If I had to guess, I’d say that more than half the questions I get here on Tumblr have to do with my opinions of a variety of cameras that I can recommend.
Since I’ve only used a Nikon D90 and a Nikon D7000 I feel like I’m not really informed to give opinions of other cameras, until now.
A good friend of mine has a D3100 and let me borrow it for a week. So, after using it for a day and killing the battery (it wasn’t charged), I recharged it and set out to taking photos on it. I used it side by side with my D7000 and am now ready to absolutely recommend it as an amazing first camera for anyone out there who wants to get into photography.
Let’s start with the facts:
The D3100 sells for around $600 (with a decent kit lens) as of the time of this writing (if you buy it from Adorama, Amazon or B&H you’ll be supporting this website). It’s small for a DSLR but feels very good in the hand and because it’s so light, is easy to carry around with you. Since it’s a Nikon, it’ll accept just about any Nikon lens out there, but keep in mind that there is no autofocus built into this camera, so older lenses (anything that doesn’t end in ‘G’) will not autofocus. The D3100 is fast and responsive to all types of shooting and performs extremely well in low light (check out a few shots I posted here using the D3100).
There are some catches to the D3100 (that don’t make it a bad camera), mainly that it doesn’t have an autofocus motor in the camera, so you have to use lenses that autofocus for you (called ‘G’ lenses). There are some other issues that I found that are targeted to more advanced users. I couldn’t figure out how to get the ISO display in the view finder and the screen is definitely lower quality than what I’m used to.
Here’s what it comes down to - if you want to get a good start taking pictures, don’t want to spend too much money, and aren’t concerned with all the very fiddly functions of taking pictures, then the D3100 is an amazing first DSLR for you. If you plan on taking photography seriously, you’re better off saving up and buying something like the D7000 (from Adorama, Amazon or B&H).
