Nikon D5100 SLR or Nikon P500 Bridge

[sam9s]

mmm Interesting arguments .... Ok here is the story .... today i went to one of the all in one camera showroon in TGIP mall Noida (info for people of Delhi) and had the opportunity to fiddle around many cameras in my full 2 hour session with the head sales guy. First I will mention that the head showroom guy had a tremendous knowldge about lenses, sensors, etc and over all photography concepts, so it was a pleasure to do a detail analysis of my choices....

To begin with in a nut shell. I had a totaly contradicting experience of what I was hoping and had in mind after reading the various reviews here and what I got there with live experience. Now my testing might be a little biased as all the experiments were done indoors taking snaps of the mall.

FIRST ::: I did not like HS20 at all, first the manual 30x zoom is clumsy and not at all gave a quality and polished result. Locking focus was slow, even slower than P500. Pictures at full zoom were satisfactory.

Then I held Nikon D3000 and same, not impressed, pics were dull and dark, maybe the LCD was poor, I dont know.

After this the head showroom guy intervened and asked my requirments and explained lot of things about the technology used in older camers and the new ones.....and finally handed me two camera to test and see, One DSLR and one Bridge. And can yiou believe both were sony???? A sony for quality pics I was skeptical, who take sony.... any way I didnt say anything at that moment and took the cameras for a test.

DSLR camera was : SONY SLT-A35 ... and
Bridge was : SONY HX100V

and boy I was impressed by both ...... SLT A35 has quality and class written all over it. was drooling with features, quality viewfinder and even more qulity LCD. The showroomguy said that dont go by the name, it only Sony that has actually used some new technique called single lense transucent, offer live view with full-time fast phase-detection AF. Plus A35 has image stabilization in the body itself, so you dont need a lens that has an inbuilt image stabilization making it far less expensive (almost half) for the same range lens. Plus Sony lens anyhow were lesser in price. These are the few things I remember, though he went on and on about the advantages of A35 over D3100.
We also did G search and read few technicalities of A35 which were pretty impressive. I suggest to check HERE

Then came HX100V .... far far better zooming control over HS20. HX100V interestingly has both manual and motorized zoom, so you can push the lever to zoom or rotate the ring to achieve the same. And rotating the ring is not like HS20, clumsy and jerky, its was smooth and very spontaneous.......HX100V was also drooling with quality. Its image stabilization was amazing simply blew me. Even on full 30X optical and then full digital zoom the camera locked the focus and took the snap pretty clear, in comparison to HS20. P500 was a total crap when it came to image stabilization on full digital zoom. Image quality was also better than HS20 (again this impression is with the snaps I took indoors there in the mall itself).


Finally I asked the guy if you have to suggest me a non sony DSLR which one it would be .... and he handed me Canon 1100D, and I was again amazed by the built quality of the camera, D3100 was not at all impressive in terms of not only looks but feel and hold of the camera as well. Pictures were sharp and clear than D3000 that I first held. But one thing..... on auto setting 1100D was giving brighter pictures than Sony. So on the LCD though it looks better on 1100D when it was copied on laptop screen (yes the showroon guy also copied few snaps to show the result) SLT A35 snaps looked more natural, a bit drak yes but more natural .......

This ended the today's excavation ... . I went with HS20 and FZ47 in mind and came out totally impressed with SLT A35, HX100V and Canon 1100D. The showroom guy was pretty confided on A35.

Canon 1100D is coming with 18-55 and 55-250mm IS lens for 38K. SLT A35 is coming for 35K. HX100V is for 22K.

Let see what experts have to say .....

 

[theironhorse]

see i told you about the HX100v.. its impressing everyone.. HS20.. with usage the zoom becomes smooth and it does not work best at auto settings..

