Nikon D3300 DSLR Digital Camera Body Review

With somewhat better photo quality and slightly better performance, the Nikon D3300 delivers a modest improvement over its predecessor the D3200 -- enough to bump up its rating and improve its status relative to some competitors, but no so much that it's definitively worth the extra money over the D3200 for buyers on tight budgets. The rest of the updates, such as 1080/60p video, a redesigned beginner's Guide Mode, plus a slightly smaller, lighter body, barely move the needle. It retains the same 11-point autofocus system of its predecessor, and lacks built-in Wi-Fi; you still have to go dongle for that.The Nikon D3300 is a solid camera, in more ways than one: solid build quality and solid image quality. While autofocus performance is a little below average, and the limited external controls and smaller size may be a turn off for some, the D3300 excels in most areas. If you're ready to make the jump to a DSLR camera, the Nikon D3300 provides a nice starting point with a great combination of image quality, ease of use and price.

Build And Design:

Externally, the D3300 appears a virtual twin to the D3200, with some slight contour changes to the body and a minor relocation of a couple buttons on the rear of the camera. The overall design is what you expect from a modern DSLR, which is to say a rounded rectangular form with a prominent handgrip and protruding pentaprism/built-in flash housing situated atop the body. Body construction is of composite materials with a metal lens mount and Nikon has managed to shave nearly 1 ounce of body weight compared to the D3200, apparently through the inclusion of carbon fiber. The camera is manufactured in Thailand and materials, fit and finish appear commensurate with the price point.

Features:

24.2 megapixel DX-format CMOS image sensor

Razor-sharp 11-point AF system

5 fps continuous shooting

3.0 inch (921k dots) TFT LCD

ISO 100-12800 (extendable to 25,600 equivalent)

EXPEED 4

1080p Full HD Video

Wi-Fi connection with the optional WU-1a adapter

Menus and Modes:

Menus in the D3300 are simple and short, in keeping with the camera’s entry-level DSLR status: a two-page playback menu, two-page shooting menu, four page setup menu, three page retouch menu and three-page recent settings menu. Some menu items may not be available depending on shooting mode.

The retouch menu is fairly expansive and offers a number of tools for image manipulation, such as D-lighting, redeye correction, RAW processing, resizing, quick retouch, distortion control and movie editing. Here’s a look at a backlit shot of a meerkat along with the same shot after “quick retouch” applied in camera.

The View NX2 software provided with the camera also contains a browser, movie editor, RAW converter, D-lighting and image adjustments including exposure compensation, white balance, picture control, sharpness, contrast, brightness, highlight protection, shadow protection, color booster, a crop tool, straighten tool, auto redeye, axial color aberration and auto lateral color aberration.

Shooting modes are what you would expect from an entry-level DSLR, combining fully automatic “point and shoot” type options including scenes and a guide mode along with more traditional manual and semiautomatic settings.

1. Auto-a fully automatic mode with the camera determining the majority of settings; user has inputs to image quality and size, flash operation, focus mode and autofocus area mode.

2. Auto, flash disabled-fully automatic mode identical to auto with the exception of no flash capability.

3. Guide-a tutorial mode offering instruction/suggestions on shooting, viewing or deleting images, retouching images, and camera set up. While not a shooting mode in the strictest sense, the shooting menu can guide users to camera setups for capturing certain types of images.

4. Scenes-fully automatic mode with the camera optimizing settings for particular subjects; the mode dial provides icons for portrait, landscape, child, sports, close-up and night portrait options. User inputs are limited and may vary depending on the particular scene chosen.

5. Effects-fully automatic mode with the camera applying special effects as determined by the user; rotation of the command dial can call up night vision, super vivid, pop, photo illustration, color sketch, toy camera effect, miniature effect, selective color, silhouette, high key, low key, HDR painting or easy panorama effects. User inputs are limited and may vary depending on the effect chosen.

6. Program auto-automatic mode with the camera setting aperture and shutter speed; user has a wide variety of inputs and can vary the aperture/shutter settings originally selected by the camera by rotation of the command dial.

