Nikon D3100 - whats in the box? - Newbie guide

[David Mitchell]

Right I have just gone out in the garden and taken some random photos with both the kit zoom lens and the older F1.8 prime lens, please note that im still a bit tired and so my exposures probably aren't the best on the manual lens as I don't have a light meter inbuilt on the manual setting and im not quite awake enough to think at the moment lol

I have tried to take sample photos for both wide open and fully closed to give both ends of the spectrum, I have also tried to duplcate shots where I can of the same location (although slightly issue as I am shooting with a 50mm lens (75mm equivilent) vs a zoom lens between 18 to 55mm lol the photos are also not that interesting but are just test shots.

Here are some shots using the new kit lens the camera came with on auto (sorry about that lol)

Here are some shots with the older lens shot on full manual

I will take some photos later when I'm using some middle range apertures rather than the 2 extremes, although its interesting to see the depth of field - please also note that the shutter speeds were slow on some of them (1/5s) and they are all hand held.

 

[Pete Askew]

You are certainly getting some nice separation between the various elements in the images. The last shot is especially nice. And I prefer the first shot of the bench to the seconds with the focus point on the bench itself - it works with the composition better. Had holding at even these low shutter speeds still seems to have worked. Looking good.

 

[David Mitchell]

Thanks Pete, you can see comparing the bench photos what happens when you put on a 35mm lens onto a crop sensor, the E series lens is fully manual so its probably just user error with focusing lol

The kit lens has between a f3.5-5.6 whereas the E series lens is an F1.8 so it can get the shallower DOF allowing me to get that last shot, its also mental if you add some some macro lens rings - here are some photos using all 4 rings (+1,+2,+4 & +10)

Skin of a peach - look how shallow the DOF is lol

I also took a photo inside a plant, however the exposures didn't work 100% as I was indoors but you get the idea

 

[David Mitchell]

I have just done a few more shots with the E series lens, this time kept the aperture wide open at F1.8, its been quite interesting to use as I have gone with an almost 'hybrid' method using this lens, basically due to the very shallow DOF (as can be seen from the brickwork shot) of the lens I have actually used the liveview on the D3100 and used it to zoom into the part of the shot I want in focus. This is of course not something you can do on a normal SLR and definatly not something the lens designer would have even thought possible at the time they designed the lens. This has now meant that I can use this very affordable lens (although its slightly longer due to the crop factor) to get some very nice results without going out and buying an all singing all dancing newer lens.

I have reshot the bench shot as well getting the bench in focus - needed very very tiny focusing movements and was shot at something like 1/30 shutter speed. All shots are taken at F1.8 wide open

Bench shot again:

Brick wall showing the very very shallow DOF

Bark on the tree with some nice out of focus areas behind showing how well the lens it made as its such a nice soft haze - the lens has 7 blades the same as the newer 50mm 1.8G but goes to F22 instead of F16

 

[David Mitchell]

I have just gone to the other end of the spectrum and bolted on my Tair 300mm photosniper kit onto my D3100 to make my Nikon Photosniper

Due to the camera also being a crop sensor its now a 450mm lens....I then bolted on my 2X teleconvertor so its now a 900mm lens equivilent I just wanted to see what the images were like, with just the 300mm lens on it its pretty good, with the 2X tele it becomes slightly darker (which is normal) so I had to go for a slower shutter speed - by slower think 1/10 lol

Here is the setup - I can't use the trigger on it but will probably rig up one of those remotes to the trigger in the future:

Here are some shots with just the 300mm lens (450mm equivilent) shot @ F4.5, around 1/20 shutter speed

Photos taken at around 5 metres

This photo was taken across the garden as long as possible - around 30 metres

I then bolted the teleconverter onto it making it a 90mm lens equivilent, not idea as I had to make the shutter speed even slower lol - photos were in focus but no image stabalisation so slightly blurred (sorry!) these are all taken free hold (no tripod)

Taken at 5m

Taken at 10m

And again taken at around 30 metres

 

[David Mitchell]

I have just got myself a nice Nikkor 35mm F2.8 lens, the 35mm lens will now give me a 52mm lens equivilent on my D3100, this lens is a step up (or a few steps up!) from the E series 50mm F1.8 lens I had got before in terms of quality, this lens does has some plastic on the outside but the rest is metal and its much heavier than the 50mm lens showing its probably got a bit more glass in it lol

I have just shot a few test shots in the garden again, im very impressed with how smooth it focuses as well as how sharp the images seem to be.

The DOF isn't quite as shallow as the 50mm lens though as this only stops down to F2.8 rather F1.8 and also only goes to F16 rather F22 but im really happy with the results, im quite excited about shooting with it.