camera's sensor. I doubt you will be disappointed though.

 

[David Mitchell]

I guess you will find that the resolving power of your old prime lens will be greater than that of the camera's sensor. I doubt you will be disappointed though.

Thats correct, as the D3100 has a crop sensor it would be the equivilent of a 70mm lens, so not quite a 50mm prime lens but would be ok due to the fact that the view finder will only show the part of the lens that is on the sensor area, I will take some photos with it maybe tomorrow to see what the difference is.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Paul is talking about resolving power ... The ability of the lens or sensor to resolve detail.

im not sure a lens that old would out resolve a 3100 mind ... Be interesting to know though.

 

[David Mitchell]

Paul is talking about resolving power ... The ability of the lens or sensor to resolve detail.

im not sure a lens that old would out resolve a 3100 mind ... Be interesting to know though.

Sorry lol newbie here well I guess 1 lens is old but was put on their decent SLRs, and the other Nikon lens is a cheap kit lens that came with the camera, I will take some photos tomorrow to see what its like - well as close as possible as the lenses will be different lengths. I have a feeling that the older lens will be better than the newer kit lens simply because its a prime lens rather than a zoom which would compromise the optics due to the different lengths the lens could be vs a fixed size.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Technically the series e were the low end Nikon Series E lenses
although still very good I would see them as the equivelent of a kit lens of the day I suppose ...

 

[David Mitchell]

Technically the series e were the low end Nikon Series E lenses
although still very good I would see them as the equivelent of a kit lens of the day I suppose ...

Yeah, they aren't going to be amazing lenses I guess, but as they havn't gone to town with the materials used (ie its plastic) they might have cut out that cost and concentrated on the internal optics instead.