Looking for Answers about Nikon Inc. D3100?

I am a new D3100 owner who loves nature photography. I just added a AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 55-200mm to my camera gear and have been extrememly pleased. The lens performs well and isn't much larger than the standard 18-55 mm.

with its 18-55mm accompanied k\lens the AF-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR will be the best companion to get all ranges

I personally would suggest the 55-200mm VR (or non VR, if you don't need it.), 55-300mm VR or 70-300mm VR. The 55-200(s) are the the cheapest, except for the 70-300mm That's not a VR, about $30 cheaper than the 55-200.
I have a D3000 and I'm going to get the 55-300 if I can.

1. You want a telephoto zoom lens that is small? No problem, there are a bunch of them that other people mentioned like the 55-200 and 70-300. But recognize that what you are giving up is wide aperture. If you want a bright telephoto lens that is going to be big, heavy and expensive.
2. The idea of not switching lenses is absurd to me. If you have a bright prime like a 35/1.8, that is some 2+ stops faster than a consumer zoom lens at the wide bright end of the zoom range. When it gets dark you are going to want to put on the 35/1.8 to keep your shutter speeds reasonable. Otherwise you cannot shoot moving subjects in low light without a flash.
3. It may not work for you due to weight or price considerations but my 70-200 2.8 VR is what I prefer for portraits or animals.

Well to be honest if you don't want a lens bigger than the one it came with(18-55mm) then you won't get close to anything. Also you have a SLR camera so it's not like you can zoom in and out easily for a primary lens I would suggest something not to big but not to small I personally would sugest a 55-200mm lens. I use this lens quite often.

I hope this was helpful
Thank you

I recently purchased the D3100 and got the AF-S NIKKOR 70-300mm 1:4.5-5.6G with VR, which I am very pleased with. I would highly recommend that lens. I'm sure there are others that would serve you just as well, but this one has worked out very well for me. I would love to have a zoom lens with a larger aperture, but this is just a hobby for me at this point and can't justify $5000 for a lens... :-)

The 18-200mm VR lens is an excellent one-lens solution.

Get the 55-200mm Nikkor with VR or none, even refurbished from Nikon site is great.

As I sit here and read all of these suggestions, most of youre cell phones use the Micro USB cables. You must be careful because there are 2 different types, there are ones set up for just to charge you phones and there is one that is a data cable. Make sure it is a data micro USB. the cheapest ones that you can find are on Amazon. Good luck with youre new camera.

i just noticed that also. But i also noticed that the cable from my Canon point and shoot fits perfectly....given that everyone was talking about "generic" cables, is there any danger in using it?

I happened to have one that came from another generic charger for a phone. Interestingly, the cord that comes with my Nikon S8000 point and shoot does not work with it! If I hadn't found one, I probably would've turned to eBay or Amazon. It is odd that it did not come with a USB, but they're easy to find.

Yes...saving money is good but also if anyone has a modern cell phone or smart phone...most likely you have the USB cord already so no biggie there. What I did is purchase a small mini USB card reader at WalMart and paid like 7 bucks and it works great downloads in seconds when I'm on my USB 3.0 port.

Let's not sugarcoat this: Nikon omitted the USB cable to save money and because they knew lots of customers already have that cable. They saved maybe 50 cents which translates to a dollar at the retail level. You can buy one from Amazon for between $0.01 and $2.50, $5.00 for the fancy name brand. The shipping costs more than the cable.
The D3100 is the lowest cost, entry level Nikon DSLR and there are a lot of minor cost savings like this. There is no wireless remote which saved them a dollar or two. The LCD screen is an older generation which might have saved ten or twenty dollars. There's no mechanical autofocus link which saved another twenty dollars or so. The lens has a plastic mount which saved ten dollars and will make it last much less long. I guess they figure D3100 customers don't change lens that much.
But they didn't cut corners on the things that matter most: image quality, autofocus, good ergonomics. It is an awesome camera. When you add everything up, it is the difference between the $600 D3100 and the $1100 D7000. I prefer the D3100. I'll buy my own USB cable if I need one.

If your computer or laptop comes with a slot to enter your SD card you can insert it there. OR buy a Memory Card reader.

You can most certainly purchase a USB 2.0 to micro-USB cable at any electronics store or through online retailers. While it is unfortunate that small things like that aren't included with the camera kit, it's usually not a problem to resolve on your own.

