This is easily the finest camera that I've owned and I've owned some good cameras hailing back to the Minolta SRT-201. I seldom use the viewfinder and instead tend to use the high contrast and very sharp monitor built into the camera. Focus is quick and accurate with the kit lens. Pictures are bright and color is very accurate.
Vibration Reduction is better than I expected. With the camera on my tripod and VR off, I can tap the tripod and see the image resonate with the vibration in the tripod. With VR on, there is no discernable shake even with the 70-300mm lens on full zoom. Quite amazing actually. I can hear the VR mechanism working but it's not loud, just quietly working it's magic.
With AF and VR on, it takes a second to take an image since everything has to stabilize before the picture is taken. Turning them off and doing manual focus allows a much faster process per picture.
I also purchased a Tamron 70-300mm lens and all features work perfectly with this camera, both AF and VR (which Tamron calls VC) work pretty much the same on it and the kit lens.
It's worth every penny. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat. This camera makes ME smile.
1 Month Update: (June 27)
We have a couple of thousand shots out of this amazing camera now.
About 1500 images out in nature with the 300mm zoom all the way out capturing birds in flight, nesting and doing what birds do. Sure we throw a lot of them out. Every photographer does. The image is good, it's just not of anything worth keeping. This is not a camera problem. This is a photographer problem. Using the camera more is the answer.
In the last two weeks, we've experimented with an older fully manual 55mm Micro-Nikkor-P lens with the 27.5mm extension tube. It takes a little experimentation to get the exposure but the images are exquisite. I never expected to be able to put a 40 year old Nikon lens on this camera but I did and with the camera set to manual you can use this ultra modern camera very similarly to how we took pictures 40 years ago. The manufacturing quality of those old lenses is amazing. There are tens of thousands of them on the used market and available relatively inexpensively. I have just over $100 in the used macro lens and extension tube and that gives us 2:1, 1:1 to .5:1 macro ability with a focal distance measured in inches out to infinity. The Micro-Nikkor lenses have legendary Nikon quality and performance and it's not at all lost on this camera.
If you've always wanted to get those close up macro shots of bugs or flowers breaking into bloom, don't shy away from those old Nikkor lenses in manual mode. They take wonderful pictures with the D5100.
As a bonus, my wife wasn't really solid with learning the relationship between shutter speed, f stop and ISO until a week with the manual lens on. Now she's all over it. Because you HAVE TO LEARN to make it work at all. Depth of field now makes sense to her and now she knows how to achieve it. Or not.
3 Month Update: (August 3)
Just shot a wedding in Duluth and the north shore of Lake Superior. (not as the paid photographer) Two days, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner campfire/cabin, wedding and reception. Took 430 shots. Left the camera on automatic 99% of the time. About 20 shots were really great photos. About 15 of them were motion blurred, badly focused or missed target. The rest of them were acceptable shots. Nearly all of the motion blurred were from the Tamron 70-300 in full zoom. Half of those, the subject moved in the frame.
Overall I'd rate it a success. Two of the photos were real winners. Pictures that told a story and caught emotion.
I can't fault the camera or lenses for anything. They just worked. Very happy with the setup.
I had an external flash on, the Nikon SB-400 AF Speedlight. I also had the diffuser for it from Stofen, the OM-400. This flash was really not up to the task for a big room like a church. Thankfully the room was well lit. For smaller rooms around 30 x 20 or less, the flash and diffuser was excellent. The room really needs a white ceiling for the diffuser to work properly since it directs a lot of light up at a 45 degree angle. I took nearly all of the church interior pictures hand held with no flash and let the VR lenses do their magic. I got a lot of good shots from the balcony with the 70-300 lens and the camera balanced on the railing.
Outdoor pictures near dusk in low outdoor lighting came out way better than any camera I've had in the past. Until it got dark enough to simply not support picture taking, the dusk pictures pretty much look like the daytime pictures. The D5100 really is amazing in low light conditions.
Battery life was very good. I went through two batteries in the camera. I'm sure the external flash helped battery life. I can't speak to battery life in the flash since I recharged them once that night and can't tell how far they were run down. The flash always recharged VERY quickly.
Wrap Up:
Cameras take images. Photographers take pictures. The Nikon D5100 is way more capable than most of us. I have yet to demand something from it that it hasn't delivered with excellence. With this much capability, we can work on and improve our abilities. And with digital images being micro-pennies vs dollars in old school terms, it's an inexpensive way to get an education in photography.
And you're going to end up with some great pictures in the process.
Get it.
Nikon D5100 DSLR Camera with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Auto Focus-S Nikkor Zoom Lens (OLD MODEL)
4.3 | 846 ratings
Price: 0
Last update: 01-11-2025
About this item
16.2MP DX format CMOS sensor
11 point AF system (with 3D tracking)
4 frames per second continuous shooting
1080p HD video
14 bit Raw shooting
3.0 inch side articulated LCD with 920,000 dots
ISO 100 6400, expandable to 25600
Full time AF in live view
In camera effects
11 point AF system (with 3D tracking)
4 frames per second continuous shooting
1080p HD video
14 bit Raw shooting
3.0 inch side articulated LCD with 920,000 dots
ISO 100 6400, expandable to 25600
Full time AF in live view
In camera effects
Product information
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Nikon D5100 DSLR Camera with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Auto Focus-S Nikkor Zoom Lens (OLD MODEL)
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