1100d is the new model 1000d.. and does comes with video..

cost wise canon will run a lil cheaper as the lens cost lesser compared to nikon..

sony again is good in dslr but the choices of lenses is less...

inside the mall it was artificial light so that can also produce diffrent result as the auto WB of diffrent camera will work diffrently.


also the image taken by one camera can look better due to the lcd quality

same image can look better on a 920k dot screen of sony compared to 460k dot screen or fuji /canon..


and i told you about the p500 is the worst of the lot.

the places where sony excel is

it has gps..
image stabilization is awsome as it is lens based compared to fuji sensor based.

both have same 16MP cmos.. fuji got properietry exr cmos processing.

 

[theironhorse]

as you stated that you did not like the FUJI and yes fuji have quality issues and the battery door is lil flimsy..

so why not keep hx100v as an option in superzoom and hunt for dslr.

d3100/1100d.. and then decide how much would you wanna dive into photography..

if just casual photos pick a super zoomer bridge.. else get the dslr...

for sony your spending stops at 22k maybe 2-3k more of accesories.

with a dslr.. it will never stop.. upgrade bug for desire of more lenses keeps biting..


as informed fz40/47 will not be available in any shop.. you gotta order online for they were never launched in india. ebay.in there are many sellers.

 

[matbhuvi]

Well, if you want to do comparision, just go to dpreview.com...there is no other site which provides indepth review of each camera.
The lcd screen is the weak point of D3100. You can use it for checking the composition or histogram..not the picture quality.

 

[theironhorse]

i figured out dpreview to be more biased towards certain camera's and most of the folks over there just stroll around the forum.

there are more like imaging-resource
steves-digicams and few more..

 

[asliarun]

mmm Interesting arguments .... Ok here is the story .... today i went to one of the all in one camera showroon in TGIP mall Noida (info for people of Delhi) and had the opportunity to fiddle around many cameras in my full 2 hour session with the head sales guy. First I will mention that the head showroom guy had a tremendous knowldge about lenses, sensors, etc and over all photography concepts, so it was a pleasure to do a detail analysis of my choices....

To begin with in a nut shell. I had a totaly contradicting experience of what I was hoping and had in mind after reading the various reviews here and what I got there with live experience. Now my testing might be a little biased as all the experiments were done indoors taking snaps of the mall.

FIRST ::: I did not like HS20 at all, first the manual 30x zoom is clumsy and not at all gave a quality and polished result. Locking focus was slow, even slower than P500. Pictures at full zoom were satisfactory.

Then I held Nikon D3000 and same, not impressed, pics were dull and dark, maybe the LCD was poor, I dont know.

After this the head showroom guy intervened and asked my requirments and explained lot of things about the technology used in older camers and the new ones.....and finally handed me two camera to test and see, One DSLR and one Bridge. And can yiou believe both were sony???? A sony for quality pics I was skeptical, who take sony.... any way I didnt say anything at that moment and took the cameras for a test.

DSLR camera was : SONY SLT-A35 ... and
Bridge was : SONY HX100V

and boy I was impressed by both ...... SLT A35 has quality and class written all over it. was drooling with features, quality viewfinder and even more qulity LCD. The showroomguy said that dont go by the name, it only Sony that has actually used some new technique called single lense transucent, offer live view with full-time fast phase-detection AF. Plus A35 has image stabilization in the body itself, so you dont need a lens that has an inbuilt image stabilization making it far less expensive (almost half) for the same range lens. Plus Sony lens anyhow were lesser in price. These are the few things I remember, though he went on and on about the advantages of A35 over D3100.
We also did G search and read few technicalities of A35 which were pretty impressive. I suggest to check HERE

Then came HX100V .... far far better zooming control over HS20. HX100V interestingly has both manual and motorized zoom, so you can push the lever to zoom or rotate the ring to achieve the same. And rotating the ring is not like HS20, clumsy and jerky, its was smooth and very spontaneous.......HX100V was also drooling with quality. Its image stabilization was amazing simply blew me. Even on full 30X optical and then full digital zoom the camera locked the focus and took the snap pretty clear, in comparison to HS20. P500 was a total crap when it came to image stabilization on full digital zoom. Image quality was also better than HS20 (again this impression is with the snaps I took indoors there in the mall itself).