Most newer PCs have a built-in SD card reader. No need for a cable - just pull the card out of the camera and pop it in the card reader. Reliable, high-speed transfer and no cable to keep track of.

I have a Meike MK3100 holder/grip. It worked fine for a month, then I tried removing it. The cord's plug came apart in my Nikon D3100 and I have not bee able to find a replacement or get a response from the manufacturer. I am talking with Amazon to return it.

Nikon doesn't produce one but a third party grip is available in the market for less than $25

Yes, a 3rd party grip has been out for a while now. It is actually fairly good, though the external cord is a small annoyance. You can find it on Amazon very easily. For the price, it's great until Nikon makes one of their own.

Amazon - /Professional-Vertical-Battery-D3100-Digital/dp/B004S958VU

To my knowledge, there is no vertical grip available for the D3100.

yes but you'll loose autofocus and colour matrix but it'll work fine without both

If it has the Nikon-F mount, you can. But, if it's a manual lens, then you will not have any autofocus functionality. Even if it is an autofocus lens, unless it has the silent wave motor technology built into it, it won't work on the D3100 body. However, you will still be able to use the other functions with the lens. As I am not familiar with Toyo's line of camera lenses, I can't say how well it will work or not with the D3100 body. However, I would suggest that you spring for the more modern lenses so that you can take full advantage of what the D3100 has to offer.

Yes it may be a Nikon mount and will probably fit, the thing with it though is whether it will auto focus, which I very much doubt it will and if it will meter, the only way to find out would be to contact the lens manufacturer or put it on the camera and see what happens.

It says right on the box that it has a Nikon mount

Unless your lens has something similar to the Silent Wave motor mechanism in its lens mechanics, it would still work with the D3100, but you might not get the autofocus to work. This is because there is no pinout from the camera body to drive the lens's motor to do the autofocusing. I found that out the hard way with my Nikon AF 80-200mm f/2.8 lens. All of the other functions will work with thhe D3100, it's just that there will be no autofocus. Make sure that any new lens that you purchase is compatible with the SWM function of the D3100 or any other Nikon DSLR. I would suggest going to a camera shop and test driving lenses with the camera bodies you are interested in buying to see how well they work and if you like its feel during handling.

the D3100 doesn't have a screw, meaning it need lenses with built in AF motors. Your Sigma 70-210 is not HSM so the AF wouldn't work.

not really, unless its of recent purchase. when using older lens, so many features are lost (most likely including auto focus i believe in your case) that it doesn't make sense to even try.

instead, buy nikon's 55-200 VR lens for around $200 for use on the D3100. you'd get all the newest features and vibration reduction too (very helpful for handhold sports shots).

when set to the high zoom (ie: 200mm) it even more powerful than what you had, giving a tighter cropping factor than your old n4004s with the sigma. plus its such a small light lens. and darn sharp.

It depends on the lense format. The D3100 accepts the DX format only. If you have a FX lense format, it might not work. Also, if you have a non-cpu lense, you will have to focus yourself along with anything the lense can do automatically.

D3100 can't operate AF function with AF 300 f/4 lens.

If your 300m is AF-s 300 f/4 answer is yes.

Any Secure Digital card can ce used. If you are going to be using burst mode a lot, get a class 6 or higher card. If taking landscapes and/or macros, any speed will do. Just know that the slower the card speed, the longer the buffer takes to transfer pictures to the card.

As far as I can tell, you can use pretty much any SD card from any manufacturer in the D3100. Most of them are SDHC these days, so they are Class 6 (I think). Still, as long as it's a current version that's supported on the market, you can use it in your camera. In the User's Manual, it does give recommendations for the manufacturer of SD cards, but it's not a hard and fast rule. They are just guidelines.

Of course, all DSLR camera lenses are detachable. Think about it.... if a camera company made separate lenses, would they build their cameras with detachable lenses? YES!!

yes all DSLRs are able to change lens

No. The D3100 does not come with a memory card. For the best, use a class 6 or higher card. You can use a slower memory card, but the buffer, or temporary memory space will take longer to move the pictures to the card itself. Because of a slower memory card, the card access lamp may stay on longer then usual. Don't turn the camera off when the lamp is on.

Hello the D3100 does not come with a memory card you have to buy your own on the side and the 30min video saves in one whole part

With the current crop of lenses available for the D3100, I would suggest going for the AF-S Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G lens. It's flexible in that you can use it for your macro photography and for your general photography as well. When I was working as a photojournalist and shooting with my FM2N, I used my 55mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor as my go-to lens for quick copy work and artistic needs.

