Nikon D3200 24.2 MP CMOS Digital SLR with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S DX NIKKOR Zoom Lens (Renewed)

Review of the Nikon D3200So far, I am impressed with this camera.I just got it a few days ago, and I am already putting it through its paces, consulting the manual, which it has both a short user guide in hard copy and a PDF format full manual on CD. The short manual and the full manual cover most of the same things, but the longer version has more detailed information about some features that are only briefly touched on in the shorter manual. (The short hard copy manual has 77 pages, whereas the full manual on CD rom has 228 pages.) The PDF manual also has copies of the manual in various languages Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese. In my package there was also a short hard copy manual in Spanish. There is also a Guide Mode in the camera itself which has pointers and tips as to how to use the camera.I have already taken a few pictures and a short movie with it and I am very impressed with it so far. This is a very nearly professional camera for a mid level camera. And I am sure a professional could use it without any problems. With a good lens, a pro should be able to shoot excellent images with it.Until I got this camera, I was quite happy with my 5 megapixel Sony F717 camera. It was indeed a great camera and I took plenty of pictures with it. And it had quite an array of features of its own, and it was quite near the quality of a professional SLR camera. But then it started developing memory errors and finally the camera simply died on me after 10 years of faithful service. I could not power it up, even though I bought another power adapter for it. So I decided it was time to get a new camera. I always liked the Nikon cameras. And I have an old Nikkormat manual SLR 35mm camera, which I took thousands of great pictures with. So I decided to gamble with Nikon again and upgrade my digital camera. I wanted a good high res camera so I opted to get a 24 megapixel camera.The camera is little different from a standard film SLR camera. You can do practically anything with this camera that you can with a manual or automatic film SLR -- and some things that you can't with a regular film SLR. And you can get some really great images with this camera. The camera is capable of creating images of resolutions up to 6016 x 4000 pixels and as small as 3008 x 2000. (My old Sony digital camera by contrast took pictures of 2560 x 1920 maximum size.) That translates to a size of 20.1 x 13.3 inches or 50.9 x 33.8 cm at 300 dpi. Of course you can enlarge the image even further using a computer with image editing software such as Paintshop Pro, or Adobe Photoshop, and there would be no pixelation, and obviously you can also edit the image in other ways and add special effects, etc.It has a standard viewfinder that all SLR cameras have where you can see the image as the lens sees it, but if you like to use the digital monitor, all you have to do is press a button and then you can see the image in the digital monitor. But if you use the monitor, it is a good idea to use it in low light such as indoors. Those types of monitors are hard to see in sunlight. Movies however can only be shot using the monitor.One great feature that I love with this camera is that it can do both movies and still pictures with the same camera. It takes high quality video at 1920 x 1080 maximum and 640 x 424 minimum. You can take stills while shooting a movie too. And it can shoot up 64 frames per second. And you can adjust settings such as f-stop, ISO, and other settings to get the best movie images. To shoot video in stereo sound, you need a special stereo microphone. It has a standard micro audio in jack, so you can hook any microphone to it including stereo microphones.The camera has a built in flash, but also supports hot shoe for external flashes. There is no jack for using flash with cable however, unless you have a flash cable that uses the hot shoe, or some kind of remote control flash.Because I had old lenses that I used and were compatible with my old manual 35mm camera, I wondered if they would work with my digital camera. And, yes, they do work. I have a wide angle Nikkor lens, and a 200mm Rokunar zoom lens, and both work with the camera, that way, I don't have to buy new zoom lenses or wide angle lenses. Of course, because these are manual lenses, you have to do everything manually such as focus, and f-stop, but they work. So if you have a good high quality lens from a manual 35mm Nikon or compatible camera, you likely could use it. And as one commenter in this forum put it, and as any professional photographer will tell you, the lens or the "glass" in the front of the camera is one of the key ingredients to getting great crisp sharp pictures with a camera. The digital image processor, which is the digital equivalent of film is the next ingredient. And as far as I can tell, this seems to be a high quality image processor.Like any professional SLR camera, you can vary shutter speed manually, anything from long time exposures (such as for night city lights or stars), to 1/4000 of a second (for high action photography). It also has ISO ( or ASA) settings which adjusts the sensitivity of the internal image processor to simulate film light sensitivity. Normal standard film is 100 ASA or ISO, but if you are in a low light setting and need to simulate a higher speed film, so that you can shoot in low light levels at higher shutter speeds and small f-stops, you can set your ISO setting to 400 to simulate 400 speed film or set to 1000 ISO (ASA) to shoot indoors in low light without using flash and you can use higher f-stops and/or faster shutter speeds and still capture good images. It goes up to a whopping 12800 ISO, great for night shooting in very low light. But, like real film, the higher the ISO or ASA rating, you may get grainy images or "noise" in your images, and color gets washed out in low light levels. Of course, I mentioned f-stops and these are adjustable too. If you are using a manual lens, you will have to adjust manually, and f-stops vary according to the individual lens. Some lenses have f-stops from 1.0 and go up to f 22 and even to f 64 (F-stop, by the way, for novice photographers, is also called aperture opening, this sets the opening in the iris, or the eye of the camera. It is very much like the pupil of the eye. The higher the number, the smaller the opening. Hence, with a low f-stop, you have a wide opening to let in more light, but also less depth of field, that is, the range of distances where objects will be sharp. The higher the f-stop the less light, but greater depth of field. Thus getting a properly exposed image means finding the right combination(s) of film speed, shutter speed and f-stop. )Of course, if you are just looking for a quality but simple point and shoot camera, this camera has a fully auto mode, which will handle everything for you, f-stop, focus, and shutter speed. All you do is point, look through the viewfinder or use the monitor to frame the image you want, push the shutter release button just lightly to allow the camera to focus and adjust settings, and then it will beep, push down, and click, it will take the picture. (But then, of course, you will have to use only the fully automatic lenses with the camera. You can buy additional lenses separately.) The camera will warn you if your image will be underexposed, and in auto mode, the built in flash may pop up. There is a built in light meter, but it only works with the automatic lenses, but if you are shooting manually with a CPU lens, that is a lens that can be used fully automatically with that camera, the light meter will be of great help in getting good exposures. After you take the picture, the monitor will show you what your image looks like and there is a menu where you can browse your pictures and even do some editing and even delete bad images. No more waiting days for your film to come back from processing, and then you see if you made a mistake! If you don't like the image you took, you can change the settings and shoot another image until you get it right.The camera has everything a novice photographer would need to get started. There are also special automatic settings that the camera has to shoot specific subjects easily, such as a setting for portraits, settings for shooting children, settings for action and sports, automatic settings for low light situations, etc.So this camera covers a range from professional photographers to rank amateur and novice photographers.Other features include, burst shooting, where you can shoot a rapid sequence of images up to 4 images per second such a for capturing dynamic action. It has a timer for self portraits or situations where you may want to wait a few seconds before shooting the image. There is a white adjust so that light looks natural in different kinds of light, such as florescent light, sunlight etc. Some automatic lenses also include features, such as image stabilization to avoid the shakes in video and motion blurs in stills.The camera body seems to be a fairly solid construction and fairly rugged. It is a solid molded plastic with rubber grips. Of course, you wouldn't want to drop the camera because of all the electronics, but the body seems to be a fairly solid molded exterior. It has a good ergonomic feel and is a less clunky and is somewhat more lightweight than my F717 camera which had the trademark long lens.The camera takes a variety of SD format sticks. If you don't have a compatible card reader on your computer, you can use the USB connection to upload your pictures to your computer. Depending on the size of your stick, image size, the level of compression you use, and whether you are shooting movies or stills you can store anywhere from hundreds to thousands of pictures or several movies of 20 min length on your memory stick. I bought a 32GB stick which can store thousands of pictures without having to change sticks. It sure saves on buying film! After you upload, you can then delete the images and movies off of your stick, if you desire, to make more room, especially if you shoot a lot of pictures.The camera in the box comes with the camera body, the lens that is advertised to come with the camera depending on the camera you buy (and that is a fully automatic lens.) A shorter booklet manual, CDs for the PDF version of the manual, which is the longer manual, the charger, a L -ion battery, a neck strap, and basic software for handling, importing, and editing your images, movies, etc., and a couple of small odds and ends, such as lens caps, viewfinder cover (if you are shooting without looking into the viewfinder, to prevent light leaks). If you have Windows 7, Vista, or XP, you can actually access the images and movies and move them without any special software, but the software simply makes it easier. If you have a compatible memory card reader or USB connection, you can simply use windows utilities to read the files on the stick. They are just ordinary *.jpg and *.mov files. There are no proprietary formats or any special data types for which you have to use the provided software. If you shoot in uncompressed format, the stick will then store .nef files.By the way, if you want to do things like double or multiple exposures and special effects, that is all doable with image editing software such as Paintshop Pro or the more popular and well known Adobe Photoshop. Hey, this is digital photography! You don't need to do them with your camera. But the camera does have some effects you can add during or after you take the picture. And the software included with the camera can do some basic image editing, but it is not a full fledged image editing software package.This is my review so far. I will provide updates as necessary.