Finally I asked the guy if you have to suggest me a non sony DSLR which one it would be .... and he handed me Canon 1100D, and I was again amazed by the built quality of the camera, D3100 was not at all impressive in terms of not only looks but feel and hold of the camera as well. Pictures were sharp and clear than D3000 that I first held. But one thing..... on auto setting 1100D was giving brighter pictures than Sony. So on the LCD though it looks better on 1100D when it was copied on laptop screen (yes the showroon guy also copied few snaps to show the result) SLT A35 snaps looked more natural, a bit drak yes but more natural .......

This ended the today's excavation ... . I went with HS20 and FZ47 in mind and came out totally impressed with SLT A35, HX100V and Canon 1100D. The showroom guy was pretty confided on A35.

Canon 1100D is coming with 18-55 and 55-250mm IS lens for 38K. SLT A35 is coming for 35K. HX100V is for 22K.

Let see what experts have to say .....

The SLT A35 has truly cutting edge technology and is well worth the money. The only thing is that the innovations nowadays in DSLRs are mainly geared towards live view and better video. Even pro level DSLRs are doing this. While these features may be very useful to many, I like to put my eye in the viewfinder and take only photographs (not video), so personally, doesn't interest me too much. But again, this is a very subjective thing. The technology itself is outstanding.

There is one other thing about most Canons too - it is very hard to beat them when it comes to image quality. Take even a basic $100 A series Canon. It will generally take better pictures than most other brands. It may have other drawbacks and may lack features but will usually do the "bread and butter" stuff really well. I'm surprised that the Nikon was not built well. I haven't looked at this model myself, but I've handled a D90 before and that was a very well built camera (but was also a more expensive camera). Nikons are generally known for solid build quality and in fact the original Canon Rebel DSLRs were quite flimsily built in comparison, so it is interesting to note that the tables have turned. Tortoise and hare!

I would say one thing though - if you are going for a 55-250 lens, then you don't need to buy the 18-55 kit lens. The 18-55 kit lens is fairly mediocre and will in any case give you only a little bit of zoom - in most cases, you can simply walk forward or backward to take a closeup or a wideangle shot. I would strongly suggest a 1.8 or 1.4 50mm prime lens. It costs very little money but will give you far superior photographs and far more things to try out with the lens as it is so incredibly sharp and bright (and all for $100!). If you can swap it for the 18-55 kit lens, you might not have to pay too much more and you will have more or less the perfect camera and lens system that many hobbyist photographers usually have.

By the way, a friend of mine does professional photography and uses her 1.4 prime a lot, despite having a very good quality zoom. An article on this. I would also suggest taking sample photographs with the zoom lens at both ends of the zoom.

 

[vivek.saikia]

I'm surprised that the Nikon was not built well. I haven't looked at this model myself, but I've handled a D90 before and that was a very well built camera (but was also a more expensive camera). Nikons are generally known for solid build quality and in fact the original Canon Rebel DSLRs were quite flimsily built in comparison, so it is interesting to note that the tables have turned. Tortoise and hare!

It was a surprise for me too to find out that my Nikon D5100 was made in Thailand!! I was more of expecting a "Made in China" product.
Brand China has definitely raised their par.

I would say one thing though - if you are going for a 55-250 lens, then you don't need to buy the 18-55 kit lens. The 18-55 kit lens is fairly mediocre and will in any case give you only a little bit of zoom - in most cases, you can simply walk forward or backward to take a closeup or a wideangle shot. I would strongly suggest a 1.8 or 1.4 50mm prime lens. It costs very little money but will give you far superior photographs and far more things to try out with the lens as it is so incredibly sharp and bright (and all for $100!). If you can swap it for the 18-55 kit lens, you might not have to pay too much more and you will have more or less the perfect camera and lens system that many hobbyist photographers usually have.

