Noise
The D3100 has a very good noise profile; it matches (and perhaps bests) the current leader in the budget dSLR category, the Pentax K-x. It produces exceptionally clean JPEGs up through ISO 800 and very usable ones through ISO 3200. (Adobe Camera Raw doesn't yet support the D3100 and Nikon Capture NX 2 doesn't provide sufficiently granular noise reduction for me to do raw versus JPEG comparisons).
Noise, ISO 800
Normally, ISO 800 images of cat fur are useless because the fine, dark fur is highly susceptible to color noise. But these are very clean, and I'll probably be able to work with the exposure and sharpness once I have raw software support.
Noise, ISO 1600
You can start to see some color noise in this shot, but it's still quite usable.
Color
The D3100 has excellent color reproduction in its default SD mode.
Distortion, 35mm f1.8 lens
For a relatively inexpensive lens, the 35mm f1.8 fares pretty well overall. There's a little bit of asymmetrical distortion on the right, however.
Sample image, 35mm f1.8 lens
(1/100 sec, f4.0, ISO 100, spot meter, AWB)
Distortion, 18-55mm kit lens
At its widest, 18mm, the 18-55mm lens tends to crush towards the right side of the photo. This was taken with the automatic distortion control off, the default.
Distortion, 55-300mm lens
As you'd expect, there's very little distortion at the wide end of the 55-300mm lens.
Sample image, 55-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens
(1/80 sec, f4.5, ISO 100, spot meter AWB, 78mm)
Sharpness
The D3100 is capable of producing very natural-looking but sharp images--and this was taken using the relatively inexpensive 35mm f1.8 lens. (1/500 sec, f5.6, ISO 100, spot meter, AWB)
Sample image, 28-300mm f3.5-5.6 lens
(1/100 sec, f5.6, ISO 100, spot meter, AWB, SB900 flash, 170mm)
Bokeh, 35mm f1.8 lens
Although it has a 7-bladed aperture, the bokeh on the 35mm lens still strikes me as overly polygonal.
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