7. Aperture priority-user sets aperture, camera sets shutter speed and user has a wide variety of inputs.

8. Shutter priority-user sets shutter speed, camera sets aperture and user has a wide variety of inputs.

9. Manual-user sets shutter speed and aperture and has a wide variety of inputs.

Movie-NTSC mode: capture video at 1920 x 1080 60p; 1920 x 1080 30p; 1920 x 1080 24p; 1280 x 720 60p; 640 x 424 30p. PAL mode: 1920 x 1080 50p; 1920 x 1080 25p; 1920 x 1080 24p; 1280 x 720 50p; 640 x 424 25p. Maximum movie file size is 4 GB; maximum full HD/high movie quality length at 60 or 50p is 10 minutes or 20 minutes at normal movie quality. H.264/MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding, linear PCM audio. A stereo microphone jack is provided.

Performance:

Overall, the D3300 tests faster than the D3200 and many of its competitors, but it still feels pretty slow to shoot with -- possibly because of the relatively sluggish new kit lens. It takes half a second to power on, focus, and shoot; that's not bad. Time to focus and shoot in good light runs about 0.4 second, rising to 0.6 second in dim light. It does perform quite fast when shooting two consecutive photos, 0.2 second regardless whether you're using raw or JPEG, since it doesn't attempt to refocus, rising to 0.9 second with flash enabled.

Live View performance remains terrible, taking almost 2 seconds to focus and shoot thanks to slow everything -- slow autofocus, slow mirror movement -- and two consecutive JPEG shots takes 3.7 seconds.

 The camera delivers an excellent 5.1fps burst when equipped with a 95MB/sec SD card (almost 4.4fps for raw) with autofocus and with no significant slowing -- it just gets a little more variable -- for more than 30 frames. However, the autofocus can't really keep up with the frame rate so there are a lot of misses.

The annoying small, dim viewfinder hasn't changed, unsurprising since that's typical for these entry-level models. I really dislike the tiny focus points which only illuminate (and briefly) when you half-press the shutter. They're impossible to see in moderate to dim light, so if you shoot on anything other than full auto you first have to press the shutter to find the appropriate focus point (in my case, center) before you can even begin to frame the scene. The LCD hasn't changed, but it's a good size, bright and reasonably visible in bright sunlight.

Image quality:

Photos are the camera's strongest suit. The D3300 improves on the image quality of the D3200, with most images appearing somewhat sharper as you'd expect from the new 24-megapixel antialiasing-filter-free sensor, and the camera fares pretty compared to competitors. Also, for example, ISO 3200 JPEGs look a lot less noisy than their counterparts from the D3200, but the raw files seem to clean up about the same, pointing mostly to the inevitable improvements in Nikon's image processing over the past two years. JPEGs look very clean through ISO 400 and display only minimal artifacts through ISO 1600. Depending upon scene content the photos are usable through ISO 6400, but above that the less-bright colors become too desaturated and the tonal ranges compress unattractively. 

Nikon D3300 vs Nikon D3200: What's the differences?

The resolution may be the same as the D3200, but the D3300 has plenty of other improvements under the bonnet. Chief among these is the new Expeed 4 image-processing engine. Nikon’s fastest processor yet, it improves the D3300’s ISO sensitivity to an impressive maximum of 25,600 and its shooting rate to 5fps – not top of the league but very impressive for an entry-level camera. There are also a few new automatic flash modes, including an option for fill flash.

It’s worth noting that there is plenty that remains the same from the previous model in the series. You’ve got an 11-point AF system, a 3-inch 921k-dot rear screen and a 420 pixel RGB sensor metering system, all things that D3200 users will find thoroughly familiar. The D3300 shoots images in JPEG and 12-bit Raw formats, and is capable of saving them to SD, SDHC or SDXC memory cards.

Elsewhere there are a number of other optional extras on the D3300. You can attach the Nikon GP-1 module to a socket on the side of the camera in order to geotag images. There are also a number of additional shooting modes: a Rangefinder Mode (finding which requires a little digging into the menus); Mirror Lock-Up, though only for sensor cleaning, not for shooting; Easy Panorama, which automatically stitches several images together; and Effects Mode, with visual filters such as high-key and Selective Color.

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