By the way, a friend of mine does professional photography and uses her 1.4 prime a lot, despite having a very good quality zoom. An article on this. I would also suggest taking sample photographs with the zoom lens at both ends of the zoom.

Totally agree with the prime lens. My 35mm f1.8 never comes off the camera. I just love the creamy bokeh it creates.

 

[gobble]

Canon 1100D is coming with 18-55 and 55-250mm IS lens for 38K. SLT A35 is coming for 35K. HX100V is for 22K.

Let see what experts have to say .....

Sam,
Is that 38K for both lenses with body or either one lens?

..., and had full manual controls like a DSLR. Look at this old school Voigtlander Bessa for example which is a cheaper Leica. There is something incredibly appealing about these cameras.

I agree totally. Take a look at Fuji X10 compact for total vintage style manual controls FUJIFILM X10 | Fujifilm Global or its DSLR cousin X100.

The X10 has improvements over the X100, only its a 1/2.3 sensor and if if its features trickle down into an APS-C format model, I would snap it up instead of a Nikon or a Canon DSLR.

Edit: Just saw this, think maybe this will be my next http://www.eoshd.com/content/3314/fuji-to-launch-pro-interchangeable-lens-version-of-the-x100 :licklips:

gobble :

these are dependent on mounts... canon and nikon and olympus had diffrent lens mounts that are proprietry .... incase you want to add another filter to the lens or hood.. nikon generally works on 58 mm threads.. canon are 62 and so..now you can either buy lens of nikkor for nikon, canon for canon or thirs party that makes lenses for compatible mount of nikon/sony/canon..

But why is only the 1.8 is 52mm ?

by 18-55 you mean at widest angle its 18mm and telephoto it can go max 55mm.

these all calculations are done on basis of a 35 mm full frame sensor...

you can get a fast prime lens and pick a 70-200 nikkor VR for zoom. that should do the job..

18-55mm lens would actually be 27mm to 82mm on Nikon correct? And 70-200 would be 100-300mm? Too lazy to read this right now but heres a link: Crop Factor hope I imagined its contents correctly

--G0bble

 

[sam9s]

so why not keep hx100v as an option in superzoom and hunt for dslr.
d3100/1100d.. and then decide how much would you wanna dive into photography..
if just casual photos pick a super zoomer bridge.. else get the dslr...
for sony your spending stops at 22k maybe 2-3k more of accesories.

Why not A35, no DSLR has got as much features as A35, and with a new SLT tech it looks promising.
The more I read about A35, the more I am impressed. Currently reading the entire article on dpreview.

 

[sam9s]

Sam,
Is that 38K for both lenses with body or either one lens?

yep its with both the lenses .....

 

[Kittu]

I am super glued to this thread.

I know its a bad sign on wallet but learning a lot about P&S and DSLR cameras. Worthy thread to read after a long long time in HFV.

 

[susancts]

advantages of dslr
- larger sensor area - therefore more details. Instead of zoom, you can crop and the picture can be still better than a higher zoom p&s

- interchangeable lenses - you can attach different lenses for different purposes.

Low light and moving subjects both need faster (bigger aperture) lenses. For low light you can steady your hands or use a tripod. Moving subjects is the toughest and I am still not able to do much about it, even with my dslr and 50mm f/1.8 lenses. By the time I focus, the kid is already in "shallow depth of field" range.

You MAY use flash in both the cases. However flash introduces very dark shadows and scares kids. You can try bouncing off flash or diffuse and reduce the intensity a bit. It would take a just a paper over the flash. See this - Nikon SB-400

First thing first, if you are looking for capturing high quality photographs, go for a DSLR. Your budget is 40K so no problems there. Nikon D5100 will fall under that limit. Don't look for a camera with an enormous zoom range like Nikon Coolpix P500 unless you are out and out wild life photographer. Moreover, even 18-55 mm kit lens that comes with Nikon D5100 will give you some flexibility with 3X optical zoom and if you want an extended range, optical zoom lenses are not that costly although they are bulky indeed. If you don't mind carrying some good weight around for high quality photos, Nikon D5100 is a fabulous camera for you.

