I had mine for 2 weeks and took it back for an excahnge, it was crap imo, all of the images were noisy at low iso's, the colour reproduction was poor, it didn't have autobracketing, the auto focus in video mode made horrible noises over the video footage, i got better photos from a 5 year old entry level pentax!!!
the shop agreed there was nothing wrong with the camera just that it was quite poor, i wouldn't waste your money! get a second hand d80 instead?
I'm surprised that you managed to get better photo's from a 5 year old Pentax... I find that my D60 produces better photo's than my 1 year old Fuji compact and a D3100 should be better in almost every department compared to a D60... Even so a D80 wouldn't really be what I'm after, I'm more than happy using AF-s lenses and a D80 has a lot of features that I wouldn't make use of, and wouldn't be as good as a D3100 in low light.
it also feels very small and like a toy, there isn't the added bonus of buttons everywhere to quickly change settings either, it's all done through menus which takes longer
Smaller is better for me. One of the things I like about my D60 is that I can use it one handed and it doesn't feel like a huge lump to carry around, unless I'm using some huge great FX lens... The fact that a D3100 is even smaller than the D60 is great as it allows me to have something small and light without having to go for a 4/3rds camera...
I've had my D3100 for a while now and as so far it's been excellent for me. I've found it very easy to get to grips with. Its certainly got me hooked on photography as a hobby.
I've not really bothered with video as of yet so cant comment on that side of things, but the only slightly annoying thing in my experience of it so far is the lack of auto-bracketing.
Overall for a beginners camera I'd say its a good buy, as you are coming from another camera already I couldn't really say if it would be the best option for you (i'm not clued up on the rest of the range etc).
I'd happily recommend the D3100 as a decent entry level camera.
Yep it does seem that auto-bracketing seems to be one of those features that is reserved for the more expensive models... but it's not really a feature I would use much. You can always do it manually if you have a tripod, but even when I've used a D200 in the past I didn't find mysel using auto-bracketing very often.
Mine is for sale in the MM.
Cheers, I'll check it out.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/nikond3100/pool/
Judge for yourself, I wouldn't buy one myself as I'm not in the market but I'd have no problem recommending it (or a 600D for a little more seems good value too).
Personally I think your guy moaning about it being worse than a compact is doing something wrong or got a bad copy (whatever he says otherwise), I just cannot reconcile his complaints with the images I've seen produced by it (serious, 18,000 images in that flickr group, a couple of pages will turn up some good ones, you think a compact is better?) or any reviews. It's not perfect but it's good for the money certainly.
If you already have glass and are prepared to buy last gen then a D90 is a good bet, or wait for the D5100 to turn up (April 4th maybe?). Or save for the D7000. On if you're prepared to get new glass (and don't have too much to offload) I regard the 600D and 60D very highly in-spite of the complaints, they bring a lot to the price point.
Basically you're spoiled in this market. The D3100 is a reasonable camera but it's distinctly entry level, if you've already sent some time with a DSLR then it might be worth going for something slightly higher up the range.
* Usual advice about handling (particularly entry level) bodies prior to buying applies of course
Nice link, for an entry level camera it seems to produce some great looking results.
I didn't know that the D5100 is coming out soon however, I think I'll wait until that is released as I'm happy enough using my D60 for now, so I'm in no rush to upgrade. In fact my only gripe with it is that the low light performance is pretty poor which is why I thought the D3100 would be a good upgrade.
I'll also check out the 60D though, even though I have 3 Nikon lenses they're reasonably easy to sell if I need to.
I can happilly echo these sentiments. I love my D3100 and although relatively new I've managed to take some beautiful photographs. I also haven't used the video mode and it is correct that there is noise when doing a large refocus so I can imagine that may spoil the video mode somewhat. However I don't imagine anyone will be buying this camera for making home movies, it's just a nice to feature to have in case.
Honestly, don't write them off. I did thorough research before choosing my camera and read many very good reviews on the D3100 and I'm VERY happy with mine!
In fact I just treat it to a brand new 50 mm Nikkor prime lense with a lovely f1.4 which I'm having great fun with and learning so much about focus and composition.
Good stuff, it's good to hear from someone who owns and uses one.
I'm not really too worried about the noise in video mode. An inbuilt mic is never going to give amazing sound, so I can always record sound using another device if I really need to, but I don't think I'll be using video mode that much.
The 50mm f1.4 should be a good lens, I'd check out the 35mm F1.8 also, since I got one for my D60 it's pretty much stayed on there...
Apart from the noise in video mode, are there any other niggles you have about this camera or is it pretty much niggle free?
I'll pretty much echo what everyone (bar dbov22) has said, it's a great camera if you're new to the DSLR world and want to learn all the features, however it's also capable of some excellent shots! No problems with it so far (the screen isn't the best) but I do kind of wish I'd bought a camera with a built in Auto-Focus motor in order to use some older (and cheaper) lenses.
Pretty much every lens I need is available in AF-s so I think I think I'll be fine without an auto-focus motor myself. I prefer to travel light so I'm not planning on getting a huge amount of lenses...
