NIKON D3300

An excellent entry level DSLR camera for beginners with the latest EXPEED 4 processor

The digital SLR camera boasts a 24.2 MP DV format APS-C sensor with no anti-aliasing filter. With 13 special effects, easy panorama mode, and an interactive guide mode, it bundles plenty of features.

How it feels in hand: The compact D3300 is virtually identical to its predecessor D3200. The plastic body is lightweight and doesn’t feel robust. It gets classy rubber coating on the grip and back panel. With a simple design, it gets minimum dials and buttons. On the top, it has a dial with 14 modes from Auto to Manual as well as ‘Guide’ and ‘Effect’ modes. At the back, it has a 3-inch LCD screen and few other control buttons in which a new “i” button has been introduced that allows you to quickly change key settings and bypass the main menu.
It boasts an optical viewfinder offering 95% field of view, so there is a slight possibility of clicking something that you didn’t notice while composing the image. However, the large image would let you crop out those mistakes without affecting quality.

It boasts an optical viewfinder offering 95% field of view, so there is a slight possibility of clicking something that you didn’t notice while composing the image. However, the large image would let you crop out those mistakes without affecting quality.

Rich feature set: Using Nikon’s menu is not simple so it takes time and effort getting used to. The “Guide” mode can help you understand how to make best use of the camera. To save your time and to get the best result, there is an easy ‘Auto’ mode that automatically selects the best settings.

D3300 comes with a 24 MP sensor and gets an increment in continuous shooting speed from 4 to 5 fps. The D3300 inherits the 11-point AF system with a single cross-type sensor in the middle of the grid. There are four AF Area modes: Single Point, Auto Area, Dynamic Area, and 3D Tracking.

D3300 carries the ‘Effect’ mode that was first seen in D5100, which provides 13 different filters that can be applied to both still images and movies. The camera sets virtually everything in the Effects mode – exposure, shutter speed, white balance, ISO, file type and quality – so its only creative in terms of the arty effect that’s applied.

How well it shoots: The camera worked well in bright light and was quite fast as well, but disappoints in low light. After a little struggle, I was able to get focus on the part of the scene, where I wanted to. The new kit lens is not much responsive to manual focusing but performed really well. D3300 produces excellent quality images and during the test, from ISO 100 to 400, it delivers awesome quality images without any noise, and after ISO 800 a little noise starts to creep in. Increasing to ISO 1600 and further to 3300 causes even more noise to creep in. With ISO 6400 and the fastest ISO 12800, images were full of chroma noise.

The 24 MP sensor captures excellent images even in night, while red-eye was not a common occurrence with the useful built-in flash. Active D-Lighting helps to salvage some extra detail in the shadow and highlights areas of high-contrast images.

Decent battery: The D3300 comes with Li-ion EN-EL14a battery, which delivers impressive performance and enables the device to take up to 700 shots. During the test, it was able to click about 730 shots in one full charge, so you need not carry an extra battery.