Nikon D5100 Review

Overview

Reviewed by Shawn Barnett, Mike Tomkins, and Zig Weidelich
Hands-on Preview Posted: 4/5/2011
Initial Test: 05/30/2011
Full Review Posted: 07/14/2011

Based around the same 16.2-megapixel DX-format CMOS image sensor and EXPEED 2 image processing as featured in the prosumer D7000, the D5100 offers similarly good image quality in a more affordable, approachable body. ISO sensitivity ranges from 100 to 6,400 equivalents by default, but can be extended as high as 25,600 equivalent if desired.

Compared to its predecessor, the Nikon D5100 makes a number of important changes, and it also includes several features which are unique among the company's DSLR lineup. Despite being the company's first SLR to feature a side-swiveling LCD display, the D5100 has a smaller overall body design than that of the D5000. Unlike the earlier camera's bottom-swivel display, the side-swivel is a versatile design that allows the live view feed to be seen when framing self-portraits.

The D5100 is also Nikon's first SLR to include in-camera high dynamic range (HDR) imaging capability. A single press of the shutter release captures two shots, with the first intentionally underexposed, and the second overexposed. The two are then combined in-camera to yield a final exposure with much wider dynamic range than is possible in a single exposure.

Also new for the D5100 is a Special Effects mode applicable to both still and movie capture. The selection of effects available includes what Nikon is calling Night Vision mode, which allows shooting at ISO sensitivities up to 102,400 equivalent, with a limitation that the resulting image or movie is monochromatic.

As well as capturing still images at a rate of four frames per second, the Nikon D5100 can record high definition video at resolutions up to 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, using MPEG-4 AVCHD / H.264 compression. Full-time autofocus is available in the D5100's live view and video modes, including a face detection function which can locate up to 35 faces in a scene simultaneously. Note, though, that the D5100 features an AF-S lens mount, and hence can't autofocus with screw-drive lenses.

Nikon D5100 Overview

by Shawn Barnett and Mike Tomkins

The Nikon D5100 is a little late to the market, but it's quite welcome. While we liked the preceding D5000 model, its larger size and especially the bottom-hinged swivel screen didn't make it our favorite, among an overwhelming number of recent Nikon digital SLRs that fairly knocked our socks off. That's changed with the Nikon D5100, as it pushes most all the right buttons. It's also better aimed at the Canon T3i, its major competitor.

Walkaround. Unlike the T3i, the Nikon D5100 is smaller than its predecessor, about the same width and thickness, but noticeably shorter, which makes a nice, tight package, reminiscent of the Nikon D40, one of our favorite digital SLRs. Measuring 5.0 x 3.8 x 3.1 inches (127 x 97 x 79mm), the Nikon D5100 is larger than the D3100's 4.9 x 3.8 x 2.9 inches (125 x 97 x 74mm), and smaller than the D5000's 5.0 x 4.1 x 3.1 inches (127 x 104 x 80mm). Weight is slightly reduced compared to the D5000: 19.9 ounces (565g) for the new camera, 20.7 ounces (588g) for the old (with battery and card, without lens).

The grip, while nicely sculpted inside for the pads of the fingers, isn't quite as deep as we'd like, causing our fingers to bottom out before they have a good hold on the camera. I can normally adjust my grip by wrapping the heel of my thumb around the back, but the 3-inch articulating screen makes that more difficult, as it's pushed most of the controls far to the right on the back, leaving little room for that maneuver. As a result, I hold it more loosely than most SLRs. The Nikon D5100's grip is made for smaller hands, as my medium hands are generally able to adjust to almost any size grip.

Notice also in the three-quarter shot above the placement of the Function (Fn) button just left of the D5100 logo, the mic and speaker holes just above the logo, and the large rubber port door on the right. This door covers the Accessory, AV Out/USB, HDMI, and Microphone ports, and opens as easily as it closes snugly.

Nestled in the grip of the Nikon D5100 is the infrared port, for use with a wireless remote control. Just right of the shutter button is the AF-assist lamp, which also serves as a Self-timer lamp. Our kit lens was the Nikkor AF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR.

The top deck better shows the speaker holes left of the pop-up flash. Just left and behind the Power switch and Shutter button is the new Movie Record button. The Info button moves a little further back, and serves to turn the rear LCD off and on. Where there was a Drive mode switch on the D5000, the D5100 has a new Live view activation momentary switch. It's disappointing that they couldn't put it in the same place it is on the Nikon D7000 and D3100, but the articulating LCD is worth the sacrifice. Incidentally, if you're used to using the power switch on a Rebel, the Lv switch may initially confuse you.

The Mode dial has a few new items, namely the Scene and Effects menu items. Unlike the D3100, there is no Guide mode on the Nikon D5100.

The left-mounted hinge on the Nikon D5100's Vari-angle LCD has moved the left-side buttons most Nikon shooters are used to above and right of the display. I'm not sure they got all the placements right. I'm fine with the Menu button upper left, but the i-Menu button could be better placed for easier thumb access, perhaps where the Playback button is now. I'm fond of the quick menu that it launches, which is superior to the one on the D7000, by the way, with a good set of commonly changed items. The zoom buttons are probably better placed than any of the other buttons, as you generally drop your hold on the right side of the camera anyway to allow others to see your images, leaving your thumb ideally placed to actuate these buttons, as well as the trash button. A double-press on this button deletes any image you like.

The left-articulating LCD is better than the bottom-mounted hinge in several ways. First, you can use it while the Nikon D5100 is mounted on a tripod, whereas the D5000's hinge was often blocked by elements of the tripod's mounting plate, if not the plate itself. You can also face this LCD forward to better monitor your self-portraits, whereas the old design was usually blocked by the tripod head. The 3-inch LCD itself has 921,000 dots, and is said to have a 1,000:1 contrast ratio.

One more thing, just lower left of the Menu button you can see a slightly darker dot: That's the rear infrared sensor, a feature that is also found on the Nikon D7000 and P7000. It's excellent for macro and studio shooting, because you no longer have to reach around with your ML-L3 infrared remote to activate the grip-mounted infrared sensor. Bravo, Nikon. If you've a preference for cabled remotes, note that the D5100 also accepts an MC-DC2 remote via its Accessory port.

See below for our Field Test, and check out our full suite of Test Shots and Gallery images!

Nikon D5100 Field Test

by Shawn Barnett

We've been treated to so many excellent SLRs in the past few years that when we see something like the Nikon D5100 it's easy to miss its value. In fact, the Nikon D5100 integrates so many of the stand-out features we've enjoyed in other cameras that while I argue we shouldn't say "So what?" we should indeed say, "It's about time!" Not only was it high time for a more advanced and affordable Nikon with a greater-than-12-megapixel sensor, we've also needed a Nikon with a left-mounted swivel screen and features like integrated HDR and Full HD movie capability.

While the D300S (still at 12-megapixels) is the serious photographer's camera, and the D7000 is for the advanced amateur, it's hard to know where to place the Nikon D5100. If you recall the days when everyone had a Swiss Army knife, there was one called a Tinker, which had just the right elements for most needs (two blades, two screwdrivers, an awl, bottle and can openers, and even a toothpick and tweezers) and took up very little space. That's about where the D5100 fits. It's not just an SLR, it's a digital camera with extra capabilities, capabilities that go beyond just interchangeable lenses. I'm not saying other cameras don't fit into the same category, I'm just saying the D5100 really serves the purposes of its target audience well, and all in a reasonably small package.

Grip. Though we've already mentioned that the grip is a little small for perfect comfort, it's still not bad, and when I go out to take pictures, I don't think about it much. The grip is nice and tacky, which is very good. I appreciate the Nikon D5100's small size, noticeably smaller than the new Canon T3i, and would love to try it with a few small primes. The 18-55mm lens seems a little long, physically, and is a little softer than I'd like at telephoto, but it serves for general purpose photography.

I like the new control layout, all but the position of the i-Menu button, which requires me to adjust my grip to reach it. Some of the buttons click very loudly, others more quietly. The OK button in particular clacks rather than clicks, and the AE-L/AF-L button makes no noise at all. I've noticed other cameras with different button sounds, but this is the loudest I recall hearing, so I couldn't help but mention it. The shutter sound doesn't seem as quiet as other Nikon models, but it's quieter than Rebels and manages to still make a slight winding sound quite typical of how cameras sound in movies--which is how it seems people expect cameras to sound.

HDR. Above is the shot without HDR, then with high smoothing and low smoothing. I like the increased shadow detail in both shots, but the low smoothing leaves quite a bit of glow around some elements, and both modes transform a blue sky into a dingy, gray, rather foreboding sky.

For consumers, I really preferred the Nikon D40's limited control set, but I find the Nikon D5100's greater number of buttons and controls makes me want to grab the camera and go out to play. It's not quite as inspiring to photography as the Nikon D7000, but it's still enticing. As one who's used to shooting Rebels, I kept flipping the camera into Live view mode when I thought I was done shooting, because of its location right next to the Mode dial, which is where the power switch is located on Rebels. But I really prefer the power switch where it is on the Nikon design: right around the shutter button. It's so much easier to flip on and shoot.

Function. I was also pleased to see Nikon integrate a Function (Fn) button, even if it is oddly placed. By default, it activates the Self-timer, but it can also set the Release mode, set Image quality, ISO sensitivity, White Balance, Active D-Lighting, turn on HDR mode for the next shot, add RAW to the next shot, or activate an Auto Bracketing sequence.

HDR. I was really happy to find I could set the Function button to activate the Nikon D5100's HDR mode, because I was otherwise going to complain about how the camera turns off HDR mode after each shot. It's a nuisance. You have to drill back down through the menu system to re-activate it, too. Not fun. I get why they'd do that, to prevent newbies from taking all their shots as HDRs, but making auto-deactivation an option would have made sense. So long as you don't mind dedicating your Fn button to it, HDR mode can be very handy indeed.

HDR to the max. Here's a sample of the most dramatic effect with low smoothing.

Much like Sony's HDR implementation, the Nikon D5100 shoots two photos at different settings, exposing for highlights and shadows, and integrates the two images. HDR is often overdone, but it can be useful for keeping the sky from going totally white while exposing for the foreground, or for maintaining detail in the shadows. Digital cameras just don't have the ability to capture as wide a range as our eyes can see, so we need tricks like this to capture all that we see. Unfortunately, the results often look odd. While your eye is seeing a live image and can adjust as you look around a scene, a photograph is a static image, and has to show it all at once, hence the surreal appearance of truly broad high-dynamic-range images. Fortunately, you can adjust the exposure differential from 1, 2, or 3 EV, or leave it up to the camera by selecting Auto. You can also set how aggressively the camera smooths the boundaries between images. If you want the very radical look, choose low smoothing; if you want a more realistic appearance, choose high smoothing. Since I had a short time, I shot mostly 3EV images with low smoothing for more drama. I made that decision partly because I couldn't really see the effect on the camera's LCD in bright light, so I just cranked it up. That brings up a point when judging photos on the Nikon D5100's LCD that I'll get to shortly.

Night vision. There are two other shots in the gallery, one in Night vision, the other at ISO 6,400, but they were made with a light on in the room; this is barely enough light to frame the shot.

Though I'm not sure why they're split into two separate areas on the Mode dial, Scene and Effects offer a few interesting settings as well. Of the available Effects, only Silhouette and Night vision would be worth running to in a pinch, at least for me. In both positions, though, you just turn the rear Control dial, and a virtual dial appears in the upper left corner of the screen, allowing you to select from among the modes that appear there. The text title appears as well as a sample image to give you the idea of what each mode does.

Night vision is an obvious choice for the photographer dad wanting to get photos of his children when they're at their most wonderful, which is of course when they're sleeping. It's surprising that they didn't emulate the classic green glow of a night vision scope, but it also shows good judgment, because in the end, we all appreciate a black and white photograph. I used it in low light earlier in the week, but gave it more of a test in real "night vision" light. No joy. So I turned on the bathroom light and it was dim enough that I could barely see well enough to frame the image in the viewfinder. The Nikon D5100 didn't autofocus in this mode, so I had to focus on something in better light using another mode at about the same distance, then reframe my shot. It's pretty darn grainy, but it looks decent.

Color sketch. I'm sure others will be able to make better use of this mode than I.

Color sketch. I tried my best to come up with a decent photographic excuse for Color sketch effect, but I came up short. It's just not my thing, and I'd hate to waste a frame on it. I could see trying to apply it to save a boring picture, but why bother saving a boring picture? Just delete it.

Miniature effect. It's hard to see in this thumbnail, but the effect is more noticeable at larger sizes.

Miniature effect. I labored trying to make a convincing Miniature image, but it's critical where the blur lands, and that's not always conducive to good composition if you even find a vantage point. In Live view mode, you do have a chance to frame it with the blur-effect present, but frame rate slows to two or three frames per second, making it harder to compose the image. I did better through the optical viewfinder. In the end I made a shot of kids on a swing that looks okay. The key is to shoot from a high angle to help the illusion that you're looking into a diorama or set of toys. I find the mode useful for demonstrating the feature in camera reviews, but haven't used it beyond that.

Mode dial. I have to take a moment to praise the Mode dial. As I shot with it, paying more attention to my kids than the camera, it was easy to change among the modes I had to try for the review, and returning to Program or Aperture modes was as easy as could be, easier than most cameras I use. The dial has just the right resistance to turn easily, but not accidentally. What's more, it moves into each setting with confidence, not stopping halfway between. When you handle as many cameras as I do, you know that's not the norm.

Shutter lag. Half a second earlier, she was facing the camera for a cute shot.

