Nikon D3100 – Quick look with ISO comparison (updated)

25. Oktober 2010 WSpekner 1 Kommentar

I’ve been a big fan of the Nikon D40 and D40x at their time. They had great image quality in 2007, were small and handy and it has always been a joy to use them. Their successors, the D60 and the D3000 never really caught my interest, since they didn’t improve very much over the older models.

Three years went by until Nikon introduced their new D3100 recently with an all new 14MP sensor, with full HD video and a couple of other improvements. You know by now, that I really grew out of big DSLR cameras, so the D3100 came in handy for a short review.

Before I got a review sample, I was handling the camera a couple of times at my camera store, but wasn’t too eager to try it. I have still a D3s laying around and the viewfinder of the D3100 was just too small to awake my lust to take a photo. Eventually I decided I’ll still give it a try. Here are my findings (read on after the break).

To say it up front: The D3100 is a great little camera. It is a great camera for beginners, a great small companion for bigger and faster DSLRs and even for enthusiasts it may serve as the only camera quite well. Why?

Because it’s small, light and very quiet
It delivers great APS-C image quality
It’s got great high ISO performance for an APS-C camera
With the right lenses you just WANT to take photos with it (even with the rather small viewfinder – you just get used to it)
The AF is quite quick (not as snappy as in the bigger models, but faster than any of the mirrorless offerings to date)
Beware: You don’t have AF wild older non-AF-S lenses. So be sure – if you get this camera – to get the AF-S lenses too. If not, you’ll have to focus manually. At least you’ll get focus confirmation in the viewfinder.
Tip: If you have to focus manually, you can use the live view function of the camera to focus more comfortably. I did it and it worked quite well.
It’s got a lot of in-camera post-processing features
It’s affordable
It has got video (not that I care, but for some it might be an essential goody)

I was most interested in overall image quality and its high ISO performance. And I wanted to compare its IQ to some of its smaller competitors like the Sony Nex-3 and the Leica X1 (which is supposed to have the D5000/D90/D300(s) sensor behind its lens).

As you know, I’m no scientific reviewer. I rather lean on realworld images. So take all this with that information in mind.

I was especially eager to find out, if it’s any better than my Sony Nex-3. There’s still a lot of discussion, if the Nikon and the Sony share the same sensor and I might add, I’m pretty positive it IS the same. From looking at JPGs only, sharpness, detail and dynamic range seem very similar between the two. The biggest difference you’ll find is noise reduction. Of course it’s hard to make real comparisons right now, since the result ultimately depends on your JPG settings and there’s no RAW support from ACR yet. I have added a couple of comparison shots (click to enlarge to 100%): Update: Adobe just released the new Lighroom 3.3 release candidate. That why I added a RAW comparison of the ISO performance.

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Sony Nex-3 on the right, both ISO 200 (JPG, D3100, sharpening 7, noise reduction “Normal”, Sony sharpening +1, noise reduction as set by camera)

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Sony Nex-3 on the right, both ISO 3.200 (JPG, D3100, sharpening 7, noise reduction “Normal”, Sony sharpening +1, noise reduction as set by camera)

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Sony Nex-3 on the right, both ISO 6.400 (JPG, D3100, sharpening 7, noise reduction “Normal”, Sony sharpening +1, noise reduction as set by camera)

You can see from these samples, that the Nikon tries to keep sharpness up and noise is more visible in JPG. I personally prefer the Nikon image, since decreasing sharpness and adding more NR is far easier than vice versa.

UPDATE:

Nikon D3100 RAW images versus Sony Nex-3 RAW images

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Sony Nex-3 on the right, both ISO 200 (RAW, no noise reduction in Lightroom 3.3)

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Sony Nex-3 on the right, both ISO 3.200 (RAW, no noise reduction in Lightroom 3.3)

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Sony Nex-3 on the right, both ISO 6.400 (RAW, no noise reduction in Lightroom 3.3)

The Leica X1 – if it uses the sensor of the Nikon D5000/D90/D300(s) – is supposed to have quite good high ISO performance, though it is limited to ISO 3.200 (while the Nikons go up to ISO 6.400).

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Leica X1 on the right, both ISO 100 (JPG, D3100, sharpening 7, noise reduction “Normal”, Leica X1 sharpening “Standard”, noise reduction as set by camera)

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Leica X1 on the right, both ISO 3.200 (JPG, D3100, sharpening 7, noise reduction “Normal”, Leica X1 sharpening “Standard”, noise reduction as set by camera)

UPDATE:

Nikon D3100 RAW images versus Leica X1 RAW images

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Leica X1 on the right, both ISO 100 (RAW, no noise reduction in Lightroom 3.3)

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Leica X1 on the right, both ISO 3.200 (RAW, no noise reduction in Lightroom 3.3)

In the JPGs the Nikon seems to try and keep sharpness up at higher ISO settings, while the Leica loses some sharpness in order to keep noise down.
That changes in RAW, where the Leica seems sharper.

As I’m lucky enough to have a Nikon D3s full format camera laying around, I did some comparison shots to figure out, if there’s a large sensor advantage, when it comes to noise.

I’d say the difference is pretty obvious (click images to enlarge to 100%):

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Nikon D3s on the right (JPG, D3100, ISO 6.400 sharpening 7, noise reduction “Normal”, D3s, ISO 25.600 sharpening 7, noise reduction “Normal”)

I’d say the two images look similar in terms of noise, though the D3s has more color noise, which isn’t surprising at ISO 25.600.
The noise difference is about the same at every ISO-setting. At lower ISO the difference isn’t that obvious. Until ISO 800 you’ll get about the same image quality from the two cameras with a little more noise in the D3100. Here’s a comparison at ISO 400, both RAW, post processed in Capture NX2:

^ Nikon D3100 on the left, Nikon D3s on the right (RAW, ISO 400, AF-S 50/1.4G lens)

I’d say, if you keep ISO down to about 1.600 and still want to print big, you don’t necessarily need a full format camera as the D700 or the D3s. Better invest your money in great lenses!

Here are full-size shots for every ISO setting:

I’ve already mentioned that the D3100 offers a couple of in camera image editing features. I’d like to show you two of them, one very useful, the other one a gimmick:

Active D-Lighting

You can use the Active D-Lighting (ADL) feature for every photo you take. If you have it usually turned off, you can still apply it later with the appropriate editing function. You can choose between “moderate”, “normal” and “strong”. Here’s what it does (click image to enlarge):

^ Original shot on the left, in-camera ADL-effect on the right

The second editing function is the “Miniature Effect”. That feature softens the upper and lower part of the image to make it look like it’s a picture of a model. Here are some samples (click to enlarge):

^ Original shot on the left, in-camera miniature-effect on the right

As always I’d like to leave you with a couple of realworld shots. They are all out-of-camera JPGs, post-processed quite intensively. Why? Because I believe that reviews should show you, what you can get out of your images and be an inspiration too, to find your own photographic style. Plus, since there are a lot of in-camera JPG-settings, there’s no “standard image” coming out of the camera.

If you’re interested in out-of-camera JPGs to check sharpness and detail, I’ve uploaded a couple of these images in full resolution to my flickr-account as they came out of the D3100. Settings: JPG S-Fine, Standard curve, sharpening 7, saturation +1.