Really impressed so far. I had an SLR years ago in film days, and very much enjoyed using it. It was broken and for years I simply used point & shoots, eventually moving into digital with an HP 1.5 mp. I moved up through point & shoots and started getting back to the context of framing a picture and the art of photography--especially once I started hiking in our beautiful area mountains a few years ago.
I had a 4 mp Kodak at the time, great little camera by the way that taught me the value of good glass-I still have it, but found I wanted to move up to newer and better technology. So, after considerable research, I purchased my Nikon L120. Very satisified, and great pictures, but I found in the last several months I wanted the versatility, options and creativity a dSLR would offer. Yeah, Now there's an expense, right? And here was someone who knew not much about them, having forgotten what she knew in the manual, film days. I have friends who will lay their lives on their Canon's and not as many who would for their Nikons (and possibly might offer their Canon friends as sacrifices, too) )-not that they aren't loyal to, and love their Nikon, there's just fewer of them. From earlier research I liked the image quality of Nikons just a bit better, but still when you're spending a chunk of cash, and if you're like me and are far, far from the top 3%, you want to make sure you're getting a good product, and a reasonably user friendly one for your money.
So after considerable research, comparisons (to Canon), scrutinizing images for Canon & Nikons D3200, D5100, D5200, D5300, albeit not many with the 5300 since it was relatively new, and reading reviews here on Amazon (one of the best resources in my opinion, and '7's is a wonderful string with loads of interaction and advice) I started leaning towards the D5300 opposed to the other models, and finally due the reviews and 7's advice, I plunged and bought the D5300 with the 18-55 mm lens--the red one, of course.
I love it! I was a little frustrated at first with all the menus's and options. It seemed overwhelming, but refer to the manual, buy a book to supplement ( I ended up buying 2), come here and read and just play with it. As you start experimenting with it and changing settings and modes, it gets less confusing and not as complicated as it felt at first. And it has auto modes, so it's not like you can't get great shots from the start while you learn.
One of the things I found, is change your picture quality to fine, it will bring an incredible, realistic feel to your photo's. Images of my cat, a tortoise shell are fantastic, capturing the depth, clarity and colors in her eyes and the contrasts in her fur giving a very living feel to the picture--not to mention the disdainful look she's giving the dog is very clear. Photo's I took of my neighbor picked up the green flecks in his blue eyes, the lines, whiskers and age spots in his skin, making them look very lifelike. Captured him exactly, and with a sharper depth than normally in a photo.
Some have noted difficulty with action shots. I haven't done much, but shots of my granddaughters jumping & goofing around captured them in mid air and did a nice job freezing the action. I also snapped some shots of my dog and his fur friends running outside, and captured hair and ears flying as they ran in different modes--Sport and pet, and I'm pretty sure some were in auto. I'm excited to take it out this summer to sporting and action events and see what I can get. I'm optimistic--if it can capture a flying, shaggy Shih-tzu, it's looking positive.
I've noticed the single focus setting on auto doesn't stay put if you change modes and back, but as far as skewing the image, I'm not really seeing anything discernible or problematic. If you're taking a picture of a moving object, you won't want it fixed anyway. To me the wandering (and by that I mean it isn't fixed to a central single spot, not that it's randomly floating around) focus point is a little distracting when not fixed to a single point, but that's just me being over aware of it at the moment, I'm focusing on not focusing on it. Not a dealbreaker.
I'm picky about image quality and I'm very satisfied with what I've gotten, As I become more familiar with various settings, I'm very much enjoying playing with it and look forward to learning more about a DSLR and what you can do with it. This is a perfect camera for it, and I absolutely recommend it to anyone stepping up to the dSLR universe.