Swivel screen. I've used several cameras with left-hinged swivel screens lately, but for some reason I've remembered that I could and should use this one more often than I have with others. It's most handy when you have toddlers, or when shooting at events with lots of other people, like school events and sporting events. Again, the Nikon D5100 is ideal for parents in particular. I must say, though, that while having a swivel screen means you can get a good low angle on toddlers, I noticed a significant lag even when prefocused. The lab tests say its about 0.49 second. Nearly half a second is a long time when photographing toddlers, let me tell you. In that time, the mirror goes down, the screen goes blank, and then the mirror goes back up to make the exposure. Sadly what you saw when that screen went blank is too often not what you captured. That's Live view for most SLRs, unfortunately, and you just have to adjust your timing accordingly. It should be noted that most swivel-screen digicams average a half-second shutter lag, so all that's missing is the usual faster shutter lag that we associate with SLRs.

It's not a perfect solution for toddlers, especially very active ones, but for many other situations, it helps you get shots from unusual angles, and even self-portraits, that you wouldn't get otherwise.

Better. The Nikon D5100 actually did do pretty well on this flash shot, especially considering the dark clothes and dark green target.

LCD in bright light. While photographing the kids at a local playground, I frequently saw photo opportunities with the kids faces in shadow. After the exposure, it seemed their faces were way too dark, so I decided to pop up the flash. This seemed to do the trick, brightening their faces. Later, when I viewed the pictures on the computer, though, it was those first shots I made without the flash that were properly exposed, while many of the flash shots were overexposed; exactly the opposite of what the camera's LCD had told me. So the good news is that the Nikon D5100's exposure system got it right. The bad news is that when the flash was employed, the exposure system sometimes overdid it. I think I'd employ flash exposure compensation in the future to dial it back, and look to the histogram more than the LCD in the future. I think the top glass on the LCD is way too reflective, which makes it harder to properly judge exposure in bright sunlit conditions.

Speed. Saw these guys coming up the ramp, switched out of Live view, and crouched down to catch them through the faster viewfinder.

Viewfinder. I found the greatest success using the optical viewfinder to frame my shots, as is usually the case. The viewfinder is more like a Rebel's, to put it simply. AF points are bracketed by slim black lines, with black dots in the center which light up red when focus is achieved. The bright red dots are easier to pick out against most backgrounds, whereas the dim red squares of past designs were harder to see against certain backgrounds, especially in shadow areas. Arrayed in a horizontal diamond pattern, the Nikon D5100's eleven AF points are more plentiful than on the Rebel, which has only nine.

The optical viewfinder also offers a return to framing images at the speed of light, as well as the faster shutter lag. It's a shame it's not a little faster to reacquire focus, taking 0.41 second in wide-area mode, but I found it fast enough in most cases. Switching to single-point AF removes some of the guesswork, and a lot of the lag, which goes down to 0.27 second.

Full HD. 1080p at 30fps. The movie starts out slightly out of focus, but I half-press the shutter a few seconds in so you can hear the focus motor on the kit lens. (Click image to download 31.4MB .MOV file.)

Movie. Capturing movies with the Nikon D5100 is almost as simple as you could make it. You first have to switch to Live view mode, then just press the red Record button just behind and left of the shutter button. The only complication is that when shooting in one of the many HD movie modes, you have to remember that once you start recording, the top and bottom of the display will be cropped off to fit the 16:9 format. Two of the Info displays have small horizontal lines near the corners that show where the 16:9 crop will occur, which is as good a solution as I've seen. You just have to press the Info button once to get to one of these screens.

You can autofocus while recording with a half-press on the shutter button. With the kit lens, you can hear the focus motor adjusting the lens to check focus. You can also turn on AF-F (Full-time servo AF) mode, only available in Live view mode, which offers continuous autofocus while in Live view and Movie modes.

The Nikon D5100 was capable and fun to use. I would not hesitate to take it to any major family event, though I'd probably want to get a more capable small lens, like the Nikkor 18-105mm. The D5100 is Nikon's most versatile offering at this price point and is easy to get good results in a hurry, making it ideal for those new to SLR photography.

Nikon D5100 Tech Info

by Mike Tomkins

Sensor. On the inside, the Nikon D5100 is based around the same 16.2-megapixel, DX-format (23.6 x 15.6mm), CMOS image sensor that previously featured in the D7000. The Nikon D5100's imager has a total pixel count of 16.9 megapixels, a pixel size of 4.78µm, and yields maximum image dimensions of 4,928 x 3,264 pixels. Two lower-resolution options are also available--either 3,696 x 2,448, or 2,464 x 1,632 pixels. The Nikon D5100 can capture still images as .NEF-format compressed RAW files, JPEG compressed files, or as both types simultaneously. Unlike the prosumer D7000 model, the Nikon D5100 doesn't provide an option for uncompressed RAW files.

Processor. The Nikon D5100 uses 14-bit analog/digital conversion, and output from the CMOS sensor is handled by an EXPEED 2 image processor, as featured previously in the D3100 and D7000. Compared to the previous generation EXPEED, the latest generation EXPEED 2 offers improvements in processing speed, image quality, and power consumption. (Note that Nikon repeatedly tells us that EXPEED 2 isn't necessarily the same processor in each camera; it's a processing set that's applied via various configurations of processors, which varies by camera.)

Although the Nikon D5100 features the same sensor and nominally the same EXPEED version as in the D7000, its burst shooting rate of four frames per second is a third slower than the D7000's six frames per second, as you might expect given its more affordable pricing.

Lens mount. Like the D3000 before it, the Nikon D5100 sports an AF-S lens mount that lacks an in-body autofocus motor, which would support older AF lenses whose focus mechanisms were driven from the camera. These lenses have what looks like a little screwdriver slot on their mounting flange that couples with a protruding, screwdriver-looking shaft on the camera body, driven by a motor in the camera body to adjust focus.

More recent Nikkor lenses have motors built into the lens body, which tend to be both faster and quieter than the old-style drive system, as well as allowing the camera body to be lighter, smaller and cheaper. These newer lenses--of which there are now over 40 types--carry an AF-S or AF-I designation in their name, and they are the only types of lenses the D5100 can autofocus with. CPU-equipped lenses lacking built-in focus motors can be used in manual focus mode, and type G or D lens types will also support full 3D color matrix metering for more accurate exposures, particularly when flash is being used. (You can tell CPU-equipped lenses by the set of five electrical contacts arrayed on the top side of the lens flange.)

Helpfully, the Nikon D5100 can automatically correct for lens distortion in-camera.

Viewfinder. The Nikon D5100's pentamirror viewfinder has the same 17.9mm eyepoint as that of the D5000, but mirrors that of the D3100 by dropping the on-demand grid display function of its predecessor, instead opting for a more traditional display with red LED indication of AF points. Magnification is approx. 0.78x and frame coverage is approx. 95% horizontal and vertical. The diopter is adjustable from -1.7 to +0.7m, and the D5100 uses a Type B BriteView Clear Matte Mark VII focusing screen.

Autofocus is unchanged from the system used in the Nikon D5000, although the viewfinder indication differs. The D5100's autofocus system is based around an 11-point Multi-CAM 1000 phase-detection sensor module that's previously appeared in the D3000 and D5000, among others. The Multi-CAM 1000 module offers 11 focusing points, of which the center point is a cross-type sensor. Detection range for the D5100's AF system is -1 to +19 EV (ISO 100, 68°F / 20°C). While the AF sensor itself is unchanged, Nikon has updated the viewfinder point display. In the D5000, the approximate AF point locations were indicated with dense black marks in the viewfinder. For the Nikon D5100, these have been replaced with much fainter markings, each illuminated by red LEDs in the center. Like its predecessor, the Nikon D5100 includes 3D tracking capability that follows moving subjects from point to point as they traverse the frame.

Exposure modes in the Nikon D5100 include Auto, Program, Shutter-priority, Aperture-priority, Manual, Flash Off, Scene, Portrait, Landscape, Child, Sports, Close-Up, and Effects. The Scene mode position on the camera's Mode dial groups the D5100's scene modes together, rather than their meriting individual positions on the dial. Scene mode choices have been pared down just slightly, and now include Night Landscape, Party / Indoor, Beach / Snow, Sunset, Dusk / Dawn, Pet Portrait, Candlelight, Blossom, Autumn Colors, Food, and Night Portrait.

Live view. Note that the above screen shots are captured via HDMI connection; this is not how the display looks on the D5100's LCD.

The D5000's Silhouette, High key and Low key scene modes have now been relocated to the new Effects position on the Mode dial, which applies to both still images and movies. The Effects mode also includes new Night Vision, Color Sketch, Miniature Effect, and Selective Color options. We've seen similar functions to all of these on past DSLRs from Nikon or competitors, other than the Night Vision mode, which in particular bears a little explanation. This unusual mode raises the ISO sensitivity limit from its expanded maximum of 25,600 equivalents, all the way up to a whopping ISO 102,400 equivalent, but with a catch: you can only shoot monochromatic images in Night Vision mode. The Selective Color option is similar to that on Pentax's DSLRs, and desaturates all but selected color ranges. Where Pentax's function allows selection of two colors with a five-step control over how wide a selection around this color should be retained, the Nikon D5100 can select three separate colors, with seven-step selection control. Color Sketch provides a drawing-like effect, while Miniature Effect creates a graduated blur near opposing edges of the image frame, simulating a shallow depth of field and (if used well) creating a perception that the photo is of a model. This last effect slows the recording frame rate on movies, and so causes them to appear sped-up on playback.

Available shutter speeds range from 1/4,000 to 30 seconds in 1/3 or 1/2EV steps, plus a bulb position for longer exposures. The Nikon D5100's shutter mechanism has a rated lifetime of some 100,000 cycles. Exposure compensation is available within a +/-5.0 EV range, in 1/3 or 1/2 EV steps. The Nikon D5100 also offers three frame exposure bracketing, with a step size between exposures of up to 2 EV.

Metering. Nikon's 3D Color Matrix Metering system employs a 420-pixel RGB light meter that covers most of the Nikon D5100's image area. By way of comparison, higher-end Nikon models use a 1,005-pixel RGB sensor that just slightly more than doubles the metering sensor resolution, so the Nikon D5100's less sophisticated sensor can't always provide the same level of exposure metering accuracy as in the D7000 and other models using the newer 1,005 pixel sensor.

As well as Matrix metering, the Nikon D5100 provides center weighted (75% weight for circle) and spot modes. The center-weighted circle defaults to 8mm. The spot metering circle is 3.5mm, or about 2.5% of the image frame, and meters at the center of the frame when the focus point is automatically selected, or from the manually selected focus point otherwise. Working range for the D5100's metering system is from 0 to 20 EV for matrix and center-weighted metering, or 2 to 20 EV for spot metering (ISO 100, f/1.4 lens, 68°F / 20°C).

Scene Recognition System. With the same AF and metering arrangement as the Nikon D5000, the D5100 likewise retains Nikon's Scene Recognition System, which uses information from the 3D Color Matrix Metering system to compare what it sees in the image to a database of 30,000 photos. Details on similar images in the database are then used when determining focus, exposure, i-TTL flash exposure, and white balance, allowing the Nikon D5100 to make better decisions overall.

The autofocus sensors are another piece of the Nikon D5100's SRS puzzle, each aspect informing and tuning the other. Finding and focusing on eyes rather than foreground objects, or even foreheads and noses, is one particular benefit of the overall integration. Another is improved 3D tracking of objects as they move across the image area. The RGB sensor may not be able to help focus on an object, but it can add a set of data for the Nikon D5100 to use while tracking a subject with the autofocus system. For example, if a red object is traversing the frame from left to right, and growing in size as it does so, the Nikon D5100's SRS would add this information to the AF-sensor data to help it tune the focus more quickly.

Sensitivity. The Nikon D5100's sensitivity range is greatly expanded since its predecessor, with standard limits of ISO 100 to 6,400 equivalents, while ISO 12,800 and 25,600 equivalents are available when ISO expansion is enabled. By comparison, the Nikon D5000 offers a standard range of ISO 200 to 3,200, while its expanded range was ISO 100 to 6,400. As mentioned previously, this upper limit can be extended even further to ISO 102,400 equivalent in Night Vision mode, but with a catch: this mode is limited only to monochromatic capture, so if you want to shoot in color, you'll need to stay at ISO 25,600 or below. An Auto ISO option is also available, if you prefer to leave the decisions up to the camera.

White balance. The Nikon D5100 provides no less than 14 white balance modes, including an Auto mode, 12 presets, and a manual position. Presets include Incandescent, Fluorescent (Sodium-vapor, Warm-white, White, Cool-white, Day White, Daylight, and High Temp. Mercury-vapor), Direct Sunlight, Flash, Cloudy, and Shade. In addition, the D5100 can bracket white balance when shooting in JPEG mode. With bracketing enabled, the camera saves three copies of each image--the default, plus one with a warmer tint, and one with a cooler tint.

Picture Control. As you'd expect, Nikon has included its standardized Picture Control system in the D5100, so that camera settings for sharpening, contrast, brightness, saturation, and hue can be finely adjusted and ported to other Nikon digital SLRs that support the system. The D3 was the first camera compatible with the option, and all Nikon SLRs since, including the D5100 follow the standard. The Nikon D5100 has six presets called Standard, Neutral, Vivid, Monochrome, Portrait, and Landscape, and up to nine custom presets can be defined, named, saved, and copied. Sharpness can be adjusted in ten steps, along with an Auto setting; contrast, saturation, and hue can be adjusted in seven steps, while hue is adjustable in three steps. There is also a five-step "Quick Adjust" setting, which exaggerates or mutes the effect without having to adjust each slider individually. When Monochrome Picture Control is selected, Hue and Saturation are replaced by Filter Effects and Toning respectively. Filter Effects offers Off, Yellow, Orange, Red, and Green settings, while Toning offers B&W, Sepia, Cyanotype, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue Green, Blue, Purple Blue and Red Purple settings. Note that Picture Controls are only active in Program, Aperture-priority or Shutter-priority and Manual exposure modes, as the Scene modes already apply preset image adjustments. Of course, the Nikon D5100 also offers sRGB and Adobe RGB settings, in a separate Color Space menu.