 

[anm]

I clicked some pics of my room with my d90 last night. It was not so low light, but with ISO at 200, pics were extremely dark. I changed to 640 and exposure was coming fine. No grain. I have shot jpeg. Will share soon.
Sam - I have sent you a PM with my phone number etc. Do call back. I have the cam with me today. I may not carry it tomorrow.

 

[sam9s]

First thing first, if you are looking for capturing high quality photographs, go for a DSLR. Your budget is 40K so no problems there. Nikon D5100 will fall under that limit. Don't look for a camera with an enormous zoom range like Nikon Coolpix P500 unless you are out and out wild life photographer. Moreover, even 18-55 mm kit lens that comes with Nikon D5100 will give you some flexibility with 3X optical zoom and if you want an extended range, optical zoom lenses are not that costly although they are bulky indeed. If you don't mind carrying some good weight around for high quality photos, Nikon D5100 is a fabulous camera for you.

D5100 is 42K, and is the only camera that marginally betters A35. With A35 having more features and 7K less. And the cheapest zoom lens 70-200mm is around 15K, not cheap in any way. P500 is out of the equation, so is HS20. Now its between Sony A35, HX100V and Canon 1100D

D5100 with a decent lens will touch 60K, not the kind of money I can spend now. D3100 with the same will 45K which is ok, BUT D3100 has quite less features then A35.

I clicked some pics of my room with my d90 last night. It was not so low light, but with ISO at 200, pics were extremely dark. I changed to 640 and exposure was coming fine. No grain. I have shot jpeg. Will share soon.
Sam - I have sent you a PM with my phone number etc. Do call back. I have the cam with me today. I may not carry it tomorrow.

Ok will call you today.

 

[sam9s]

Ok completed reading the full reviews and watching you tube videos. Its now to decide between Sony A35, HX100V and Canon 1100D. The comparison chat at dpreview was helpfull, not sure how accurate it is, but experts please do check compare and suggest.

Sony SLT-A35 Review: 13. Conclusion: Digital Photography Review

Just add 2 or 3 cameras and it gives an over all performance comparison. A35 leads in almost all aspects when compared with D3100 and 1100D.

Only the mid range cameras like D5100 or 500D comes ahead of A35, but are way to expensive. Plus one aspect has now changes. The reason I was omitting videos was that I was thinking to buy a dedicated handycamm for my trip, but giving a though, I suppose if I can cover the video part as well with decent satisfying result (no need for ultra high quality) I might be saved from buying a dedicated handycamm. In this regard A35 also performs better than D3100 and 1100D.

If I have to buy one lens to complete the kit with A35, apart from the stock 18-55mm which one it should be.

FINAL VERDICT ::: I think I am zeroing in between Sony SLT A35 and Canon 1100D, my fellow members and experts , please one final assessment and your suggestions. I would request you all to go through few online comparisons between the two on different professional sites and then suggest. This sat I will have one of these two.

Few final points....

A35 is for 35K without any extra lens ,only stock 18-55mm. So again If I have to buy one lens to complete the kit with A35, apart from the stock 18-55mm which one it should be.

1100D is coming with 18-55 and 55-250mm IS lens for 38K and I might bargain it for aroung 36 as well. So the price point between the two is very marginal. Same question here, If I have to buy one lens to complete the kit with 1100D, apart from the stock 18-55mm and 55-250mm lenses, which one they should be.

Experts Turn here ....

 

[anm]

decide on a camera and go for flipkart or letsbuy if they have a better deal. Few months back a lot of people in my office got canon 550D for ~32k.

