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Nikon Coolpix 3100 3MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

Nikon Coolpix 3100 3MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Keep looking, photo's too dark indoor..waste
Review: Although this camera has outstanding features, such as the ability to edit and crop photo's within the camera itself, I am very disapointed and plan on returning it after just 2 days. Having much experience with digital camera's, indoor shots are much too dark on auto mode. Keep away if you expect good pictures with the auto mode. Also, delay too great in between shots, and very prone to blury exposures. Not too certain why it got such "good" evaluation, perhaps because the outdoor shots were much better. I will try the Canon next.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Super Quality Picture..amazingly easy to use
Review: This is an amazing little camera. I bought it from Best Buy online at 10% discount(at $269). I have waited a long for this camera. I was not willing to buy it from a unknown online store at cheap rate. I waited for the price to come down and wanted to buy it from a reliable store. Right after receiving I checked that the Firmware is v1.2, that means recently manufactured. I heard that battery problem is with v1.1. So far taken around 25 picture in night with flash and LCD ON, no sign of battery down yet.
My first picture was taken at night at 3M (Below Highest Quality). The picture was not very good. It was a little blurry and very low detail. I then used 3M* (The highest quality). And the picture came up crystal clear. Unbelievable detail and balance. I just could not believe that a picture with such quality and detail could be taken with a below 300 dollar camera. I have seen pictures from my friend's Canon A60 and was amazed by the quality of picture it took. But this Nikon is uncomparable.
Anyway, I tried with the 2M (3rd Highest) in the daylight, the detail and the quality is super. I guess, in the night a lot of detail is automatically lost because of low light. So, I have to use the Highest Quality to retain the detail that is coming in. In day light, since a lot more detail is coming in, I can opt to loose some of them by choosing a lower quality and still get an amazing shot. I may be wrong, but this is what I understand.
This is the best electronics I have ever bought.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Camera
Review: I recently received this camera as a birthday present from my grandmother and I absolutly love it. I've had the camera about a month, and I use it ALL the time. I went to Boston on vacation and used the camera everyday for 3 weeks and the battery never died. The quality of the pictures is absolutly excellent. The night mode is a little bit hard to get used to as the shutter has to stay open longer, but once you get the hang of it the pictures come out looking fantastic.

I would definitly recommend buying a larger memory card, I bought a 256mb one, and I never have to change it.

Even with extreme close-ups, the quality of the pictures is excellent. Never grainy or pixelized.

I havnt quite figured out how to use the photo software it came with, I use Olympus Camedia Master for photo editing ( i used to own an Olympus Camedia.)

Overall this is a great camera. Its compact, affordable, and produces great pictures.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I purchased this camera after I accidently killed my Nikon 775. I have to admit to a bit of disappointment. There wasn't much progress made in the camera form factor. It is a relatively large camera. I assumed that there is some sort of trade-off...that this larger camera took better quality pictures than other, smaller, 3.2mpix devices.

I've had a terrible time trying to get decent shots. With the 775 I consistently got very nice snapshots. I've owned this camera for about 8 weeks and I'm still struggling to get decent photos. Night shots are almost impossible. Maybe my memory card is too slow, but it takes forever to get setup for the next picture. Tonight I saw an Elk while driving home from skiing. I pulled over and was able to snap pictures from about ten feet away. It was getting dark. The 2 pictures that I was able to snap turned out awful and I'm not happy about it.

The redeye feature doesn't work and the delay is too long. I set the camera for party mode, and used it at a christmas party, and nearly half of the shots were blurry and unusable.

I've turned down the image size, and I'm going to try getting faster memory, in order to try and get the camera more responsive.

I sprung for rechargeable Ni-MH batteries and I'm pretty satisfied with their life, but it took about two weeks before they would really keep a charge.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Terrible night time and indoor photos!
Review: This camera takes terrible photographs at night as well as inside. I took about one hundred photos recently at Walt Disney World at night mainly of my children. Only five of the pictures were any good. The night mode focuses to infinity leaving your subject blurry. Without the night mode the flash is so weak it's useless. The red eye reduction takes forever to fire the picture which means your subjects (children) have moved leaving a terrible shot.

All the indoor photos proved to be poor also. The camera is just not quick enough to fire. If you have small children and are going to try to photograph them, I would avoid this camera.

I gave it two stars because it is easy to use and compact, but that's not why you buy a camera. I returned mine and am looking for a new one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great little camera
Review: This was my first digital camera. After doing research and looking at the competition I decided on this one. I'm so glad I did. It takes fantastic pictures. I've not had problems with the batteries as some others seem to have had. I take close to 100 pictures on one battery. I highly recommend the Nikon Coolpix to anyone looking for a digital camera. It's easy and great fun to use.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Nice camera for daytime photos
Review: This camera is great looking, compact, and easy to use. The daytime pictures that I have taken with it have turned out excellent. They are sharp and the colors look great. However, the nightime pictures I have taken with it have turned out blurry.