HDR Imaging. The Nikon D5100 marks a first for the company by offering an in-camera high dynamic range imaging function, something we've seen in several DSLRs from rivals, starting with Pentax's flagship K-7 back in early 2009. The Nikon D5100's HDR mode automatically captures two shots, with the first intentionally underexposed by anywhere from 0.5 to 1.5 stops, and the second overexposed by the same amount, for a total difference between shots of 1 to 3 EV. Mid-tone information is used from both images, while highlight information is taken from the underexposed shot, and shadow information from the overexposed shot. The result is saved as a single image with increased dynamic range, at which point the individual source images are discarded. The D5100's HDR mode doesn't appear to include any microalignment capability, although it does perform what the company terms as "smoothing" of the two shots, which can be set to operate at low, normal, or high levels. Nikon notes that it recommends shooting on a tripod, and like any multi-shot mode, it's only suitable for use with relatively static subjects (just like similar functions from competitors).

Active D-Lighting. The Nikon D5100 retains its predecessor's optional Active D-Lighting mode, which offers an auto mode plus four preset levels that add progressively more punch to shadow detail. Note that JPEG files are modified as they are captured with Active D-Lighting, so there's no unaltered "original" to refer back to: consider whether you want to shoot RAW + JPEG to back up those files, or perhaps use D-Lighting after capture if you're not sure whether an image would benefit from the help. Interestingly, the Active D-Lighting function can be used in concert with high-dynamic-range imaging.

Flash. For shooting in difficult lighting conditions, the Nikon D5100 includes both a built-in popup flash strobe, and an ISO 518 intelligent hot shoe for external strobes. Flash X-sync is at 1/200 second. There's no built-in PC sync connector, but Nikon offers an optional hot-shoe-mounted sync connector adapter for use with studio strobes. The built-in flash has at least 18mm coverage, and will pop up automatically as needed in Auto and most Scene modes, while in other modes it can be deployed manually. The Guide number is 12 meters / 39 feet at ISO 100, 68°F / 20°C, which increases to 13 meters / 43 feet when controlled manually. Flash metering modes include i-TTL, auto-aperture, non-TTL auto, and distance-priority manual, with availability of these modes depending on the flash model. -3 to +1 EV of flash exposure compensation is available in 1/3 or 1/2 EV increments. The Nikon D5100's internal flash offers support for the Nikon Creative Lighting System, but can't act as a wireless commander.

Live view shooting. There's a new method of activating Live view on the Nikon D5100: a dedicated Live view lever on the top panel, jutting out from beneath the right of the Mode dial, and easily reached with the flick of a fingertip. Upon tapping the Lv lever, the mirror flips up and Live-view framing begins. As with Nikon's other recent DSLRs, you can only focus in Contrast-detect mode, as Phase-detect AF isn't available. Phase-detect AF in Live View-capable SLRs is always a noisy affair, as it involves dropping and raising the mirror twice (once to focus and once to take the shot), but it's generally faster than contrast-detect focusing.

Live view focus modes in the Nikon D5100 include Normal, Wide area, Face Priority, Subject Tracking, AF-S (single servo), AF-F (full-time), and manual focus. If face detection is activated, the Nikon D5100 quickly begins tracking faces, placing a yellow box around each one, up to 35 at a time. Once focus is achieved, the box turns green at the point where the focus lock was achieved.

D-Movie mode. Recording movies on the Nikon D5100 is easy: While in Live view mode, just press the dedicated, top-panel Movie button to start recording. Movies can be captured at resolutions up to 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, or what's commonly known as 1080p / "Full HD" video, as well as 1,280 x 720 pixels (720p), and standard definition 640 x 424 pixels (a non-standard resolution). There's a choice of 25 or 30 frames per second, regardless of resolution, and for high-def capture you can also opt for a 24 frames per second mode.

The Nikon D5100's movies are captured using MPEG-4 AVCHD / H.264 compression, with the file format being .MOV. Each video clip has a maximum length of twenty minutes, and the Nikon D5100 does provide for basic in-camera editing of videos, with the ability to trim unwanted content from both the start and end of each clip. You can also save a JPEG from a frame of video. The Nikon D5100's internal microphone is monaural, and it includes connectivity for an external stereo microphone.

Significantly for consumer videographers, the Nikon D5100 offers full-time contrast-detection autofocus during movie capture, including support for the face detection and tracking functionality, though the number of faces that can be tracked simultaneously is reduced compared to the 35 face limit in still capture mode. With Nikon F-mount lenses having been designed for still image shooting, it's likely that autofocus drive noise will be picked up on the audio track when using the Nikon D5100's internal microphone, but this is likely a worthwhile tradeoff for many consumers, given the difficulty of learning to pull focus manually.

Shutter speed and ISO sensitivity are always automatically controlled while recording movies, however lens aperture can be chosen before entering Live view mode in Aperture Priority or Manual exposure mode. Exposure Compensation and AE Lock are available in PASM modes, but Matrix metering is always used regardless of the metering mode selected.

In-Camera Editing. The Nikon D5100 offers not only in-camera RAW file processing, but also provides Nikon's extensive in-camera image retouching capabilities. These include resizing, cropping, post-capture D-Lighting, redeye correction, monochrome and other filter effects, color balance, image overlay, quick retouch, straighten, distortion control, perspective control, miniature effect, fisheye, color outline, color sketch, and selective color.

Ports. The Nikon D5100 includes a range of connectivity options. For data transfer to a computer, there's a standard USB 2.0 High Speed port. Videos can be shown on standard or high-definition displays using either the NTSC / PAL switchable composite port, or Type-C Mini HDMI port, respectively. While in use, the standard-def composite port allows the camera's LCD to remain active, but the HDMI port overrides the camera's LCD display. It also supports the Consumer Electronics Control (HDMI-CEC) standard, allowing remote control of certain playback functionality through the HDMI cable, from an attached display's remote control unit. There's also an accessory terminal on the Nikon D5100 that's compatible with the MC-DC2 remote cable release, and the GP-1 GPS unit, both available as optional extras. The Nikon D5100 has the aforementioned 3.5mm stereo microphone input jack, and they even offer a new accessory microphone, the ME-1 Stereo Microphone, that attaches to the camera via the hot shoe. Finally, the Nikon D5100 has two infrared remote release ports, front and back, for use with the ML-L3 infrared remote control.

Storage and battery. The Nikon D5100 stores images on an SD/SDHC/SDXC memory card, and is compatible with Eye-Fi cards for wireless connectivity via WiFi. It uses an EN-EL14 lithium-ion battery pack, rated for 660 shots on a charge with 50% of shots using the flash (CIPA rating). No vertical battery grip is available for the Nikon D5100.

Pricing. Available from mid-April 2011, the Nikon D5100 retails for a suggested price of US$799.95 body only, or US$899.95 for the body and 18-55mm VR lens.

Nikon D5100 Image Quality Comparison

Most digital SLRs will produce a reasonable ISO 100 shot, so we like to push them and see what they can do at ISO 1,600, at their default noise reduction settings. Recent advances in sensor technology have made ISO 1,600 look a lot more like ISO 100, but there are still cameras whose quality starts to fall apart at this setting. I also choose 1,600 because I like to be able to shoot at or above this level when indoors and at night. We also explore ISO 3,200, and look at the high-contrast detail of ISO 100 vs 3,200 and 6,400. Be sure to check our Thumbnails page for more image quality samples.

Note that we've reshot our Nikon D5100 Still Life images with the Sigma 70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro, which is our reference lens for most camera bodies. While the Nikkor AF-S 60mm f/2.8G ED Micro we used previously is a very sharp lens, it doesn't have quite as much resolving power and contrast as the Sigma, which made a slight but noticeable difference when coupled with the D5100's high-resolution sensor. The Nikon D5100 crops below have been updated.

Nikon D5100 versus Canon T3i at ISO 1,600

Nikon D5100 at ISO 1,600	Canon T3i at ISO 1,600
Resolution has improved noticeably from the D5000, but it's still slightly lower than the Canon T3i's 18 megapixels; the image size difference shows the relative difference in resolution. The T3i's default contrast and sharpening look a touch higher than the D5100's, but the Canon still captures a bit more detail and nuance (hence the larger objects when cropped at 100% onscreen). But its noise-suppression engine is a little too aggressive with the red leaf swatch, obscuring most detail, while the Nikon D5100 does much better with the reds.

Nikon D5100 versus Nikon D5000 at ISO 1,600

Nikon D5100 at ISO 1,600	Nikon D5000 at ISO 1,600
The resolution difference between the Nikon D5100 and D5000 is apparent, dropping from 16 megapixels to 12. Not surprisingly, noise processing is very similar between the two Nikons, though the D5100's looks slightly less aggressive, leaving more detail in the red leaf swatch as well as more noise in flat areas.

Nikon D5100 versus Nikon D7000 at ISO 1,600

Nikon D5100 at ISO 1,600	Nikon D7000 at ISO 1,600
The Nikon D5100 and D7000 theoretically use the same sensor, so it's no surprise to see very similar results when shot with the same lens. The D5100 seems ever so slightly softer, but that wouldn't be a surprise given the consumer market, where more noise reduction is desirable.

Nikon D5100 versus Panasonic GH2 at ISO 1,600

Nikon D5100 at ISO 1,600	Panasonic GH2 at ISO 1,600
The Panasonic GH2 is quite a bit more expensive than the D5100, but it also has an articulating LCD, shoots 1080p video and has similar resolution, so we included it here. Note the tendency toward green in the GH2's files, which is unfortunate. I call it a near draw in resolution, except where the red leaf swatch is concerned, which looks better from the D5100. The Nikon has an advantage in color, however.

Nikon D5100 versus Sony A580 at ISO 1,600

Nikon D5100 at ISO 1,600	Sony A580 at ISO 1,600
The Sony A580 looks pretty good, in theory sporting the same sensor again. Its noise suppression is more aggressive, however, smoothing away some of the fine detail in the mosaic pattern as well as the red leaf swatch.

Today's ISO 3,200 is yesterday's ISO 1,600 (well, almost), so below are the same crops at ISO 3,200.

Nikon D5100 versus Canon T3i at ISO 3,200

Nikon D5100 at ISO 3,200	Canon T3i at ISO 3,200
At ISO 3,200 the Nikon D5100 seems to jump ahead of the T3i, making fewer corrections to low-contrast detail, made most dramatically apparent when looking at the red leaf swatch. The Canon's resolution advantage seems to dissolve in stronger noise suppression, but you get lower noise (especially chroma) in the tradeoff.

Nikon D5100 versus Nikon D5000 at ISO 3,200

Nikon D5100 at ISO 3,200	Nikon D5000 at ISO 3,200
Again, the D5100 captures more detail than its lower resolution predecessor, but its noise reduction also leaves a touch more noise behind. It also doesn't render the edge of the yellow bottle as well as the D5000 or T3i.

Nikon D5100 versus Nikon D7000 at ISO 3,200

Nikon D5100 at ISO 3,200	Nikon D7000 at ISO 3,200
Almost identical results here with the same lens, as expected.

Nikon D5100 versus Panasonic GH2 at ISO 3,200

Nikon D5100 at ISO 3,200	Panasonic GH2 at ISO 3,200
Detail loss in the mosaic and red leaf images shows the Nikon D5100 is better able to resolve detail at ISO 3,200 than the Panasonic GH2 here.

Nikon D5100 versus Sony A580 at ISO 3,200

Nikon D5100 at ISO 3,200	Sony A580 at ISO 3,200
The Nikon D5100 gains a bit more on the Sony A580, which uses stronger noise suppression in the shadowed background, and more sharpening on the letters in the top crop. Meanwhile, the Nikon D5100's more even-handed approach creates an image that's more detailed, but a bit noisier.

Detail: Nikon D5100 vs. Canon T3i, Nikon D5000, Nikon D7000, Panasonic GH2 and Sony A580

Nikon D5100 ISO 100 ISO 3,200 ISO 6,400	Canon T3i ISO 100 ISO 3,200 ISO 6,400	Nikon D5000 ISO 100 ISO 3,200 ISO 6,400	Nikon D7000 ISO 100 ISO 3,200 ISO 6,400	Panasonic GH2 ISO 160 ISO 3,200 ISO 6,400	Sony A580 ISO 100 ISO 3,200 ISO 6,400
Detail comparison. High-contrast details are often sharper as ISO rises, so they're worth a look as well. As expected, the Nikon D5100's performance is very similar to the D7000's with the same Sigma reference lens, though contrast is a touch lower while white balance is cooler. The Canon T3i's higher resolution puts it ahead at ISO 100, but the D5100 holds its own at ISO 3,200 and 6,400. The D5100 outresolves the D5000 as expected, but the later may also be at a slight disadvantage optically, as it was shot with a Nikkor AF-S 60mm f/2.8G ED Micro instead of the sharper Sigma 70mm. The Panasonic GH2 does surprisingly well with a high contrast subject, outresolving the D5100 at all ISOs, albeit noise is higher. The GH2 struggles a bit more than the others with the red text, though. The Sony A580 also performs well, perhaps a hair better than the D5100 at all ISOs, though the Sony along with the Canon show a tendency toward more visible sharpening halos. For more picky photographers, this is worthy of note, as the D5100's lower level of processing is easier to tweak more carefully after capture. There are so many variables to consider, though, including exposure, tone curve, and others, it's too much to get into. Let your eyes do most of the work.

Nikon D5100 Print Quality

Makes excellent 24 x 36 inch prints from ISO 100-400; ISO 3,200 shots still have great detail at 11 x 14; ISO 12,800 shots make a good 4 x 6.

ISO 100 images make excellent 24 x 36 inch prints with great detail and color. This is true at ISO 200 and 400 as well. Good wall display prints are possible up to 30 x 40 inches.

ISO 800 shots look good at 16 x 20, with very slight luminance noise in the shadows, but not bad at all.

ISO 1,600 prints look quite good at 13 x 19 inches.

ISO 3,200 makes a nice 11 x 14, with minor apparent noise in some shadowy areas.

