Was our D3000 a bad buy?

P

phototuition

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John
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Just sold one of our training d40s for a fair bit more than we paid for it a year ago and bought a D3000 body which the trainees use with a 35mm f1.8 to get them out of that awful zooming habit.

But.. The noise levels appear considerably higher than the d40 and, without doing a card test, 100 iso appears to be nearer 200 iso - which might go some way towards explaining the noise issue.
It seemed a good buy at £310 what with the larger LCD but now I'm not so sure.

I know crazy Ken hates it but has anyone else any opinions?
 
The D40 is excellent at high ISO, and I'd expect a 6 megapixel CCD sensor to be better than a 10 megapixel CCD sensor.

I've never seen a D3000 but the D40 was better than the D40x and D60 at high ISO (and all the other 10 megapixel Nikon's) so I'm not surprised.
 
I'm really delighted with mine. For the money I reckon they're a bargain with 2 years warranty. As far as I can tell they employ D80/200 components in a lightweight plastic body (minus the screw drive AF) so they shouldn't be too bad. I just use mine with the AF-S 16-85mm and so far am really chuffed with the images.

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ISO 200 f/5.6 1/320
 
Lovely Red Admiral Wasp Junior, and Puddleduck the d3000 has the same old sensor as the D60, I think so maybe as you say i should expect worse iso performance than the D40with more photosites in the same size sensor.
 
Thanks for your comment phototuition. I had a look at crazy Kens site and it seems that his main gripe is with the ADR (Active D lighting?) function and it slowing the camera buffer or whatever.

Can't say that it bothers me much as I'm just a jpeg snapper, and probably typical of people in the market for a camera at this price point.

With the right lens I think its still a big step up from most compact or bridge cameras.
 
Thanks wasp, I've just read Ken's review and turning The ADL off has as you say, increased image processing speed. ADL effectively increases iso in shadow areas - the very location where nasty noise so often lurks, so You may have hit the nail on the head!!

I'll try it out without ADL in the daylight and report back. Thanks John
 
phototuition said:
Thanks wasp, I've just read Ken's review and turning The ADL off has as you say, increased image processing speed. ADL effectively increases iso in shadow areas - the very location where nasty noise so often lurks, so You may have hit the nail on the head!!

I'll try it out without ADL in the daylight and report back. Thanks John
Click to expand...

Lower noise levels and much faster shoot to review time I'm pleased to report
so thanks for the hint wasp.
 
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