The battery life isn't the best either. I recommend using rechargeable batteries with it, because it will eat up regular batteries quickly.

All in all, it's a nice camera for daytime photos. I think it's also a good camera for the first time digital photographer.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: As Elmar Fudd would say, "Weeemarkweble!!"
Review: This is my first digital camera, and I think after doing a little research I made a great choice. I definately wanted a camera that was compact, feature rich, simple to use, asthetically pleasing, as well as affordable. I was originally sold on the Cannon A70, is identically priced, but problems with error messages, reports of poor customer service, and the need for 4 AAA rechargebles instead of the Coolpix's 2, scared me away from Cannon. Don't get me wrong, Cannon's are great,as well as Pentax Optios, and Casios. I was impressed by some of the pictures takken with these models, especially the Elph Series. Cannon may have poor customer service, but there is always a Cannon sales Rep. at the Best Buy, peddling his wares and showing u samples,but I put a lot of stock in Amozon customer reviews! This camera takes great photos at it's mid and highest Res. The only cons I can see are the fallowing: 1)The carrying case for this baby is very expensive because it must be purchased with a AAA battery charger and two rechargeble batteries..... you say you don't want one but when u see how nice this camera looks you'll change your mind. Most guys already have a battery charger and Nic Cd or NMH batteries, so this was not economical, although the pouch is nice looking. 2)Unlike the Canon A70, there is no sound in movie mode which gives a kind of Groucho Marks effect, but the 3100's superb picture Quality more than makes up for this!! 3)I would strongly recommend u purchase at least a 128mb cf mem. card with 12x or higher processing speed to cut lag time,which seems to be a gripe with other users. The 12x may seem small,but spend the extra money on a faster speed, when u get the camera with it's slow, low Mem.(16Mb)CFlash card and then upgrade; the differance is night and day! Believe me the 12x helps. If I were you I would trust Sandisk or Leexar. I chose the latter, a 256mb 12x Lexar CF card, purchased from amozon for under $50. Got to my doorstepp 5 days early, with free shipment. No matter what brand camera u purchase u will have to upgrade the memory, it's an inevitabillity!! At the camera's highest Reso. you simply wont have enough memmory. Shop around for sure, but before you buy, you owe it to yourself to see the clear, vibrant pictures this next-generation Nikon Coolpix is able to deliver! They also have web sights that compare photos of cameras in same price range and pixles, just type in the name of the camera on your browser. I hope this review was as helpful as others have been for me.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The mini dynamo
Review: It is an awesome camera for its size, and 14 modes. It's one of the best, if the pictures are taken at day time.

But I found the night mode extremely disappointing. When I take pictures in the night mode, they turn out to be very shaky and unclear. Almost all photographs I have taken so far at night turned out to be bad.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: If the battery life was better...
Review: Picked the 3100 up after my coolpix 4300 decided it wasn't going to show anything in the LCD screen. So, this isn't my first digital camera, and I'm fairly experienced in photography. I use the camera mostly for documenting product failures, and maybe quick snaps when I don't feel like hauling around my Nikon N90 and assorted lenses. Picked this camera because of size and what looked like good results at the stores. Great little camera to keep handy for those moments when you "wish I had a camera handy"

First to say, I was impressed by the photo results. At least as good if not better exposed than my 4300. Flash as others have said is pretty weak, and no attachment for external flash. Camera is small, so fits easily in shirt or jacket pocket, however the small size makes it very difficult to not get camera shake. My wife finds it impossible to take clear pictures with it, all her photos show camera shake.

A lot of my pics are taken under flourescent light, so the custom set white balance where you aim at a grey card and the camera adjusts the white balance is great. Phots that would otherwise come out very blue come out almost perfect balance. Macro scene mode works well, it is a pain to have to turn off the flash every time I switch the camera on in macro though.

I purchased the camera at Fortess in Hong Kong, came with case, 64mg card, charger and 2 nimh batteries. Now we get to the battery life bit. Not good. The "Nikon" batteries supplied don't seem to work well. Bought a set of Sony 2100mah batteries that will keep the camera powered for a day or two, an additional 2 sets of 2300mah batteries I'm in the process of conditioning. Ive got the firmware upgrade and the low battery signal comes on after 2 shots, but then I can still take quite a few photos afterward. Without shooting, camera will stay powered up for the advertised 90 minutes.

Apparently this may be a manufacturing issue over a design issue. Some cameras have great battery life, some have terrible battery life. I've heard it may have to do with the machining of the negative terminal on the battery case, poor machining and polishing on some have left a rough surface on the terminal, causing poor contact with the battery. If you're having problems, check the cover, if the contact is rough, try polishing it with very fine grit polishing cloth (like the auto body shops use) and see if it helps.

Shutter lag isn't any worse than any other compact digital I've tried, slightly better even than the 4300. Write to card times seem a little slow, even using a 48X Lexar high speed CF card.

Battery problems aside, remembering that this camera is aimed at the consumer market, those who just want a good compact camera for vacation "snaps" parties etc, this is a good choice.


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