ISO 6,400 shots are pretty good at 8 x 10, better than usable. There's a little luminance noise in the shadows, but overall it's a good performance.

ISO 12,800 prints a respectable 4 x 6.

ISO 25,600 images are too muted and noisy to be called good.

Overall a very impressive performance from the Nikon D5100, on par with the Nikon D7000 to a large extent.

See below for our conclusion; be sure to check the other tabs for detail test results.

In the Box

The Nikon D5100 kit contains the following items:

• Nikon D5100 digital camera
• AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR lens
• Front and rear lens caps
• Body mount cap BF-1B
• Neck Strap AN-DC3
• Rechargeable lithium-ion battery EN-EL14
• Battery charger MH-24
• USB cable UC-E6
• Audio / Video Cable EG-CP14
• Eyecup DK-20
• Eyepiece cap DK-5
• Accessory shoe cover BS-1
• Nikon ViewNX 2 CD-ROM
• User manuals

Recommended Accessories

• Extra battery pack for extended outings
• Large capacity SDHC/SDXC memory card. These days, 8GB is a good tradeoff between cost and capacity, but if you plan to capture HD movie clips, look for larger cards with Class 6 or faster ratings.
• SB-900, SB-800, SB-700, SB-600, or SB-400 flash strobe, SU-800 wireless flash commander
• Wireless Remote ML-L3 if you like infrared remotes, or Remote Release MC-DC2 if you prefer a tethered remote
• Power Supply Connector kit EP-5A if you do much studio shooting
• GPS unit GP-1 for geotagging
• Stereo microphone ME-1 to reduce untoward noise pickup during video capture
• Camera case

Nikon D5100 Conclusion

When we reviewed the preceding D5000 model two years ago, we found a lot to like, with a combination of great image quality and a fairly rich feature set, but we found ourselves questioning Nikon's choice of a bottom-mounted LCD articulation mechanism for several reasons. While it made shooting over your head or low to the ground much more feasible than in SLRs with a fixed screen (even those with wide viewing angles), it was unfortunately of relatively little use for self-portraits--and that's something of a common need for consumers. Whether you had the camera mounted on a tripod, or simply placed on a conveniently located flat surface, the LCD couldn't be flipped for viewing from in front of the camera. The bottom-mounted mechanism probably also contributed, at least in part, to the D5000's increased body size relative to Nikon's entry-level SLRs.

The switch to a side-mounted articulation mechanism has made the Nikon D5100 a significantly more versatile camera than its predecessor. It retains the previous mechanism's main advantages, including the ability to close the LCD facing inwards for added protection (or just to help keep it smudge-free when not in use), but adds to the range of shooting situations in which live view, instant review and movie capture can prove useful. It's also allowed Nikon to make a worthwhile savings in the D5100's height, and as we've often pointed out, the smaller and lighter a camera is, the more likely you'll have it on-hand when an unexpected photo opportunity arises. Cameras left at home don't get the photo, no matter how great their features and image quality.

While the new tilt/swivel screen assembly is probably more of an attention-grabber, many consumers will also appreciate the D5100's new creative options. Pros and enthusiasts may prefer to tweak images to their tastes in post-processing, but not everybody wants to be chained to their desk, and indeed, it can help get your creative juices flowing since you can preview some of the effects in the field. While the Nikon D5100's array of pre- and post-capture filters and HDR mode aren't unique, with similar capabilities found on other recent SLRs from the company's competitors, the greater variety of options available to Nikon shooters are nonetheless welcome. It's a shame that the multi-shot HDR mode doesn't microalign images, however: as is, it's really only useful for static subjects with the camera mounted on a tripod.

When compared to its predecessor, the Nikon D5100 also makes a very worthwhile step forwards in image quality. That's perhaps not surprising; the SLR market as a whole has made quite an improvement in the last couple of years. It bears noting, though, that the D5100 is based around the same image sensor and EXPEED 2 image processing algorithms that featured in the popular D7000 prosumer SLR. Of course, there are many other points that differentiate the two cameras, but it's great to see very similar levels of image quality on offer at a much more affordable price point, one that's easily within reach of many consumers.

Of course, this is a camera aimed at consumers, with the design choices that brings. Notably, Nikon hasn't included a screw-drive autofocus motor, or in-camera wireless flash commander functionality in the D5100, and for some photographers, that may cause them to look elsewhere. For its target market, though, the Nikon D5100 offers an approachable design that couples a great feature set with excellent image quality, and that combination makes it an easy choice for a Dave's Pick.

Design

Nikon D5100 Design

(Illustration courtesy Nikon USA)

Seen from the front, the Nikon D5100's new body looks quite similar to that of the D5000, although it's a completely new design that is noticeably less tall than its predecessor, and has a more rounded hand grip which is comfortable for smaller hands, but can feel a little cramped if you have medium to large hands. Seen from this angle, the only obvious control / layout differences from the earlier camera are to be found on the top and left panels. Up top, the D5100 now features a switch beneath the Mode dial which enables or disables Live View mode, in place of the rear-panel Lv button from the D5000. The position previously occupied by the Info button is now taken up by dedicated Movie Record button, intuitively placed right next to the still image Shutter-release button. The relocated Info button is still found on the top deck, but moves behind the Exposure Compensation and Movie Record buttons.

The only other significant differences in the diagram above are the relocated speaker on the camera's top left, and the addition of a new external microphone jack, one of four ports located under the rubber flap on the camera's left-hand side. This jack accepts a 3.5mm stereo microphone, supplementing the built-in monaural microphone that's retained from the D5000 design.

(Illustration courtesy Nikon USA)

Unlike the front view, the D5100's rear is quite radically changed from that of its predecessor. Most of the changes are dictated by a switch in the LCD monitor's tilt / swivel articulation mechanism. Previously bottom-mounted in the D5000, the D5100's LCD mechanism now has a much more useful side mount, making it possible to view the LCD from in front of the camera. (With the D5000's mechanism, you couldn't see the LCD from in front of the camera when tripod-mounted or placed on a convenient flat surface.)

To accommodate the new swivel mechanism, the column of buttons at camera left on the D5000 have all migrated around the rear of the D5100. The Menu button jumps to the top left corner of the rear panel, adjacent to a new, secondary infrared receiver that complements the one located in the front-panel handgrip. The Info button, meanwhile, now sits between the viewfinder eyepiece and the AE-L / AF-L button. With Live View control now moved to the top panel as discussed previously, the location previously occupied by the Lv button is taken over by the Playback button. Finally, the Delete, Playback Zoom In, and Playback Zoom Out / Thumbnail buttons have all moved to a cluster beneath the four-way controller, a location that was occupied by the speaker in the D5000.

Operation

Nikon D5100 Operation

Like the preceding D5000 model, the Nikon D5100 is aimed at beginner and casual shooters, rather than professionals and hard-core SLR enthusiasts. It's thus no surprise that the D5100 offers an interface that is as clean, uncluttered, and approachable as possible. There are quite a few differences in layout from the earlier camera, though, largely made to accommodate the new side-mounted LCD articulation mechanism. Perhaps the most significant change is a new Live View switch, located beneath the Mode dial on the top deck, and replacing the rear-panel Lv button from the D5000. There's also a new Movie Record button on the top deck, adjacent to the still image Shutter button. On the rear panel, the column of buttons at body left from the D5000 have all been relocated, although their functions are largely unchanged from those in the earlier camera.

Overall, the Nikon D5100's design keeps the array of buttons, knobs and dials to a manageable number. It replaces the top-panel data display traditionally found on more complex SLRs with a very attractive and logically laid-out information display on the large, rear-panel LCD screen. The mode dial is easily accessed with your thumb while you're holding the grip, and while there's no Guide mode (as found in Nikon's entry-level models), the D5100 provides a variety of scene and effects functions that will help less experienced photographers to get the creative results they're looking for.

Nikon D5100 Shooting Mode

As with Nikon's other recent consumer digital SLRs, the Nikon D5100 displays shooting info and settings on the main LCD when the Info button is pressed in record mode. There are two shooting display styles, selected through the Settings menu, and shown at right. The Graphic display helps the user to visualize what's happening with shutter speed and lens aperture, and the more conventional looking Classic format displays the same basic settings information using larger fonts and icons, but without the graphic visualization of exposure variables. I personally like the Graphic format a lot, but can see a time coming when my eyes will prefer the larger type of the Classic display. Unlike the D5000, you can't choose different display formats for different camera operating modes. Instead, it's a one-size-fits-all affair, with all exposure modes except Guide sharing the same display type. You can still change the color of the displays, though, with choices of green, black, or brown for the Graphic display, and blue, black, or orange for the Classic mode. The Nikon D5100 will also rotate the display 90 or 270 degrees when shooting in a vertical orientation.

The illustration below (Courtesy of Nikon USA) shows the meaning of the various icons and readouts in the Graphic (top) and Classic (bottom) display modes.

There's a lot of information shown there, but a logical layout and the large/sharp LCD screen makes it easy to tell what you're looking at. The column of data down the right side of the screen and the row across the bottom of the screen represent settings you can adjust directly from this screen.

As mentioned above, settings can be adjusted right in the shooting display by pressing the "i" button. The cursor keys can then be used to navigate to the setting you wish to change. The OK button is used to select the setting, and a new value or option is selected using the Up/Down cursor keys. For features that have a dedicated button (such as exposure compensation, shutter speed, etc.), the button is pressed and/or the command dial is used to change the value or option. The animation on the right shows the top-level contents of each item in the information display. As part of the Nikon D5100's designed-in user-friendliness, many menu options include "assist" images, to help you understand the types of shots or conditions for which each setting is most appropriate.

Nikon D5100 Playback Mode

Playback mode is entered by pressing the Playback button. The Nikon D5100's Playback mode provides a great deal of information about your pictures after you've shot them. You can cycle through a variety of Playback displays using the up/down arrows on the multi-selector, including the image alongside either file information, basic shooting data and a luminance histogram, or an RGB histogram (if enabled in the Playback menu). Four further displays include the image with either three screens of overlaid shooting info and image parameter information, or the image with a blinking indication of clipped highlights. To reduce the number of button presses to get to your desired screen type, the highlights, RGB histogram, and info displays can be disabled in the display mode menu if you don't use them.

The Nikon D5100's histogram display modes are very useful tools. Regarded as almost mandatory by many pros for evaluating exposure levels, histogram displays are de rigeur on professional digital cameras, and common even in many amateur models these days. A histogram is simply a graph of how many pixels there are in the image at each brightness level. The brightness is the horizontal axis, running from black at the left to white at the right. The height of the graph shows the relative number of pixels having each brightness level. This sort of display is very handy for determining under- or overexposure. An underexposed image will have a histogram with all the data lumped on the left-hand side, with nothing reaching all the way to the right. Likewise, an overexposed image will have all the data lumped on the right side. The one defect of a luminance histogram is that it might not be obvious that there's clipping if it is restricted to only one of the three color channels. The inclusion of an RGB histogram function hence allows the photographer to confirm that each individual color channel is correctly exposed, with no clipped values.

Of course the Nikon D5100 also lets you zoom out to quickly find and select images, or magnify them for closer inspection on its 3.0-inch LCD. There is a calendar view as well as the normal 4-, 9-, or 72-image thumbnail displays available by pressing the thumbnail/zoom-out button, and you can magnify images up to approximately 31x for large, 23x for medium, and 15x for small images, using the zoom-in button. Once magnified, you can scroll around the image using the multi-selector to examine critical detail and framing, and you can view other images at the same zoom ratio using the command dial. The Nikon D5100 can detect up to 35 faces while in Playback mode. The camera highlights them with a white frame, and you can cycle through them at the current zoom ratio by holding the Info Display button while pressing the left or right arrow buttons, and zoom in or out on faces by holding Info Display and pressing the up or down arrow buttons. This makes focus verification of faces faster and more convenient.

To return the Nikon D5100 to shooting mode, simply press the Playback button again, or half-press the shutter button.

Optics

Nikon D5100 Optics

Kit Lens

The Nikon D5100 ships in kit form with the same AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR lens that's included in D3000, D3100, and D5000 kits. To better compete with models from brands such as Olympus, Pentax and Sony that have in-body image-stabilization, this kit lens comes with Nikon's excellent Vibration Reduction (VR) technology to help compensate for camera shake. We tested a sample of the AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR on SLRgear.com. Optical performance is so-so wide open, but the lens is capable of very good sharpness if stopped down one or two f-stops, and the added image stabilization should come in handy in low-light situations. While sharpness wide-open is only average, this newer kit lens performs better overall than the original, non-VR 18-55mm, and is enormously better when it comes to flare: The previous version was subject to rather extreme veiling flare when shooting high-contrast subjects under bright conditions.

Kit lenses work well enough for most consumers, and serve their purpose, getting you started without breaking the bank; but a big part of the attraction with SLRs is that you can easily trade up to a better lens when your finances improve, and extend your reach to wider angle, telephoto, or macro photography just by adding to your lens collection. The 18-55mm VR lens that comes with the Nikon D5100 will do a fine job until such time as budget and desire lead you to start building a lens collection.

Lens Compatibility

Like the Nikon D40, D40x, D60, D3000, D3100, and D5000 before it, the Nikon D5100 drops autofocus support for the older AF lenses whose focus mechanisms were driven from the camera. These lenses have what looks like a little screwdriver slot on their mounting flange that couples with a protruding, screwdriver-looking shaft on the camera body. A motor in the camera body is thus required to drive the lens mechanics to adjust focus.

More recent Nikkor lenses have AF motors built into the lens body, which tend to be both faster and quieter than the old-style drive system, as well as allowing the camera body to be lighter, smaller and cheaper. These newer lenses carry an AF-S or AF-I designation in their name, and are the only types of lenses the D5100 can autofocus with. CPU-equipped lenses lacking built-in focus motors can be used in manual focus mode, and type G or D lens types will also support full 3D color matrix metering for more accurate exposures, particularly when flash is being used. (You can tell CPU-equipped lenses by the set of five electrical contacts arrayed on the side of the lens flange.)

