Hey guys, this is Austin and today I’m here with a comparison between
the Nikon D3200 vs the D3100.
As a D3100 user for the last year and a
half I can definitely say there are some very nice improvements in the
D3200 but are they worth the roughly $150 price premium?
To start out with let’s take a look at the camera bodies.
At first glance
they look identical but Nikon has tweaked every surface and button on the
D3200.
Some changes are subtle, like the new flowing line that runs from
left to right along the flash.
Others are a bit more substantial like the
new grip which gives you a bit of a better hold on the camera, something
very important in a small DSLR like this.
Around back you’ll see the live
view switch on the D3100 has been removed in exchange for a button and the
video record button has been moved up top below the shutter button.
The
live view button is just fine but I did have an issue with the record button.
It’s the same size and in the same spot as the info and Aperture/Exposure
buttons and even after a few days of using the camera I still accidentally
hit the wrong button all the time.
The D3100 is built surprisingly well for an
entry level DSLR and the D3200 is no exception.
One minor annoyance on the D3100
is the absurdly loud SD card door.
Seriously, do you hear that?
Thankfully the
D3200 has no such problems.
As far as ports they both have HDMI out and a
proprietary Nikon port for GPS.
On the D3200 however you can buy an adapter to
give your camera Wi-Fi to transfer over pictures and control the camera from your
smartphone.
The D3100 also has mini-USB as well as A/V out where the D3200 has
a combo USB and A/V out port along with a 3.5mm microphone jack.
The screen on the D3100 was always a weak point.
With a low resolution of only
230,000 dots it was one of the few major areas where the low price stuck out.
With the D3200 however there’s a new 921,000 dot display which is much better and
matches several of the high end Nikon DSLRs.
Neither screen works particularly well
in direct sunlight but both are easily readable in the vast majority of situations.
Now let’s take a look at image quality.
The D3100 sports a 14 megapixel APS-C sized
sensor where the D3200 swaps that for a 24 megapixel sensor.
The difference in detail
is very noticeable, especially when you zoom in.
Having 24 megapixels is also great
for cropping.
This is a shot I took with the D3200 with a 50mm lens and there’s enough
megapixels to see detail even with extreme cropping.
Beyond the increased megapixel
count you won’t see a great deal of difference in the D3100 and D3200.
Both are very
capable shooters that will give you some very nice looking files in both JPEG and RAW.
The D3100 has a decent burst rate of three frames per second but the D3200 has a
considerably better four frames.
Of course when you add more megapixels to a sensor
often times you lose low light performance but the D3200 does a good job here.
At the
same settings the D3200 brings in a slightly more bright and colorful image and
handles noise just as well if not very slightly better.
Files stay clean on both cameras
up to ISO 400 and are still usable for most situations up to ISO 1600.
At this point up
close there is definitely visible noise but colors remain true and detail is still there.
At ISO 3200 things still aren’t terrible but noise becomes very noticeable.
6400 is
really only usable for web use and 12,800 is pretty rough.
Both cameras sport the same
11 point autofocus system.
In good lighting it works fairly quickly and locks on well.
In low light it’s a bit hit or miss, sometimes it can grab ahold and keep an object in
focus but more often than not you’re going to need to rely on manual focus.
They share
the same optical viewfinder which isn’t quite full coverage and is a bit small but
unless you’re coming from the D800 you probably won’t notice.
Where the D3200 really
shines is in video mode.
It now sports 1080p video at 30 frames per second as well as
720p at 60 frames.
The maximum recording time is also up to 20 minutes on the D3200
compared to 10 minutes on its predecessor.
The added resolution on the screen definitely
makes shooting in live view easier and having a microphone input is a huge help.
You also
have manual audio adjustments as well as having your audio levels displayed on screen.
Alright so I am now recording using the Nikon D3200 and to help me demo the video mode I
have my good friend Sam.
So my setup here is the D3200 is just sitting on a tripod, as I
kind of try to follow this dog around, I am using a 50mm 1.8G lens and on top of that
I am
using the standard audio from the microphone built-in to the camera.
So some of the cool
features on the D3200 is that you can adjust all your settings while recording.
So for
example I'm at 1/60th shutter speed right now, I can go to 1/80, 1/100th, 1/125, you
can
see it gets a little dark so if I want to adjust my ISO I can go to 400, go to 800,
and then let's see, we want to bump the shutter speed a little higher, so you can do
all of that and of course since this is a DSLR we can manually focus so if you want
to
do a little rack focus here, bam there's the dog fully in focus.
About the only thing
you can't adjust while in video mode is your aperture so if I want, right now I'm at
f/1.8, if I wanted to change it I would have to stop recording, leave live view and
then adjust the aperture and go back into live view.
However beyond that you have
pretty much all the manual control you could want.
Alright so I am now using the
D3100.
So everything else is the exact same, I'm using the same lens, the same
lighting and Sam's in the pretty much same spot.
So probably the biggest difference
is I have no real manual control.
About the best I can do is I can lock the exposure
and I can adjust everything around and it won't change the exposure on me but beyond
that it's pretty much automatic only.
Probably the only other thing I can do is, just
the exact same way as I did with the D3200, you can leave live view, stop recording,
adjust your aperture and go back in, it will respect that but beyond that everything
else is pretty much all automatic.
With Nikon keeping the D3100 around below the D3200
and D5100 it remains a stellar camera for $550.
In most cases 14 megapixels are going to
be just fine and while the better screen on the D3200 is nice it’s not really worth
an
extra $150.
If you have a D3100 don’t worry, your camera is not just suddenly out of date.
On the other hand, if you’re seriously interested in video the D3200 is absolutely worth it.
Nikon has been quite far behind Canon as far as video goes however the D3200 has made some
huge gains here.
Combined with the impressive megapixel count and better display the D3200
makes an excellent first DSLR.
If you want to see more videos on the Nikon D3200 be sure
to check out my unboxing as well as the full review.
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