The Nikon D5100: An Excellent Choice for the Beginner to DSLR Photography

By David Pintz

The Digital Revolution

The last decades our world has experienced a revolution: The Digital Revolution. Digital cameras and smart phones allow almost everybody to take nice photos. Photography is a child's play. The popularity of digital cameras created such a huge market that the uninitiated must be overwhelmed by all the choices.

Point-and Shoot vs. DSLR

Having taken photos with a smart phone or point-and-shoot camera people might suddenly discover a new hobby or even passion for photography. This can find its expression in an appetite for more, for a 'real camera' that is a reflex camera with interchangeable lenses, a DSLR or Digital Single Lens Reflex.

The Nikon D5100 - Your Access to more Creativity

Photographic gear on the shelves ranges from top-of-the-line professional tools like the Nikon D4 to entry-level consumer cameras.

This is where the Nikon D5100 comes into play. The D5100 sits between the smaller D3100 and the high-end D7000, but offering basically the same features and quality as the much more expensive D7000.

Key Features

• 16.2 Mega Pixel DX-format (1.5x FOV crop) CMOS sensor
• Side-articulated 3.0"LCD monitor (920,000 dots)
• Fast 11-point Autofocus System (with 3D tracking)
• Sensitivity range ISO 100-6400 (expanded up to 25,600)
• HD movies with Full Time Autofocus (1080p, 720 or WVGA)
• Continuous shooting at 4 fps
• In-camera effect modes for stills and video
• In-camera HDR (High Dynamic Range)
• Comes with Nikkor 18-55mm f3.5-5.6G VR lens
• Built-in Speedlight Flash with Intelligent i-TTL
• Live View

Handling and Feel

Digital cameras come a long way. The Nikon D5100 offers today quality and features that were not long ago only found with professional cameras. First of all, this camera with its high-resolution 16 Megapixel DX CMOS sensor and EXPEED 2 Image Processing Engine delivers an outstanding image quality. With only 822 grams, including kit lens, this small and light camera handles very well. The newbie might be confused first by all these buttons and levers on the body, but will soon realize how intuitive the layout and functions are. This is how the D5100 benefits from Nikon's decades long experience of being at the very front of professional photo gear. Dedicated buttons make a fast and efficient way of shooting possible.

The centerpiece of the D5100 is its vari-angle 3 inch LCD monitor with 920,000 dots and 170 degrees wide viewing angle, allowing for versatile high quality viewing and playback.

Try a high angle for overhead shots, shoot from the hip for candid shots or a low vantage point for looking up into the sky and last not least have fun taking a controlled self-portrait. The virtually 100% frame coverage makes it easy to check the composition while using Live View or shooting HD movies.

The clear layout of the control panel shows the most relevant settings like File Format, White Balance, ISO, Autofocus, Metering, Bracketing etc. at a glance. With pressing just two buttons, Info and Multi Selector, changes can be made easily.

The top of the body gives access to an array of additional functions. The main dial includes all the various Modes, besides an All-Auto Mode there are the standards like P=Program, S=Shutter Priority, A=Aperture Priority and M=Manual Mode.

For those willing to explore more options, there are Scene Modes like Portrait, Landscape, Child, Sports etc. and even Special Effects like Night Vision, Color Sketch, Miniature Effect, Selective Color etc.

Tell your Story with a Movie

The Nikon D5100 is not only an excellent still camera, but allows also high-quality movie-making with its Full HD capabilities (1920x1080 @ 30, 25, 24 frames per second, NTSC or PAL), the most advanced in continuous autofocus tracks your moving subjects with great accuracy. Live View and D-Movie start button are conveniently located on the top and allow video sequences up to 20 minutes. In-camera editing and creative tools will improve your still and movies. There is even a special jack for an external stereo microphone to achieve professional sound quality.

Nikon Software

The Nikon D5100 comes with a simple, yet useful software ViewNX2, allowing some basic editing like Resizing, Cropping, RAW processing and Movie editing.

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