The tables below (courtesy Nikon Inc.) tell the full story of lens compatibility for the Nikon D5100.

Auto Distortion Control.

The Nikon D5100 includes the company's Automatic Distortion Control function, an interesting feature that was introduced in its predecessor. Enabled via the Shooting menu, this option automatically corrects for barrel and pincushion distortion in JPEG files, and works with most of the company's Nikkor D- and G-type lenses, except for PC, Fisheye and certain other lenses. We found that Automatic Distortion Control worked very well with the Nikkor 18-55mm VR lens, in our testing of the earlier D5000 model.

The Nikon D5100 also offers distortion correction as a post-processing function, available from the Retouch menu. The playback-mode function allows you to create a copy of an image after applying either an automatic correction with manual fine-tuning, or a manual correction with a coarser-grained adjustment whose effect is previewed on the camera's LCD display.

Focusing Options

The Nikon D5100 shares the same Multi-CAM 1000 phase-detection autofocus sensor module that's previously appeared in the D3000, D3100, and D5000, among others. The Multi-CAM 1000 module offers 11 focusing points, of which the center point is a cross-type sensor. As in the D5000, the approximate AF point locations are indicated with faint black markings, illuminated by single red LEDs. The LED indications, albeit very small, are bright and easy to see, and thankfully none of them "bleed" into other points, an issue we'd previously seen with the D3100.

The Nikon D5100 lets you choose either auto or manual focus, but it doesn't have the small AF mode dial on the front of the camera as found on higher-end Nikon DSLRs. Instead, the switch on the lens must be used. Setting the switch to "M" puts the lens into manual focus mode, while "A" places it in autofocus mode. Single-servo AF (AF-S), Continuous-servo AF (AF-C), Auto-servo AF (AF-A) and Manual focus (MF) options can be selected via the menu system. (For Live View or movie shooting, there's no AF-A mode, and the AF-C mode is replaced by a similarly-functioning mode named Full-time servo AF.)

Single-servo AF is best for stationary objects, as the camera sets focus only once when the Shutter button is first pressed halfway (or if the AF-ON function is set, when the AE-L / AF-L button is pressed). Continuous-servo AF and the Live View / movie Full-time servo AF both mean that the camera continuously adjusts the focus, as long as the Shutter button is halfway pressed, suitable for moving objects. In Auto-servo AF mode, the camera begins focus operations in Single-servo mode, but switches to Continuous-servo AF if it detects motion within the active AF area.

Like higher-end Nikon SLRs, there's an important difference between Single and Continuous Servo modes: In Single-servo mode, the shutter won't release unless the lens is focused, or the lens itself is set to manual focus -- what's known as Focus Priority. In Continuous-servo mode however, you can choose between Focus or Release Priority. In the latter, the shutter will fire regardless of the state of focus.

The AF-Area Mode option in the information display (see right) lets you select between Single-point, Dynamic Area, Auto Area AF and 3D Tracking modes. Single Area AF simply means that the camera judges focus based on one part of the subject, and the user can manually select the AF point by pressing the arrow keys. Dynamic Area AF employs all of the autofocus points, though you can still manually select the main point. When Dynamic Area focusing is enabled, the camera first focuses on the subject in the selected focus area. When the subject moves to a different AF area, the camera shifts the focus to "follow" the subject. This is great for irregularly moving subjects. (Sports and kids come to mind.) The Auto Area AF option means that the camera automatically detects the subject and selects the focus point(s). The 3D Tracking mode uses the 420-element RGB exposure/white balance sensor to aid in subject tracking.

In any of the AF modes other than Auto Area, you can select the focus area by using the up, down, right, or left arrow directions on the multi-selector. There are two methods by which you can lock focus on the Nikon D5100. The first is to half-press the Shutter button to lock the focus, placing your subject in the selected focus area, halfway pressing the Shutter button, then realigning the composition and firing the shutter. (This is the default behavior of the Shutter button, but if the AE-L/AF-L button is set to AF Lock, it will override the shutter button as long as it's held down.) Alternatively, when using Single Servo AF, you can press the AF-L/AE-L button to lock focus (and exposure, unless that button is set for focus only in the Setup menu). Keeping this button pressed will lock focus and/or exposure, even if the Shutter button is released. This lets you recompose the photograph without keeping your finger on the Shutter button, but on the AE-L/AF-L button instead. (Reducing the chance that you'll accidentally trip the shutter when you don't intend to.)

There are several options available for the AE-L/AF-L button, which can be set via the Setup menu. You can program it to lock either focus or exposure separately, or both together (the default). You can also change its operation so a single press locks and holds the exposure setting. (No need to keep the button pressed down.) Finally, you can set the AE/AF lock button so it alone controls the autofocus system, meaning the autofocus won't actuate when the shutter button is half-pressed, only when the AE/AF lock button is pressed instead. (Except when using full-time AF-F mode in Live View mode or while recording movies.)

In Live View mode, the Nikon D5100 offers only contrast-detection autofocus (some older Nikon SLRs give you a choice between phase-detection and contrast-detection in Live View, but not the D5100). There are three focus modes in Live View: Single-servo AF (AF-S), Full-time servo AF (AF-F) and Manual focus (MF). Of note is AF-F mode which is similar to AF-C mode when using the optical viewfinder (though you don't have to half-press the shutter button), which offers continuous full-time autofocus in Live View and Movie modes. There are four AF-area modes in Live View mode: Face-priority AF, Wide-area AF, Normal-area AF and Subject-tracking AF. Face-priority is useful for portraits. Up to 35 faces can be detected and when more than one face is present, the D5100 will select the closest one. You can also manually select which face to focus on using the multi-selector. Wide-area is recommended for landscapes and other non-portrait shots. Normal-area offers a smaller focusing area, and is useful for focusing on a small area of the frame. With either Wide- or Normal-area, you can move the active focus area with the multi-selector. Using a tripod is recommended. Subject-tracking attempts to track a selected subject as it moves through the frame. You position the focus point over your intended subject and press the OK button to begin tracking. To end tracking, press the OK button again. Note that Subject-tracking AF may be unable to track a subject if it's too small, moves too quickly, is similar in color to the background, changes sizes, or if the subject and background are very bright or dark, etc.

AF Assist

Like past Nikon DSLRs with built-in flashes, the D5100's AF-assist light is a bright incandescent bulb that emits from the body near the handgrip. We thought to call particular attention to it, because some DSLRs use the flash as an AF-assist light. That would be fine, were it not for the fact that some such cameras also require that the flash be used in the exposure, so there's no way to have AF assist for available-light shots. The Nikon D5100 doesn't have this limitation. AF assist is however not available in Live View mode.

Anti-Dust Technology

The Nikon D5100 includes a two-pronged approach to fighting dust. The dust reduction system previously seen on the D3000, D3100, and D5000 digital SLRs has been adopted for the D5100, where the optical low pass filter over the sensor is vibrated to shake off dust. In addition, Nikon has coupled this with what it is calling the "Airflow Control System". In essence, the camera's internals have been designed so as to control the flow of air -- along with the dust the air is carrying -- when the shutter is triggered, channelling dust particles away from the sensor.

The Nikon D5100 lets you choose when the sensor is ultrasonically cleaned. Selections available in the Setup Menu are Clean at Startup, Clean at Shutdown, Clean at Startup & Shutdown, or Cleaning Off. You can also lock-up the mirror for manual cleaning (see below). It's important to check that you have sufficient power available while cleaning the sensor though. When the camera is switched off or the power runs out, the mirror and shutter will return to their normal positions- potentially causing damage if there's something blocking their path. Helpfully, the Nikon D5100 will attempt to give a warning roughly two minutes before the power runs out, by flashing the self-timer lamp and emitting a beeping sound -- a good warning to get your cleaning supplies out of the camera pronto!

Despite the new dust cleaning features, we haven't seen an automatic system yet that's capable of removing all dust. So while this is a nice feature to have, don't be fooled into thinking that you won't have to either learn how to clean your sensor or send the camera in for cleaning.

Everyone understands that lenses sometimes get dust on them and need to be cleaned, and there are a lot of lens-cleaning cloths, solutions and other accessories on the market that work well. BUT, what do you do when your sensor gets dusty? Dust specks on the sensor tend to show up when shooting at very small apertures, appearing as dark blobs on your images. They're distracting at best, a terrible nuisance at worst, if you end up having to retouch every image to rid of them.

Most of us are naturally leery about the idea of poking around inside the delicate innards of our DSLRs to wrestle with recalcitrant dust specks. Gently blowing the sensor surface (actually, the surface of the anti-aliasing filter) with compressed air gets rid of some dust, but there's invariably a lot that just stays stuck, no matter what. So what do you do?

If you've got dust specks on your sensor (and sooner or later you will), you're going to need to clean it. There are a lot of products out there intended to address this need, but a distressing number of them work poorly (if at all), and many are grossly overpriced. Advertising hype is rampant, with bogus pseudo-scientific jargon and absurd product claims run rampant. And prices -- Did I mention prices? How about $100 for a simple synthetic-bristle brush?

So how do you know what product to use?

We don't pretend to have used everything currently on the market, but can tell you about one solution that worked very well for us. The "Copper Hill" cleaning method is straightforward and safe, and in our routine usage here at Imaging Resource, highly effective. Better yet, the products sold by Copper Hill Imaging are very reasonably priced. Best of all, Nicholas R (proprietor of Copper Hill) has put together an amazingly detailed tutorial on sensor cleaning, free for all.

Sensor cleaning is one of the last things people think about when buying a d-SLR, but it's vital to capturing the best possible images. Take our advice and order a cleaning kit from Copper Hill right along with your d-SLR, so you'll have it close at hand when you need it: You'll be glad you did!

(While they've advertised on our sister site SLRgear.com from time to time, we receive no promotional consideration from Copper Hill for this note. We just think their sensor cleaning products are among the best on the market, and like their way of doing business. -- We think you will too. Check them out.)

Kit Lens Test Results

Zoom
Average performance from the 18-55mm VR kit lens.

The Nikon D5100 is available bundled with a Nikkor AF-S DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR lens, which has a typical zoom ratio for an SLR kit lens of about 3x giving a 35mm equivalent zoom range of about 27-83mm. Sharpness is good for a kit lens across most of the frame at full wide-angle with some minor blurring in extreme corners at f/8, though images are a touch soft overall. There are low levels of coma distortion in the leaves at the corners and chromatic aberration isn't much an issue because most of it is removed by the D5100's image processor, though some fringing is still visible in the leaves at top-left. Results at full telephoto are also good, with good detail across much of the frame, very low chromatic aberration, but some corner softness is still noticeable at f/8. (See below for how the lens performs at maximum aperture.) Overall, not a bad performance for an inexpensive kit lens, thought the D5100's 16-megapixel resolution is starting to show the lens' limitations a bit more than its lower resolution predecessors, at least when viewed on screen at 100%. Note that this lens has built-in Vibration Reduction (Nikon's term for optical image stabilization), which should be very useful for hand-held shots in low light.

Macro
A slightly larger-than-average macro area for an SLR kit lens, with slightly soft detail overall. Flash throttles down pretty well.

The Nikon D5100 captured a slightly larger-than-average macro area with the standard 18-55mm VR kit lens, measuring 3.02 x 2.00 inches (77 x 51 millimeters). Detail was good but a touch soft, and there was some minor additional softening in the corners despite being stopped down to f/8. (Most lenses have some softening in the corners at macro distances.) The Nikon D5100's flash throttled down well at minimum distance, resulting in a well exposed image with fairly even coverage, though color balance was somewhat cool.

Geometric Distortion
High barrel distortion at wide-angle with the 18-55mm VR kit lens, though very low distortion at telephoto.

Barrel distortion is 1.0 percent at 18mm

Pincushion distortion at is less than 0.1 percent 55mm

The Nikon D5100's 18-55mm VR kit lens produced about one percent barrel distortion at wide-angle, which is higher than average and noticeable in its images. At the telephoto end, there was less than 0.1% of pincushion distortion, which is lower than average and hardly noticeable. This is the tendency for the lens to bend straight lines outward (like a barrel -- usually at wide-angle) or inward (like a pincushion -- usually at telephoto).

Auto Distortion Control
Low geometric distortion when Auto Distortion Control is enabled.

Barrel distortion at 18mm is about 0.1 percent

Barrel distortion at 55mm is less than 0.1 percent

The Nikon D5100 offers an Auto Distortion Control feature to reduce geometric distortion automatically for supported lenses. As you can see it worked quite well with the 18-55mm kit lens, reducing barrel distortion at wide-angle significantly, but it overcorrected the pincushion distortion at full telephoto ever so slightly. Since this option is database driven, it's only available for Nikkor D and G-type lenses with certain optics such as Fisheye and Perspective Control lenses excepted. Auto Distortion Control is Off by default, and you can apply Auto or Manual Distortion Control to JPEGs after the fact, in the Retouch menu. Manual mode works with images from any lens.

Chromatic Aberration and Corner Sharpness
Low Chromatic Aberration in JPEGs, higher in uncorrected RAW files. Some blurring in the corners of the frame at wide-angle and telephoto with the kit lens wide-open.

Chromatic Aberration. Chromatic aberration is moderately low at the full wide-angle setting of the Nikon D5100's 18-55mm VR kit lens. At telephoto, chromatic aberration is even lower and hardly detectable. (This distortion is visible as a slight colored fringe around the objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target.) The Nikon D5100's image processor does a decent job of automatically removing most lateral CA from JPEGs, though it left some mostly blue fringing in this case at wide-angle. (See below for crops from uncorrected RAW files.)