 

[arin]

I currently own a canon 550d and have used many nikon models as well. Nikon d5100 shall be perfect for you as a starter. It has a very good sensor with high dynamic range. To be honest it's better than my camera, which also falls in the similar price range. Only reason to go for Canon was the video which is unmatched by any other camera worth upto around 1 lac rupees. For photographs Nikon d5100 is highly recommended and as far as learning curves matter, I learnt to use an slr within a week more so ever because i read a lot of photography books when i had a bridge.

Essentially the difference in a bridge and slr is only on 2 parameters:

1. Quality ( no need to explain this, better sensor, better glass, Image stabilization,etc)

2. Control - when i use a bridge camera, it decides most of the things for me, i just compose and click where as slr lets to use it more creatively.

expensive lenses are not needed initially. You can learn your way through a kit lens then buy other lenses.

 

[theironhorse]

I clicked some pics of my room with my d90 last night. It was not so low light, but with ISO at 200, pics were extremely dark. I changed to 640 and exposure was coming fine. No grain. I have shot jpeg. Will share soon.
Sam - I have sent you a PM with my phone number etc. Do call back. I have the cam with me today. I may not carry it tomorrow.

besides increasing the ISO.. you could have tried wider aperture with a slower shutter speed and that could have done the trick at ISO 200.

most of the P&S max out at 400 and then you wont feel the pics are awsome..

dslr using the bigger sensor are usable upto ISO 1600.

 

[theironhorse]

I currently own a canon 550d and have used many nikon models as well. Nikon d5100 shall be perfect for you as a starter. It has a very good sensor with high dynamic range. To be honest it's better than my camera, which also falls in the similar price range. Only reason to go for Canon was the video which is unmatched by any other camera worth upto around 1 lac rupees. For photographs Nikon d5100 is highly recommended and as far as learning curves matter, I learnt to use an slr within a week more so ever because i read a lot of photography books when i had a bridge.

Essentially the difference in a bridge and slr is only on 2 parameters:

1. Quality ( no need to explain this, better sensor, better glass, Image stabilization,etc)

2. Control - when i use a bridge camera, it decides most of the things for me, i just compose and click where as slr lets to use it more creatively.

expensive lenses are not needed initially. You can learn your way through a kit lens then buy other lenses.

true canon 550d was getting sold around 32k on ebay a cpl of months back with 18-55 base kit while i was picking up my HS20.. again i wanted zoom so had to pick it.. 550d is one awsome camera..

and yes the video is unmatched.. people are using canon dslr for short movies for video..

nikon dslr are capable of 1080p but you get the jellow (jelly effect if camera moves) , focus hunting... in video nutin matches the canon.. and at 32k it was no match..



sams you can still look for canon550d/t2i.. it will be around 32k ish or so.. and will be a good camera to dive into dslrs...


i havent tried any sony dslr yet so wudn't comment but in longer run including cost of lenses it will get costlier if you plan to collect lens in future..

if you shift to nikon or canon later on all your lenses will render useless.. only option is to sell them back..





a new suggestion that might confuse you for some more time... if you got anyone coming from US..... please please please .. pick up a Pentax K-r its one hell of a camera for entry level dslr...


http://www.amazon.com/Pentax-K-r-18...Z7OG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1323257436&sr=8-2


37k for body + 18-55 + 55-300..

if this looks expensive then look for the k-x .. older model of same camera.. similar pic quality but few less features.. look with the same kit and will down another 100$ cheaper..

 

[sam9s]

err noe sorry nobody from US, so Pentax is out of the equation. ironhorse, did you take a glimpse of A35 review on any professional site, like dpreview. I know most of us would not have used, A35, but after reading the review and comparision with 1100D or 550D maybe, i just want to know what idea you all get about the camera.

Also no body addressed my this query ....

"If I have to buy one lens to complete the kit with A35, apart from the stock 18-55mm which one it should be."