Like many folks, I pre-ordered the D800 the same day it was available. Alas, Nikon totally blew the market analysis vs production vs. supply chain formula. After waiting 2 months, I had to leave the country before Nikon got it's D800 act together. I needed a beat-up D90 replacement camera, and the D3200 seemed like a decent place-holder. I quickly ordered one before they were back-ordered too! Sure, the D3200 is DX, not FX. Sure, it is not nearly as flexible. Sure, it can only AF with newer lenses. BUT, you can buy about 4-D3200's for the price of a D800, AND it comes with a decent kit lens for $699!The tutoring graphical-based menu system is geared more to beginners, which I am not, so I find it maddening. Most will love it, since it is somewhat educational, and offers a great variety of pre-sets to take creative shots easily.It is amazingly light weight - lighter than most lenses! It is very quiet. The AF could be faster, but it's plenty fast enough. When you dig deeper, you shockingly find that the D3200 has many advanced internal features from the highest-end cameras (D800 & F4). The high-res LCD rear screen, the EXPEED 3 image processing engine, and a new 24MP sensor. The EXPEED 3 image processing engine allows the D3200 to perform at an altitude unheard of for a so-called entry level camera. Nikon's Active-D dynamic range enhancement at 24MP at 4 frames per second requires substantial in-camera processing power.I bought this camera primarily for still photography. With the proper lenses & technique, the results are stunning. Low-light/high ISO performance is far beyond what you should expect at this level camera. Candle-lit face images are noise-free, and look great. Still life's on a tripod at ISO 100, have more resolution that ANY DSLR I have ever used, with very little shadow noise. In short, I might not accept my D800 when it becomes available. I might use the D3200 longer than I thought, (waiting for the 24MP FX D600 for $1999 later this year -- my guesses on price & stats & date)...or, just keep using the D3200. If it breaks (I'm hard on cameras), I'll just buy a new one.Bottom line -- the D3200: super light-weight, very quiet, super high resolution (& low noise, high dynamic range, superb colors), incredible HD video with slow motion. It is no doubt THE most amazing DSLR value on the planet!5/14/12 UPDATE: I've now shot 100s of images, using lenses from 11 mm to 600 mm. I've learned a lot. Super-high resolution cameras are a new arena for most of us. On the surface, one automatically thinks you will get images with twice the resolution (12MP vs 24MP). Not so. MP resolution is measured linearly, so the increase while significant, is less than doubled. More importantly, when you enter the hi-res camera stratosphere, photographic technique & lens choice are critical. While these high MP cameras are capable of amazing results, you have to work to get absolutely ALL the MP's this camera has to offer. Do not blame the camera if your initial results are less dramatically sharper than your old 6-8-12MP Nikon. It's probably you...BTW, the Nikon 18-55mm is a decent lens, but it doesn't do this imager justice. You can get better results, with better glass. The excellent f1.8 35mm DX Nikon on this camera makes a super-light weight compact package you can carry all day long, producing super images. A 60 year-old Nikkor Q 200mm f4, $70 or so on eBay, produces stunning results if carefully used on Manual, on a tripod.Set-up a table with clean background and a few artifacts on it. Use the sharpest lens you have, at f 8, on a sturdy tripod, perpendicular to the table, Shoot the scene with the in-camera flash on both old & new camera bodies. You will see the difference easily when images from both cameras are compared side by side, enlarged to 100%.How does this translate to everyday casual shooting? Not easily. Sub-par technique still results in sub-par images no matter what camera is used. If you are a beginner looking for the best entry-level DSLR ever made, all of this won't matter -- grab a D3200 and shoot away! Just note that the D3200 is capable of world-class imagery. If it takes more effort to take photographs of this caliber, it's a good thing -- the D3200 forces you to up your game to get there!5/5/13 UPDATE. It's been a year. I have a D800 and a D3200. Yes, there are many differences between the two. One is at the high end of the spectrum, the other, entry level. When I'm shooting commercially, or seriously in any way, it's the D800. It is a superb camera, if you own glass that can fully exploit the 36MP sensor, and your technique is solid. For everything else, I use the D3200. Why? It's light and compact. You can easily carry it around all day, with the f1.8 35mm, and hardly know it's there. If that lens isn't wide enough, shoot a 3-frame series and stitch them together in Photoshop. Again, with good glass and technique, the results are very, very good. D800 territory? No, but few would notice. The D3200 is a pleasure to use, and handles fast enough for most kinds of photography. You can use old manual Nikkor lenses easily, albeit with a bit more effort. With the focus confirmation dot in the viewfinder, manual focusing is easy. Exposure can be guessed and adjusted using the great hi-res LCD. I recently had to shoot an emergency-rush job covering a politician's speech. All I had in the car was the D3200, the 35mm f1.8, and an old, sharp 100mm f2.8 E Nikkor -- my normal in-car-at all-times stash. The setting was indoors, in a bright garden area -- no flash allowed. I was surrounded by folks with Nikon D4's and $1500 lenses. I got a few looks....LOL. I boosted the ISO to 1600, used the $50 100mm @ f4 @1/125th, and the results were great, published in several places. The D3200 is a great camera for the money, I like it more now than when I first bought it!