Corner Sharpness. The Nikon D5100's 18-55mm VR kit lens produced soft corners of the frame at full wide-angle, noticeable in a few shots. The upper left corner was the softest, though the other corners were also soft, but the blurring didn't extend very far into the frame. The center was fairly sharp. At full telephoto, the right corners were also somewhat soft, with the upper right being the softest, but the lens is softer overall at telephoto than at wide-angle. There's also a little bit of vignetting (corner shading) at both ends of the zoom, as indicated by the darker corner crops. These are typical results for a kit lens, considering the aperture was wide-open for the above shots. (Corner sharpness and vignetting usually improve as the lens is stopped-down from maximum aperture.)

Uncorrected RAW
Higher levels of Chromatic Aberration in RAW files.

Uncorrected RAW	In-camera JPEG
Wide: Upper left C.A.: Moderately high	Wide: Center C.A.: Moderately low
Tele: Upper right C.A.: Very low	Tele: Center C.A.: Very low

As you can see from the crops above, levels of chromatic aberration are higher in uncorrected RAW files at wide-angle. CA at full telephoto however is quite low in RAW files. Nikon has automatically been reducing CA in its DSLR JPEGs for a while now and it's nice to see that continue with D5100. Unlike Auto Distortion Control, Nikon's CA reduction works with any lens including third-party lenses, and can't be disabled.

The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Nikon D5100 Photo Gallery .

Exposure

Nikon D5100 Exposure

Exposure Modes. The Nikon D5100 gives you all the exposure options you'd expect in a consumer SLR, plus a healthy offering of user-friendly Scene modes, and a newly-grouped selection of Effects modes. Available exposure modes include Full Auto, Program AE, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, and Manual modes. Shutter speeds from 1/4,000 to 30 seconds are available in 1/3 or 1/2 EV steps, and the Manual mode offers a Bulb setting for longer exposures. Also provided on the Mode dial are five standard Scene modes found on most consumer Nikon SLRs (Portrait, Landscape, Child, Sports, and Macro), a Flash-Off Auto mode, and a Scene position that provides access to 11 further scene modes in concert with the Command dial. New for the Nikon D5100 is an Effects setting on the exposure mode dial, which accesses seven special effect modes, including a black-and-white mode that greatly increases the D5100's upper ISO sensitivity limit. Refer to the Modes and Menus tab for more details on each exposure mode.

A very nice touch that's common to other Nikon DSLRs is that, while in Program AE mode, you can rotate the Command dial to select different combinations of aperture and shutter speed settings than those normally chosen by the autoexposure system. (That is, if the automatic program would have chosen 1/125 second and f/5.6, you could instead direct the camera to use 1/60 at f/8 or 1/30 at f/11, to get greater depth of field.) This is a very handy option for those times when you need some measure of increased control, but still want the camera to do most of the work for you. We personally use this capability more than Aperture- or Shutter-priority metering in our own shooting.

An interesting feature when using Manual exposure mode is the electronic analog exposure display visible in the optical viewfinder data readout. This shows the amount the camera thinks an image will be over- or underexposed, based on the settings you have selected, and helps you find the best exposure for the subject.

Exposure Metering. Nikon has one of the most sophisticated and flexible metering systems on the market today. Like most SLRs, there are three main metering modes on the Nikon D5100: Matrix, Center-Weighted, and Spot metering. Where Nikon's system differs is in the capability of these modes. Nikon's matrix metering is called 3D Color Matrix II, as it takes color as well as distance into account. (Distance requires the use of CPU-equipped lenses.) It covers a wide area of the frame with a 420-pixel RGB sensor. The Nikon D5100's Center-Weighted metering mode gives a weight of 75% to an 8mm diameter circle in center of frame. Spot meters a 3.5mm diameter circle (about 2.5% of the frame) centered on the active focus area. (Most DSLRs only meter the very center of the frame in Spot metering mode.) The 420-pixel RGB sensor also serves to ascertain automatic white-balance, and provides assistance for focus tracking when the subject leaves the AF sensor area. Metering range is specified at 0 to 20 EV in Matrix or Center-Weighted, and 2 to 20 EV in Spot metering mode.

Exposure Lock. The AE-L/AF-L button locks the exposure and/or autofocus, useful for off-center subjects in tricky lighting. It can be programmed for AE lock, AF lock, AE + AF lock, or various other functions via the custom menu. You can also program the button to toggle instead of requiring the button to be held.

Exposure Compensation. Exposure compensation on the Nikon D5100 is adjustable from -5 to +5 exposure equivalents (EV) in 1/3 or 1/2 EV step increments, and is controllable in Program, Aperture-priority, or Shutter-priority modes. Note that in Manual exposure mode, the EV button becomes a shift button that changes the function of the Command dial from controlling the shutter speed to changing the Aperture. The Auto Bracketing feature on the Nikon D5100 takes three shots of the same subject with varying exposure values. Exposure settings for bracketing can vary from -2 to +2 EV (values are added to the already chosen exposure compensation value), with step sizes of 1/3 or 1/2 EV units. Through the Custom Settings menu, you can designate whether the bracketing sequence adjusts the exposure, white balance, or Active D-Lighting (2 frames only).

ISO Sensitivity. ISO ranges from 100 to 6,400 and can be extended up to ISO 25,600 (Hi 2). ISO can only be adjusted in 1/3 EV steps (100, 125, 160, 200, 250, 320, 400, 500, 640, 800, etc.). Nikon's excellent Auto ISO feature is carried over as well, which allows you to set both the upper ISO limit (up to ISO 25,600) as well as the minimum shutter speed (selectable from 1s to 1/2000s) required before ISO is increased automatically.

White Balance. The Nikon D5100 offers the usual white balance settings: Auto, six presets consisting of Incandescent, Fluorescent, Direct Sunlight, Flash, Cloudy, Shade and a manual mode where white-balance is determined from a white or grey card. The Fluorescent preset has seven sub-settings consisting of Sodium Vapor (2,700K), Warm-white (3,000K), White (3,700K), Cool-white (4,200K), Day White (5,000K), Daylight (6,500K), and High Temperature Mercury Vapor (7,200K). The manual setting allows one custom white-balance measurement to be stored. All the presets and manual settings are tweakable via a 2D fine-tuning grid display. The Nikon D5100 also supports White Balance bracketing, where three frames can be bracketed with Blue or Amber white balance bias increments of one unit.

Active D-Lighting. D-Lighting has proven a popular post-processing feature in Nikon's consumer digital SLRs, as well as some of the company's point & shoot models. It's a quick software process that attempts to overcome underexposed images, and bring detail out of shadows. An improved version of Active D-Lighting appeared in the Nikon D3 and D300, including optimization of image contrast, helping to prevent overprocessing of shadows and flattening of overall image contrast. The Nikon D5100 inherits Active D-Lighting from the D90 in that as well as the previous On and Off settings found on earlier cameras, the Nikon D5100 also offers Extra-High, High, Normal, and Low, or the ability to automatically choose the Active D-Lighting strength on the fly.

Lateral Chromatic Aberration Correction. While other cameras have had lens distortion processing built-in, notably the Olympus E-1, none until Nikon's D3 and D300 did the processing based on the distortion detected in the image. Past cameras (and most distortion-correction software) simply looked at which lens was mounted and perhaps the focal length if it was a zoom lens, and then applied a pre-set amount of correction; no image analysis actually took place. Nikon's Lateral Chromatic Aberration correction offered a more sophisticated approach, thanks to the power of the camera's EXPEED processor, by actually analyzing each image after capture and fixing the chromatic aberration detected therein before saving the JPEG file. Cameras with high-resolution sensors place a greater demand on lenses, and hence Lateral Chromatic Aberration correction proves a useful feature on the Nikon D5100. There are no settings for this feature; it's always enabled for JPEGs.

Auto Distortion Control. Another interesting feature is Automatic Distortion Control, carried over from its debut in the D5000. Enabled via the Shooting menu, this option automatically corrects for barrel and pincushion distortion in JPEGfiles when using most Nikkor D- and G-type lenses (PC, Fisheye and certain other lenses excluded). We've tried it with the Nikkor 18-55mm VRlens that ships with the Nikon D5100, and found it to work very well.

The Nikon D5100 also offers distortion correction as a post-processing function, available from the Retouch menu. There, you can create a copy of an image after applying either an automatic amount of correction, or manually adjusting the amount on a preview display.

Picture Control. Nikon has standardized its Picture Control system so that camera settings for sharpening, contrast, brightness, saturation, and hue can be finely adjusted and ported to other Nikon digital SLRs that support the system. The D3 was the first camera compatible with the option, and all Nikon SLRs since -- including the D5100 -- follow the standard. The Nikon D5100 has six presets called Standard, Neutral, Vivid, Monochrome, Portrait, and Landscape, plus up to nine custom presets can be defined, named, saved, and copied. Sharpness can be adjusted in ten steps, along with an Auto setting; contrast, saturation, and hue can be adjusted in seven steps, while hue is adjustable in three steps. There is also a five-step "Quick Adjust" setting which exaggerates or mutes the effect without having to adjust each slider individually. When Monochrome Picture Control is selected, Hue and Saturation are replaced by Filter Effects and Toning respectively. Filter Effects offers Off, Yellow, Orange, Red, and Green settings, while Toning offers B&W, Sepia, Cyanotype, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue Green, Blue, Purple Blue and Red Purple settings. Note that Picture Controls are only active in Program, Aperture-priority or Shutter-priority and Manual exposure modes, as the Scene modes already apply preset image adjustments. Of course, the Nikon D5100 also offers sRGB and Adobe RGB settings, in a separate Color Space menu.

Noise Reduction. The Nikon D5100 offers four levels of high ISO noise reduction: Off, Low, Normal, and High. For Low, Normal, and High settings, noise reduction is performed with varied strength. Even when set to Off, some noise reduction is still performed at ISOs above 1,600 equivalent. No high ISO noise reduction is performed on RAW files (other than the embedded JPEG thumbnail).

The Nikon D5100 also offers long-exposure noise reduction. When set to On, the camera takes a second exposure for the same duration with the shutter closed, and subtracts the "dark frame" from the first, to reduce hot-pixel and amp noise for exposures longer than 1 second. The time taken to capture the dark frame varies from shot to shot, but is typically somewhere between half as long as or the same length as the actual image exposure.

Release Modes. The Nikon D5100's release modes are selected via the menu system. Release modes consist of Single Frame, Continuous, Self-timer, Delayed Remote (two second delay), Quick-response Remote, and Quiet Shutter-release (Q) mode takes one shot each time the shutter-release is pressed. The Nikon D5100's Continuous mode is rated by Nikon for up to 4 frames per second (we got 3.94 frames per second in our testing), for a total of 100 Large/Fine JPEGs before the buffer fills and the camera slows. Of course, the number of consecutive shots could be limited by memory card space, if your memory card(s) are nearly full. Also, when shooting JPEGs of a very complex scene with a lot of sharp, fine detail may also compress less and result in lower buffer capacities.

Self-Timer mode opens the shutter with a delay of ten seconds after the shutter button is pressed. The Remote release modes are for use with the optional ML-L3 wireless remote. The 2-second delay option is useful for hiding the remote when taking photos that include the operator.

Quiet Shutter-release is similar to Single Frame; however, the camera automatically disables the beep sound when it focuses, something which can be achieved in other modes through the Beep option in the Setup menu. It also delays lowering of the mirror until the shutter button is released, separating the noise of this operation from that of the mirror being raised and the shutter fired. It also reduces actuation speed of the mirror mechanism, and of the shutter recocking mechanism. The result is, indeed, a much quieter shutter sound.

Interval Timer Mode. Another useful feature on the Nikon D5100 that first appeared on more expensive models is Interval Timer mode, which facilitates time-lapse photography by taking a series of images at preset intervals. You can set the starting time for the series, as well as the amount of time between shots and the total number of shots to be captured. You can set hours, minutes, and seconds between each shot, and you can set a start time up to 23 hours, 59 minutes from the current time. This is a good way to capture a timeline of slower events, such as clouds passing across the sky, tidal changes, a flower opening, etc.

Retouch Menu. The Nikon D5100 has an extensive Retouch menu, replicating almost all the options from the D5000, and adding a basic movie editing function. The amount of image alteration that can be performed in-camera is starting to rival what basic image editing software packages can do on a computer, so much so that many users may not feel the need to use a computer for Nikon D5100 image editing at all. Retouch options include adjusting D-Lighting, red-eye correction, image cropping (trim), converting to monochrome, applying seven different filter effects, adjusting color balance, resizing to small images (for TV, Web or email), image overlay for combining two RAW images into one JPEG, NEF (RAW) processing, "Quick Retouch" for fast adjustments to saturation and contrast, straightening crooked images, distortion (barrel / pincushion) correction, a fisheye effect, color outline, color sketch, perspective control (correcting diverging verticals / horizontals), miniature effect (graduated blur at top and bottom of the frame to emulate reduced depth of field), selective color, basic movie editing, and side-by-side comparison.

The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Nikon D5100 Photo Gallery .

Not sure which camera to buy? Let your eyes be the ultimate judge! Visit our Comparometer(tm) to compare images from the Nikon D5100 with those from other cameras you may be considering. The proof is in the pictures, so let your own eyes decide which you like best!

Performance

Nikon D5100 Performance

Imaging

Nikon D5100 Image Quality

Color

Saturation & Hue Accuracy
Very good overall accuracy and saturation, with only minor shifts in hue and intensity.

In the diagram above, the squares show the original color, and the circles show the color that the camera captured. More saturated colors are located toward the periphery of the graph. Hue changes as you travel around the center. Thus, hue-accurate, highly saturated colors appear as lines radiating from the center. Click for a larger image.

Saturation. The Nikon D5100 pushes dark blues and some darker greens moderately, but actually undersaturates some yellow and cyan tones slightly. Red and orange are also pushed very slightly, but not as much as most cameras. Overall, saturation levels are quite accurate, just slightly higher than the D3100, D5000 and D7000. Most consumer digital cameras produce color that's more highly saturated (more intense) than found in the original subjects. This is simply because most people like their color a bit brighter than life.