Nikon D5300 24.2 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with Built-in Wi-Fi and GPS Body Only (Grey)
4.4 | 1,091 ratings
Price:
Last update: 01-28-2025
About this item
24MP DX-format CMOS sensor with no optical low-pass filter
39-point AF system with 3D tracking and 3D matrix metering II
5 frames per second continuous shooting
ISO 100 - 12800 (Expandable to 25600)
3.2" Vari-angle LCD with 1,037,000 dots
1080 (60p, 30p, 24p) and 720 (60p, 50p) HD video (H.264/MPEG-4)
Built-in Wi-Fi (for sharing and remote camera control) and GPS
Raw and Raw+ JPG shooting
SD/SDHC/SDXC memory
39-point AF system with 3D tracking and 3D matrix metering II
5 frames per second continuous shooting
ISO 100 - 12800 (Expandable to 25600)
3.2" Vari-angle LCD with 1,037,000 dots
1080 (60p, 30p, 24p) and 720 (60p, 50p) HD video (H.264/MPEG-4)
Built-in Wi-Fi (for sharing and remote camera control) and GPS
Raw and Raw+ JPG shooting
SD/SDHC/SDXC memory
Product information
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Nikon D5300 24.2 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with Built-in Wi-Fi and GPS Body Only (Grey)
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Top reviews from the United States
KatieGreat Choice
Katie
Great Choice
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2014
I had a 4 mp Kodak at the time, great little camera by the way that taught me the value of good glass-I still have it, but found I wanted to move up to newer and better technology. So, after considerable research, I purchased my Nikon L120. Very satisified, and great pictures, but I found in the last several months I wanted the versatility, options and creativity a dSLR would offer. Yeah, Now there's an expense, right? And here was someone who knew not much about them, having forgotten what she knew in the manual, film days. I have friends who will lay their lives on their Canon's and not as many who would for their Nikons (and possibly might offer their Canon friends as sacrifices, too) )-not that they aren't loyal to, and love their Nikon, there's just fewer of them. From earlier research I liked the image quality of Nikons just a bit better, but still when you're spending a chunk of cash, and if you're like me and are far, far from the top 3%, you want to make sure you're getting a good product, and a reasonably user friendly one for your money.
So after considerable research, comparisons (to Canon), scrutinizing images for Canon & Nikons D3200, D5100, D5200, D5300, albeit not many with the 5300 since it was relatively new, and reading reviews here on Amazon (one of the best resources in my opinion, and '7's is a wonderful string with loads of interaction and advice) I started leaning towards the D5300 opposed to the other models, and finally due the reviews and 7's advice, I plunged and bought the D5300 with the 18-55 mm lens--the red one, of course.
I love it! I was a little frustrated at first with all the menus's and options. It seemed overwhelming, but refer to the manual, buy a book to supplement ( I ended up buying 2), come here and read and just play with it. As you start experimenting with it and changing settings and modes, it gets less confusing and not as complicated as it felt at first. And it has auto modes, so it's not like you can't get great shots from the start while you learn.
One of the things I found, is change your picture quality to fine, it will bring an incredible, realistic feel to your photo's. Images of my cat, a tortoise shell are fantastic, capturing the depth, clarity and colors in her eyes and the contrasts in her fur giving a very living feel to the picture--not to mention the disdainful look she's giving the dog is very clear. Photo's I took of my neighbor picked up the green flecks in his blue eyes, the lines, whiskers and age spots in his skin, making them look very lifelike. Captured him exactly, and with a sharper depth than normally in a photo.
Some have noted difficulty with action shots. I haven't done much, but shots of my granddaughters jumping & goofing around captured them in mid air and did a nice job freezing the action. I also snapped some shots of my dog and his fur friends running outside, and captured hair and ears flying as they ran in different modes--Sport and pet, and I'm pretty sure some were in auto. I'm excited to take it out this summer to sporting and action events and see what I can get. I'm optimistic--if it can capture a flying, shaggy Shih-tzu, it's looking positive.
I've noticed the single focus setting on auto doesn't stay put if you change modes and back, but as far as skewing the image, I'm not really seeing anything discernible or problematic. If you're taking a picture of a moving object, you won't want it fixed anyway. To me the wandering (and by that I mean it isn't fixed to a central single spot, not that it's randomly floating around) focus point is a little distracting when not fixed to a single point, but that's just me being over aware of it at the moment, I'm focusing on not focusing on it. Not a dealbreaker.
I'm picky about image quality and I'm very satisfied with what I've gotten, As I become more familiar with various settings, I'm very much enjoying playing with it and look forward to learning more about a DSLR and what you can do with it. This is a perfect camera for it, and I absolutely recommend it to anyone stepping up to the dSLR universe.
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