I would save up and get only a NIKKOR lens for my Nikon Body. Nikon means Optical, so, I would not expect the optimum performance of your body when using third party lenses.

We have both the D3100 and the D5100. Both cameras are easy to use and take wonderful photos.
The big difference as far as I am concerned is the D3100 does not support bracketing or remote camera control. Not having these features severely limits what you can accomplish with the D3100. Personally, I prefer the D3100 but, sadly, am forced to use the D5100 for certain types of shoots. I highly recommend anyone comparing the D3100 to the D5100 to not underestimate the limits not having these features will impose on you and your creativity.

From what I've been told, the difference is primarily the megapixels, the D5000 being the higher end. We have the D3100 and if you are using this just as a casual user and not looking to get into professional photography, than it is perfect. Takes HD video as well, so covers both aspects. My wife and I have never had a camera that can shoot like this!!! Very happy with it. Hope this helps.

er... this might be trivial... have you checked if you didn't by accident moved your mode wheel to manual mode?

This is a photo I took of a tan hutch and silver handles. I even balanced the light before taking this photo and used the cameras auto focus instead of manual focus. I set this on a table and just let it sit for a while.

After reading the reply to the first question I'm thinking you wanted me to submit a photo since that was something I didn't do last time. I'm not clear what the link was supposed to do for me...

The D3100 has no connection for an external microphone. It only has the monoaural built-in microphone, so it is not possible to get stereo recordings of audio.

No No And No

I would take your camera back to the place you bought it from (if it was a local retailer) and show them the results that you get when you shoot so they can verify that the issue is real. If you bought it mail order (over the internet), contact them and e-mail them your results as proof. Get the RMA number and ship it back for an exchange. It sounds like you may have a bad CMOS sensor in your camera. But, as a final check, take a look to see if the exposure compensation values has been changed such that it is producing the results that you are seeing.

see if you haven't set the exposure correction too low by accident.

I do not believe there is any way to set a limiting range on the consumer 55-200mm VR lens, unlike the older AF 80-200mm f/2.8D ED-IF lens where you have a little switch that will limit its focusing distance. However, if you want it to focus on infinity, you can always just set it to manual, turn it to the infinity mark and leave it there (you may wish to tape it in place to avoid any creep or accidental movement of the focusing ring). However, I should also point out that using the focusing point is better because it will ensure that the subject is in focus. Otherwise, there is no special feature to do that which you are asking about.

or... you could follow the lock focus, recompose, shoot practice. that is, use one of the sensor points to focus on a balloon, press the shutter button only halfway so that focus and exposure are set, then, while holding down the shutter button in the halfway position, move your camera to have the composition you want, then press the shutter all the way down.

On a mid-range DSLR such as the D3100, there is no simple switch you could slide or a hole that you would push a pin or paper clip into to simply reset the camera. What you need to do is press the MENU button and scroll down the selections to reset your Shooting Options (under the shooting menu or the camera icon) and Setup Options (under the setup selection or the wrench icon).

Go in to the menu and then set up menu, press reset setup options and then ok.
Refer to page 131 and 136 of your manual.

my guess is that you left the Auto ISO function on, and shooting in shutter priority. turn off Auto ISO (any decent photographer can figure out what ISO to use in what conditions), and try it that way.

It more than likely isn't the camera or the lens. It most likely going to be a setting. Try switching your camera to Auto mode and see how that works. Another cause could be that you may have the MP turned down as they should be on one of the higher settings.

For me, this camera has been an eye opener. I went from a point and shoot to this camera and I have not been disappointed in the least. It takes some practice to learn the camera, but it also has an Auto setting which will allow you to use as a point and shoot when/if frustration sets in. I think this is an awesome beginner to intermediate camera for those who are making the switch. I don't know how well the uploaded images look, but I took this butterfly picture with the D3100. I hope this helps you make a choice.

yes great camera to switch too. I had a Nikon D40x and I loved it but wanted to get a newer model so the D3100 is perfect.

Well if you want to get precise its 3.1, but 3 is close enough not that it really makes any difference.

In point-n-shoot terms, the 18-55mm would be a 3X zoom (55/18=3.06).

If it is in DX format, the it should probably work.

If it fits on the D80 then it will fit on the D3100 as Nikon has only one type of mount. Whether it meters amd or autofcouses is a different matter, you would have to refer back to Tamron for this.