Skin tones. Here, the Nikon D5100's Caucasian skin tones looked just about right in outdoor lighting using auto white balance, perhaps just slightly warm. Manual white balance produced slightly pinker tints, which had a "healthier" look. Where oversaturation is most problematic is on Caucasian skin tones, as it's very easy for these "memory colors" to be seen as too bright, too pink, too yellow, etc.

Hue. The Nikon D5100 showed a few small color shifts relative to the mathematically precise translation of colors in its subjects, but its overall color accuracy was very good. Reds were shifted slightly toward orange, cyan was shifted toward blue, and there were slight shifts in some oranges, greens and purples, but shifts were relatively minor. (The cyan to blue shift is very common among the digital cameras we test; we think it's a deliberate choice by camera engineers to produce better-looking sky colors.) Hue is "what color" the color is.

Picture Control
The Nikon D5100 offers six preset "Picture Control" options. You can adjust Sharpening, Contrast, Brightness, Saturation and Hue for any of the settings. (For Monochrome, Saturation and Hue are replaced by Filter Effects and Toning settings.)

Picture Control Options
Standard	Monochrome	Landscape
Neutral	Portrait	Vivid

Mouse over the links above to see the effect of the presets on our Still Life target. Click on a link to load the full resolution image.

Saturation Adjustment
The Nikon D5100 lets you adjust the image saturation and contrast in seven steps each, brightness in three steps, hue in seven steps and sharpening in ten steps. As can be seen below, the saturation adjustment worked very well, providing a reasonably fine-grained adjustment over a useful range of control. The saturation adjustment also has almost no impact on contrast. That's how a saturation control should work, but we've often found interactions between saturation adjustments and image contrast (and vice versa) on the cameras we test.

Saturation Adjustment Examples
-3	-1	0	+1	+3

The series of shots above shows results with several different saturation adjustment settings, showing the minimum step size around the default, as well as both extremes. There is also an Auto setting available. See the Thumbnails index page for more (look for the files named D5100OUTBSATx.JPG). Click on any thumbnail above to see the full-sized image.

Sensor

Exposure and White Balance

Indoors, incandescent lighting
Very warm results with Auto and Incandescent white balance, though good color with Manual white balance setting. Slightly above average exposure compensation required.*

Indoors, under normal incandescent lighting, color balance was very warm and reddish with the Auto white balance setting. (We'd say unacceptably so.) The Incandescent setting was also too warm and yellowish for our tastes. (Some users may prefer this look, though, as being more representative of the original lighting.) The Manual white balance setting by far produced the most accurate results, if just a touch cool. The Nikon D5100 does not offer a Kelvin color temperature setting as found in its higher-priced siblings. The D5100 required slightly above average exposure compensation for this shot (+0.7 EV). The average needed among cameras we've tested for this shot is +0.3 EV. Our test lighting for this shot is a mixture of 60 and 100 watt household incandescent bulbs, a pretty yellow light source, but a very common one in typical home settings here in the U.S.

Outdoors, daylight
Good color outdoors with very good highlight/shadow detail preservation. Options like Active D-Lighting and contrast adjustment are a help when faced with tough conditions like these.

The Nikon D5100 handled tough outdoor lighting under harsh sunlight well, producing good overall color. We found skin tones a touch warm in our "Sunlit" Portrait shot with Auto white balance, preferring the Manual white balance results here, while in our Far-field House shot, Auto white balance was a touch cool. Default contrast was a bit on the high side (as most users prefer), but shadow and highlight detail in the Portrait shot shown above was quite good. Despite the bright appearance, only a few highlights mainly in the red and blue channels were clipped in the model's shirt, pendant and some of the flowers. The blue channel was lost in some of the deeper shadows, but shadow noise was very low. The +1.0 EV exposure compensation required to keep the mannequin's face bright was slightly above the +0.7 EV average for this scene, though the Far-field House shot was well exposed at 0 EV, clipping only a few highlights in the white trim. Again, detail in the shadows was very good, and shadow noise very low.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Resolution
Very high resolution, ~1,900 lines of strong detail from JPEGs, ~2,000 from converted RAW files.

Our laboratory resolution chart revealed sharp, distinct line patterns down to about 1,900 lines per picture height in the horizontal direction, and about 1,900 lines per picture height in the vertical direction in JPEGs. (Some might argue for over 1,900 lines, but aliasing artifacts begin to appear before 2,000 lines.) Complete extinction didn't occur until around 3,000 lines in both directions. We were able to eke out a bit more resolution (about 2,000 lines) with RAW files processed through ViewNX 2 and Adobe Camera Raw 6.4, and both RAW conversions extended the extinction point of the pattern well beyond the in-camera JPEG. We did notice the ACR 6.4 conversions contained more color moiré than the camera or ViewNX images, and it also produced some jagged edges in diagonal lines, so the camera's processing is doing a pretty good job. Use these numbers to compare with other cameras of similar resolution, or use them to see just what higher resolution can mean in terms of potential detail.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Sharpness & Detail
Very good detail but a hint soft straight from the camera, with relatively minor edge-enhancement on high-contrast subjects. Minimal noise suppression artifacts at base ISO.

Sharpness. The Nikon D5100 produced very good detail, but there's a slight softness in its images overall, even when using the sharp Nikon 35mm f/1.8G prime lens at f/8 as was used for the house crop above left. F/8 is slightly beyond the diffraction limit on the D5100, but our testing on SLRgear showed that the sharpness loss from f/5.6 to f/8 was very slight: So the slight softness here is almost certainly the result of the camera's low pass filter and its image processing, rather than any loss optically. Some minor edge enhancement artifacts are visible on high-contrast subjects such as the crop above left, but overall results are still very good. Edge enhancement creates the illusion of sharpness by enhancing color and tonal differences right at the edge of a rapid transition in color or tone.

Detail. The crop above right shows only minimal detail loss due to noise suppression, as the darker areas of the model's hair show a lot of detail. Individual strands are still distinguishable even in the lighter shadows, though they begin to merge as shadows deepen, and in places where the tone and color of adjacent strands is very close. All in all, a very good performance here. Noise-suppression systems in digital cameras tend to flatten-out detail in areas of subtle contrast. The effects can often be seen in shots of human hair, where the individual strands are lost and an almost "watercolor" look appears.

RAW vs In-Camera JPEGs
As noted above, the Nikon D5100 does a pretty good job at capturing lots of detail, but JPEG images are slightly soft at the default settings. A little more detail can be obtained from carefully processing RAW files, though, without introducing additional artifacts. Take a look below, to see what we mean:

Camera JPEG (Fine)	RAW via Nikon ViewNX	RAW via ACR

In the table above, mousing over a link at the bottom will load the corresponding crop in the area above, and clicking the link will load the full resolution image. Examples are all shot at ISO 100, and include in-camera Fine JPEG, the RAW file processed through Nikon's free ViewNX version 2.1.2 software, and the RAW file processed through Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) version 6.4, then sharpened in Photoshop. We used default settings for ViewNX. For ACR, we found best results by disabling sharpening in ACR, and sharpening instead in Photoshop with strong but tight 350% unsharp masking with a 0.3 pixel radius.

As is frequently the case, the demosaicing in Adobe Camera Raw and sharpening in Photoshop deliver finer detail than either the camera or the manufacturer's own software. Looking very closely at the images, ACR extracts a bit more detail that wasn't present in the JPEGs from either the camera itself or Nikon's software package, but the main difference is in the fineness of the rendering. Fine details (the tree branches against the sky, for example) look a little coarser in the various Nikon renderings than in that from ACR/Photoshop. This isn't without cost, though: While they don't look as crisp, the Nikon renderings are smoother-looking with less visible noise. We'd personally go the Adobe (or other high-quality third-party RAW converter) route here if we were concerned about making the sharpest-looking print possible from the D5100's files.

ISO & Noise Performance
Very good handling of noise vs detail to ISO 1,600.

Noise Reduction = Default
ISO 100	ISO 200	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 1,600	ISO 3,200
ISO 6,400	ISO 12,800	ISO 25,600

The Nikon D5100's noise performance is very similar to that of the D7000. Images were very clean at ISO 100 through 800, which just a touch of luminance noise becoming more visible in the shadows as ISO increased. Detail was still very good at ISO 1,600, with a tight film-like noise "grain" and very little fine detail lost to noise reduction. At ISO 3,200, subject detail takes a bigger drop than previous steps, with stronger blurring and more visible noise "grain", but detail is better than average. Images at 6,400 and ISO 12,800 are notably less detailed than those at lower sensitivity levels, with more visible noise reduction artifacts. ISO 25,600 shows a lot more chroma noise, in the form of yellow and purple blotches which also darkens the image. Of course, the impact of noise and detail loss are highly dependent on the size the photos are printed at, and pixel-peeping on-screen has surprisingly little relationship to how the images look when printed: See the Print Quality section below for recommended maximum print sizes at each ISO.

A note about focus for this shot: We shoot this image at f/4, using one of three very sharp reference lenses (70mm Sigma f/2.8 macro for most cameras, 60mm f/2.8 Nikkor macro for Nikon bodies without a drive motor, and Olympus Zuiko 50mm f/2.0 for Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds bodies). To insure that the hair detail we use for making critical judgements about camera noise processing and detail rendering is in sharp focus at the relatively wide aperture we're shooting at, the focus target at the center of the scene is on a movable stand. This lets us compensate for front- or back-focus by different camera bodies, even those that lack micro-focus adjustments. This does mean, though, that the focus target itself may appear soft or slightly out of focus for bodies that front- or back-focused with the reference lens. If you click to view the full-size image for one of these shots and notice that the focus target is fuzzy, you don't need to email and tell us about it; we already know it. :-) The focus target position will simply have been adjusted to insure that the rest of the scene is focused properly.

Extremes: Sunlit, dynamic range and low light tests
Very high resolution with very good highlight and shadow detail. Very good low-light performance, capable of capturing bright images in near darkness.

Sunlight:
The Nikon D5100 handled the deliberately harsh lighting very well in the above test. Though contrast is a little high, highlight and especially shadow detail are very good. The camera's contrast adjustment also did a good job of decreasing overall contrast without producing strong color variations; see the section below. The +1.0 EV exposure did the best job here, as the model's face was still a bit too dim at +0.7 EV. A few highlights were blown in the model's shirt and bright flowers, though not as much as we're used to seeing, and good detail was preserved in the shadows with lower than average noise. Note that these shots were captured with the Nikon D5100's Active D-Lighting control set to its default of "Off." See below for how Active D-Lighting and contrast settings help with hot highlights and deep shadows.

Because digital cameras are more like slide film than negative film (in that they tend to have a more limited tonal range), we test them in the harshest situations to see how they handle scenes with bright highlights and dark shadows, as well as what kind of sensitivity they have in low light. The shot above is designed to mimic the very harsh, contrasty effect of direct noonday sunlight, a very tough challenge for most digital cameras. (You can read details of this test here. In actual shooting conditions, be sure to use fill flash in situations like the one shown here; it's better to shoot in open shade whenever possible.)

Contrast Adjustment
We really like it when a camera gives us the ability to adjust contrast and saturation to our liking. It's even better when those adjustments cover a useful range, in steps small enough to allow for precise tweaks. Just as with its saturation adjustment, the Nikon D5100's contrast setting meets both challenges, the contrast steps actually being a little finer than those for saturation, and thus even more to our liking.

Minimum Contrast
Contrast set to lowest, +0.7 EV	Contrast set to lowest, 0 EV

At its lowest contrast setting, the D5100 did a really excellent job of preserving highlight detail, maintaining natural-looking skin tones, and bringing nice detail out of the shadows. Overall, excellent results here, especially when the contrast setting is tweaked. (This is a really tough shot; the Nikon D5100 does a better than average job handling it.)

Contrast Adjustment Examples
-3	-1	0	+1	+3

The series of shots above shows results with several different contrast adjustment settings, showing the minimum step size around the default, as well as both extremes. There is also an Auto setting available. While you can see the extremes, it's hard to really evaluate contrast on small thumbnails like these, click on any thumbnail to go to the full-size image.

One very nice feature of Nikon's contrast adjustment is that it has very little effect on color saturation. Contrast and saturation are actually fairly closely coupled, it's a good trick to be able to vary one with out the other changing as well. Nikon did a good job here.

Active D-Lighting
Active D-Lighting attempts to preserve detail in both highlights and shadows in high-contrast situations, while maintaining moderate levels of contrast. The series of shots below show the effect of the various Active D-Lighting settings available on the Nikon D5100 on our high-contrast "Sunlit" Portrait scene. Note that Active D-Lighting is different from the touch-up menu's D-Lighting, as it is performed during image capture instead of after. (It does affect only JPEG images though, Nikon very properly doesn't apply tonal adjustments like this to RAW file data. NEF files, however, are tagged so that Nikon software can automatically apply the effect when converted.)

"Sunlit" Portrait Active D-Lighting (0 EV)
	ADL Settings: Off (Default) Auto Low Normal High Extra High

Mouse over the links to see how the various levels of Active D-Lighting affects our "Sunlit" Portrait shot at default exposure. Click on a link to get to the full-res image. (Active D-Lighting's effect can be a little subtle in shots like those above, so we decided to use a mouse-over to better show how each setting compares to Off.)

When Active D-Lighting is enabled, the camera usually exposes for the highlights in an attempt to preserve them, then adjusts the tone curve to bring the midtones and shadows back up to produce an image that doesn't look underexposed. In this case, the default exposure without Active D-Lighting didn't have any blown highlights to preserve, so this is not the best example. To see how Active D-Lighting works with some positive exposure compensation (about +0.7 EV) with this shot, see the examples from our Nikon D7000 review below:

"Sunlit" Portrait Active D-Lighting (D7000, +0.7EV)
	ADL Settings: Off (Default) Auto Low Normal High Extra High

As you can see from the thumbnail images and histograms above, higher values of Nikon's Active D-Lighting do a very good job at preserving highlights while bringing up shadows and deeper midtones, without making the image look too flat. Normally, there is a noise penalty to be paid for boosting shadows, but noise levels in the shadows are very low with this sensor (on both the D7000 and D5100), so increased shadow noise is not much of a concern here.

