Nikon D5100 BLACK FRIDAY

Nikon D5100 BLACK FRIDAY, BEAUTIFUL CAMERA!!
It's a beautiful camera! I am still learning just some of the features - I had used a Minolta 35mm film SLR for 9 years, often in either aperture priority or manual, sometimes in P mode. The D5100 has all these capabilities and much much more. I would recommend that a new owner immediately go to the Nikon site and download the D5100 Reference Manual (about 250 pages) and save it in PDF format on your computer for when you need it. If you later want to print the manual (I did), you'll need to input your D5100 S/N. I used the PDF print capability to print full size pages because I wanted the bigger print. Then I spent 20 minutes punching 3 ring binder holes and bought a decent large 3 ring binder to hold all these pages. You can certainly learn to operate the D5100 from the User's Manual that comes in the camera box, I just like to have the ref. manual on the computer for questions I might have.

Nikon D5100 BLACK FRIDAY, Great camera for the Point-and-shoot photographer upgrading
This review is not going to cover the specs and advanced features of this camera because others have done that with far greater finesse than I could ever manage. If that is what you need or want, then please move on to the next review. I am going to focus on the advantages for someone moving from a point and shoot to this DSLR camera. I have seen comments posted on the web from serious photographers who question why a rank amateur would want anything more than a point and shoot and would like to address those concerns. First of all, this is a teaching camera. You can learn from it and your skills will advance, no matter how humble the skills are in the beginning. In the process of learning, the camera is idiot proof so you will still get great pictures in spite of your lack of sophistication. Secondly, if you have a home with poor lighting, this camera will do far better than any point and shoot that I have ever used. Thirdly, if you don't want to win photography awards but it is still important to you to accurately capture the beauty of whatever it is that you love, this is a great camera. I love to take pictures of my cats, dogs and wildlife on my rural property. This camera, in very bad lighting, accurately takes pictures of my cats' beautiful eyes. I don't need fancy filters, lenses, flashes or lighting. The color is not off and you don't get red eye, blue eye or no eye. I don't really have to do a whole lot of advanced adjusting to accomplish this. Also, the kit lens is much, much better than I expected for my needs. My cats' coats with subtle but beautiful color markings are accurately captured with this camera and kit lens. I have cats that I have taken pictures of for years and never got a good shot of until I got this camera. I got my first great picture of one of my black cats in poor lighting. I have shown that picture to many friends and posted it on Facebook and no one can believe that the photo was taken in such lousy lighting. The thing about pets is they do their cutest stuff in the darkest corners of the room. I have loved that feature the most about this camera. It is an easy camera to use. It is well made and idiot proof when it comes to removing the battery, sliding the SD card in and out, changing from photo to video. Nothing is awkward. My last point and shoot had a lot of "quirks" when putting in batteries and the SD card. No such quirks here. No hard to close hinges. Everything works as it should. For a beginner, this is not something to be taken lightly. Some of us get frustrated rather easily. You can concentrate on learning how to take better pictures rather than how to make the camera work. The menu is idiot proof. No quirks there. Very common sense and intuitive. The camera display is very, very sharp. Very easy to view pictures. You can do some editing of the photos before you load them onto your computer which is sometimes very, very helpful. You will become a better photographer for having this camera. In the process, you will have a lot of fun and get great photos--all without any frustration.
One thing I forgot to add, the battery life is wonderful. It was 2 months before I had to recharge. I took about 600 photos at my leisure during that time. That alone is worth the price of the camera.

Nikon D5100 BLACK FRIDAY, Best camera I've ever owned.
I've owned several Nikon and Canon cameras, and camera lenses, over the years. This Nikon D5100 camera is the best I've ever owned. I purchased it from Amazon a couple of months ago, with the 18-200mm lens. I highly recommend this combo. The 18-200mm lens is superb - very fast and sharp throughout the range. If you own this lens, you will need no others. I used to use a 400mm lens for bird photography, a 200mm macro lens for insect photography, and smaller lenses for general photography. The 18-200mm lens replaces all of them. 16.2 megapixel images taken with the D5100 camera and 18-200mm lens combo are so pixel-dense that you can severely crop a photo of a bird or insect and still have a very sharp high-resolution photo. Of course, normal photos of family, friends, pets, landscape are also superb - sharp, with beautiful color.