My new camera

[Michael Hetrick]

In another thread I was whining about what camera to buy. I had a D300 that I sold because it was too darn big and had too many gadgets. I had decided to buy a D7000 but realized I was heading down the same path, and the D7000 actually weighed more.

I am just as prone to tech lust as the rest of you.

I kept researching and when the dust settled I bought the Nikon D3100. With the money I saved, I was able to purchase a nice 55-300mm VR lens! My son works at Best Buy and got me a great price on both items. Basically I bought the camera for a bit under list price and got the lens thrown in for free. I will pick it up tonite as I am heading up to Portland where he works because I am leaving for a business trip to Dallas tomorrow morning.

I am looking forward to using what, by spec's and reviews, seems to be a great little camera!

I am going to Dallas for 6 weeks and then I am relocating to Albany, NY. I am really looking forward to all the photo ops I will have in an area of the country I have never lived or even visited before. I will be living in the same town as Pegdragger and hope we hook up and enjoy some photo trips.

More to come!!

[Diamond Lil]

Congratulations. Travel well.

[Bluesbird]

Congratulations, Michael! I look forward to seeing your photos.

[Heavens Thunder]

Congrats on travel and Camera and enjoy it !

[Michael Hetrick]

Thanks! I travel a lot as part of my job. It is a benefit hard to put a price on. I've been lucky enough to be paid to travel at no cost all over the world. Lucky me!

[Michael Hetrick]

Well, I have had a few days to play with the D3100 and I have to say I am VERY happy with it. With the exception of one thing, I couldn't be happier. The camera is very light, feels great in my hands, and is not mind-boggling when you go to use it.

I liked in the D300 the ability to take a shot and have it take the shot, plus one f-stop under and one f-stop over automatically. With the exception of that, I can't think of anything the camera is lacking.

I didn't think I would use the video function, but this camera will continue to autofocus as your shoot vid and I am quite impressed with the few vid's that I have taken.

And the 70-300 VRII lens is just impressive as can be for the price.

I am heading up to Fayetteville, Arkansas this weekend to attend the Beer, Bikes, and BBQ festival. I am looking forward to playing more with the camera then.

[J. R. Weems]

In another thread I was whining about what camera to buy. I had a D300 that I sold because it was too darn big and had too many gadgets. I had decided to buy a D7000 but realized I was heading down the same path, and the D7000 actually weighed more.

I am just as prone to tech lust as the rest of you.

I kept researching and when the dust settled I bought the Nikon D3100. With the money I saved, I was able to purchase a nice 55-300mm VR lens! My son works at Best Buy and got me a great price on both items. Basically I bought the camera for a bit under list price and got the lens thrown in for free. I will pick it up tonite as I am heading up to Portland where he works because I am leaving for a business trip to Dallas tomorrow morning.

I am looking forward to using what, by spec's and reviews, seems to be a great little camera!

I am going to Dallas for 6 weeks and then I am relocating to Albany, NY. I am really looking forward to all the photo ops I will have in an area of the country I have never lived or even visited before. I will be living in the same town as Pegdragger and hope we hook up and enjoy some photo trips.

More to come!!

MIKE~ CONGRATS!! I lived in NYC for a couple years, and UPSTATE NY is just stunning. You WILL enjoy it if you are able to get out and around. Lil has all the poop on upstate. :) :thumbsup

[pegdragger]

Mike - Doesn't the 3100 have HD video at 1080p? I think that was the big hype about the camera. Can't wait until you get here. I would love to show you around. It's too bad that it will be a few weeks, as the leaves are changing and it is absolutely gorgeous here right now. See you soon!

[Michael Hetrick]

OK, I took my camera with me up to the BBBBBQ last weekend and shot about 200 images and 20 video's.

First things first, the video is worthless. I may be doing something wrong, but it is skipping and stalling horribly. I'll look into that. One other thing, the autofocus works pretty good on video, but you can hear the focusing motor quite clearly on the video. Uhhhh.....that's not so good.

The images are all that I could ask for. I am quite happy with the new gen sensor that is in this body. I shot a lot on simple auto and auto-no flash. I also tried all the scene modes. I see two things that I will need to overcome for my personal uses.

First, ALL of the auto modes seem to be shutter based. Even in the bright light on scene and portrait modes the camera seems to pick the highest shutter speed, damn the depth of field. I may be able to change that, I haven't read through War and Peace AKA- The CD based owners manual.

Second, in all the auto modes the auto focus sensors seem to pick the closes object to focus to. I have to believe there is some way for me to over-ride this and be able to jog to other sensors. The obvious result is that it focuses the nearest object and due to it's shutter obsession the images seem to be somewhat planar.

When I force my will upon the obstinate inanimate object (camera) by choosing aperture lock and I twiddle the dials I am easily able to obtain the results vis-a-vis depth of field, that I am looking for.

I guess there is one other little thing. As I tend to shoot primarily vehicles and secondarily people, the flash is a little on the anemic side. It is not strong enough, nor wide enough to do a proper flash-fill on say, a motorcycle. It has a pretty short duration flash and not all that many lumens thus the interior parts of an engine compartment are not lit to an even level. It is somewhat directional, so when shooting indoors the edges of the image tend to fade out. As it has a hot-shoe this will be pretty easy to rectify with a more stout flash unit. An added bonus will obviously be more depth of field.

I do seem to go on about depth of field, don't I? :D

Other than that, I am quite happy with the unit. I am VERY happy with the quality of the images. Great resolution and color match. It is very light, so even when I have the 70-300 VR on it does not feel like an anchor. This might not seem to be much of an issue, but I ride hundreds of miles with my camera on a strap around my neck with the body/lens hanging at my side. The D300 was just miserable to even attempt this with.

Well, that's all for now. I'll keep ya updated as I learn more.

[EZE RIDER]

Nice review Mike.

I guess you figured out the "A" aperture priority setting. As long as your shutter speed stays reasonable you can get your depth of field. If you still cant obtain your desired depth of field consider a faster lens.

The built in flash does not fire at the same intensity each time like the older units, it will take into account the light available so you may need to overide some settings to use it as a fill light.

Moving to Albany? Cool, I hope we can meet up at some point.