See below for how Active D-Lighting worked on our Far-field House shot.

Far-field House Active D-Lighting (0 EV)
Off	Auto	Low
Normal	High	Extra High

Here are the results with our Far-field House shot. The D5100's Active D-Lighting worked better here, as the default exposure wasn't underexposed like it was for its "Sunlit" Portrait scene. As you can see, Active D-Lighting brought up shadow detail while holding on to more of the highlights. Also note the slight blue cast in the white trim of the house as the strength of Active D-Lighting is increased. The Auto setting did a pretty good job here.

New HDR Mode
The D5100 marks a first for Nikon by offering an in-camera high-dynamic-range imaging function, something we've seen in several DSLRs from competing manufacturers. When enabled, the D5100 captures two images with one push of the shutter button, one underexposed and one overexposed and combines them in-camera to produce a high-dynamic-range JPEG. (RAW format is not supported). We don't believe the Nikon D5100 performs any micro-alignment of the two images even though the user manual warns of possible cropping. If it is, it can only correct for very small amounts of camera movement between shots, and so Nikon recommends the use of a tripod. Obviously moving subjects should also be avoided.

"Sunlit" Portrait HDR (0 EV)
	HDR Settings: Off (Default) 1 EV S=Med 2 EV S=Med 3 EV S=Low 3 EV S=Med 3 EV S=High

The Nikon D5100 allows you to set the exposure differential between the two images from 1, 2 or 3 EV, and there is also an Auto setting where the camera decides. Nikon says exposure differential can be expanded up to 5 EV when HDR is combined with Active D-Lighting. There is also an option to adjust the amount of "smoothing" that is applied to the boundaries between the two images, with selections of Low, Medium and High. Mouse over the links above to see how various levels of HDR affects our "Sunlit" Portrait shot and click on a link to get to the full-res image. As you can see, the higher levels make quite a difference to the overall exposure by opening up shadow detail and toning-down highlights while at the same time reducing shadow noise, but lower levels of smoothing can lead to artificial looking shadows around bright objects or halos and glowing around dark ones. As mentioned in the Field Test, colors can also be adversely affected in HDR mode, such as a drop in saturation. Still, it's a useful feature for capturing static scenes with dynamic range that exceeds the sensor for those not willing to use manual HDR techniques (bracketing exposure and then combining images while post-processing).

Far-field House HDR (0 EV)
Off	1 EV, S=Med	2 EV, S=Med
3 EV, S=Low	3 EV, S=Med	3 EV, S=High

Here are the same HDR settings with our Far-field House shot. Again, some settings do a very good job of taming hot highlights while bringing up some of the shadows and deeper midtones, though notice the desaturation of colors, especially in the sky when using higher settings. You can also see ghosting in the tree branches and leaves from movement between the exposures caused by wind, as well the artificial-looking and uneven exposure when using the Low Smoothing setting.

Face Detection. Here, we can see the effects of the Nikon D5100's full Auto Exposure mode and face detection in Live View mode versus Aperture Priority mode. As you can see from the shots above, the Auto mode made only a modest improvement to exposure, though default contrast has also been toned down. But in Live View, Face-priority Autofocus mode made a huge difference, actually slightly overexposing the image.

Dynamic Range
A key parameter in a digital camera is its Dynamic Range, the range of brightness that can be faithfully recorded. At the upper end of the tonal scale, dynamic range is dictated by the point at which the RGB data "saturates" at values of 255, 255, 255. At the lower end of the tonal scale, dynamic range is determined by the point at which there ceases to be any useful difference between adjacent tonal steps. Note the use of the qualifier "useful" in there: While it's tempting to evaluate dynamic range as the maximum number of tonal steps that can be discerned at all, that measure of dynamic range has very little relevance to real-world photography. What we care about as photographers is how much detail we can pull out of the shadows before image noise becomes too objectionable. This, of course, is a very subjective matter, and will vary with the application and even the subject matter in question. (Noise will be much more visible in subjects with large areas of flat tints and subtle shading than it would in subjects with strong, highly contrasting surface texture.)

What makes most sense then, is to specify useful dynamic range in terms of the point at which image noise reaches some agreed-upon threshold. To this end, Imatest computes a number of different dynamic range measurements, based on a variety of image noise thresholds. The noise thresholds are specified in terms of f-stops of equivalent luminance variation in the final image file, and dynamic range is computed for noise thresholds of 1.0 (low image quality), 0.5 (medium image quality), 0.25 (medium-high image quality) and 0.1 (high image quality). For most photographers and most applications, the noise thresholds of 0.5 and 0.25 f-stops are probably the most relevant to the production of acceptable-quality finished images, but many noise-sensitive shooters will insist on the 0.1 f-stop limit for their most critical work. A full discussion of all the data Imatest produces is really beyond the scope of this review: Visit the Imatest website for details of what the program measures, how it performs its computations, and how to interpret its output.

JPEG. The graph at right (click for a larger version) was generated using Imatest's dynamic range analysis for an in-camera D5100 JPEG file with a nominally-exposed density step target (Stouffer 4110). At default settings and base ISO, the graph shows 10.2 f-stops of total dynamic range, with 7.74 f-stops at the "High" quality level. These are very good numbers. Compared to the Nikon D7000 which uses the same or very similar sensor, the D5100 scored slightly lower at the "High" quality level (7.74 vs 7.97 f-stops), though total dynamic range was slightly better (10.2 vs 10.0 f-stops). Note though that this measurement has a margin of error of about 1/3 f-stop, so differences of less than 0.33 can be ignored. Taking the margin of error into account, dynamic range performance was indeed very similar to the Nikon D7000, which is to say, very good.

RAW. The graph at right is from the same Stouffer 4110 stepchart image captured as a RAW (.NEF) file, processed with Adobe Camera Raw using the Auto setting, then tweaked manually. The Nikon D5100's RAW file scored 2.3 f-stops more in total dynamic range than the JPEG (12.5 vs 10.2 f-stops) and the score at the highest quality level increased 2.26 f-stops from 7.74 to 10 f-stops. This is an excellent score, among the best cameras we've tested to date. Again, results are very similar to those of the Nikon D7000, with nearly the same High Quality score (10.1 vs 10 f-stops) though the D5100 scored slightly higher in total dynamic range (12.5 vs 12.1 f-stops). It's worth noting here is that ACR's default noise reduction settings reduced overall noise somewhat (see the plot in the lower left-hand corner) relative to the levels in the in-camera JPEG, which would tend to boost the dynamic range numbers for the High Quality threshold. Also, the extreme highlight recovery being performed by ACR here would likely produce color errors in strong highlights of natural subjects.

	1 fc 11 lux	1/2 fc 5.5 lux	1/4 fc 2.7 lux	1/8 fc 1.3 lux	1/16 fc 0.67 lux	1/16fc No NR
ISO 100	2 s f2.8	4 s f2.8	8 s f2.8	15 s f2.8	30 s f2.8	30 s f2.8
ISO 200	1 s f2.8	2 s f2.8	4 s f2.8	8 s f2.8	15 s f2.8	15 s f2.8
ISO 400	0.5 s f2.8	1 s f2.8	2 s f2.8	4 s f2.8	8 s f2.8	8 s f2.8
ISO 800	1/4 s f2.8	0.5 s f2.8	1 s f2.8	2 s f2.8	4 s f2.8	4 s f2.8
ISO 1600	1/8 s f2.8	1/4 s f2.8	0.5 s f2.8	1 s f2.8	2 s f2.8	2 s f2.8
ISO 3200	1/15 s f2.8	1/8 s f2.8	1/4 s f2.8	0.5 s f2.8	1 s f2.8	1 s f2.8
ISO 6400	1/30 s f2.8	1/15 s f2.8	1/8 s f2.8	1/4 s f2.8	0.5 s f2.8	0.5 s f2.8
ISO 12800	1/60 s f2.8	1/30 s f2.8	1/15 s f2.8	1/8 s f2.8	1/4 s f2.8	1/4 s f2.8
ISO 25600	1/125 s f2.8	1/60 s f2.8	1/30 s f2.8	1/15 s f2.8	1/8 s f2.8	1/8 s f2.8

Low Light. The Nikon D5100 performed well here, able to capture usable images down to the 1/16 foot-candle light level (about 1/16 as bright as average city street lighting at night), at all ISO settings. As is often the case, the D5100's metering system struggled a bit with getting the exposure right at the lowest levels though, so we used manual exposure for these shots. Color balance with auto white balance was fairly neutral at higher light levels, but took on an increasingly strong blue or magenta cast as light levels dropped. Noise was quite low up to ISO 1,600, and even a higher ISOs there's still a lot of detail to work with when high ISO NR is set to "Off" (which still applies some noise filtering at ISOs over 1,600). The Nikon D5100 gives you four options for high ISO noise reduction: Off, Low, Normal, and High, so you have some flexibility in deciding how much noise to trade for detail. Except for the "No NR" shots in the table above, these were all shot using the Normal NR setting, and Long Exposure NR was enabled so it was applied to exposures longer than one second. There are a number of hot pixels visible at higher ISOs (ISO 800+) and also at lower ISOs when Long Exposure NR is turned off, but that's not unusual. We did not detect any significant banding issues.

The camera's phase-detection autofocus system was able to focus on the subject down to between 1/8 and 1/16 foot-candle light level unassisted with the kit lens at 18mm and f/3.5. That's pretty good for a relatively slow kit lens. The Nikon D5100 was able to autofocus in complete darkness with the AF assist enabled. In Live View mode, the camera's contrast-detect autofocus was only able to focus down to just below 1/4 foot-candle and AF assist is not supported in Live View mode.

(Keep in mind that the longer shutter speeds here demand the use of a tripod to prevent any blurring from camera movement. A useful trick is to just prop the camera on a convenient surface, and use its self-timer to release the shutter. This avoids any jiggling from your finger pressing the shutter button, and can work quite well when you don't have a tripod handy.)

How bright is this? The one foot-candle light level that this test begins at roughly corresponds to the brightness of typical city street-lighting at night. Cameras performing well at that level should be able to snap good-looking photos of street-lit scenes.

NOTE: This low light test is conducted with a stationary subject, and the camera mounted on a sturdy tripod. Most digital cameras will fail miserably when faced with a moving subject in dim lighting. (For example, a child's ballet recital or a holiday pageant in a gymnasium.) Digital SLRs like the Nikon D5100 do much better than point & shoots, but you still shouldn't expect a quick autofocus lock with moving subjects.

Output Quality

Print Quality
Makes excellent 24 x 36 inch prints from ISO 100-400; ISO 3,200 shots still have great detail at 11 x 14; ISO 12,800 shots make a good 4 x 6.

ISO 100 images make excellent 24 x 36 inch prints with great detail and color. This is true at ISO 200 and 400 as well. Good wall display prints are possible up to 30 x 40 inches.

ISO 800 shots look good at 16 x 20, with very slight luminance noise in the shadows, but not bad at all.

ISO 1,600 prints look quite good at 13 x 19 inches.

ISO 3,200 makes a nice 11 x 14, with minor apparent noise in some shadowy areas.

ISO 6,400 shots are pretty good at 8 x 10, better than usable. There's a little luminance noise in the shadows, but overall it's a good performance.

ISO 12,800 prints a respectable 4 x 6.

ISO 25,600 images are too muted and noisy to be called good.

Overall a very impressive performance from the Nikon D5100, on par with the Nikon D7000 to a large extent.

Testing hundreds of digital cameras, we've found that you can only tell just so much about a camera's image quality by viewing its images on-screen. Ultimately, there's no substitute for printing a lot of images and examining them closely. For this reason, we now routinely print sample images from the cameras we test on our Canon Pro9000 Mark II studio printer, and on the Pixma MP610 here in the office. (See the Canon Pixma Pro9000 Mark II review for details on that model.)

Viewfinder

Nikon D5100 Viewfinder

As with most DSLRs, the Nikon D5100 has an optical viewfinder that lets you view your subject through the lens. Following a popular trend, though, the camera also offers a Live view mode, in which the mirror flips up and the main image sensor continuously captures a live image of the subject, displaying it on the rear-panel LCD screen. Like the D5000 before it, the Nikon D5100 has an articulating LCD, but the side-swivel mechanism means it is now visible from in front of the camera on a tripod or flat surface, making its Live View mode even more useful.

Nikon says the D5100's viewfinder provides a magnification of 0.78x and a coverage of about 95%. The Nikon D5100's dioptric correction (for eyeglass wearers) has a range from -1.7 to +0.7 diopter, adjusted via a slider on the right side of the viewfinder eyepiece housing. The viewfinder has an eyepoint of 17.9mm at -1 diopter, enough that most eyeglass wearers should be able to see the full viewfinder area without having to mash their glasses against the viewfinder bezel. The Nikon D5100's viewfinder employs a pentamirror design, rather than the brighter but heavier and more costly pentaprism system.

The graphic and table below shows what information is displayed in Nikon D5100's viewfinder.

Viewfinder Test Results

Coverage
Average coverage accuracy from the optical viewfinder. Very good accuracy from the LCD in Live View mode.

The Nikon D5100's optical viewfinder showed just over 95 percent coverage vertically and just over 94% coverage horizontally, with our reference Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 prime lens. This is about average for a consumer digital SLR. The viewfinder image was tilted and shifted somewhat compared to the imaging sensor, which unfortunately is not that uncommon with SLR optical viewfinders. In Live View mode, the Nikon D5100's LCD showed just over 100% coverage vertically, and slightly below 100% coverage horizontally, which is very good.

The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Nikon D5100 Photo Gallery.

Live View

Nikon D5100 Live View

The Nikon D5100 includes live view capability with one-touch activation, via a dedicated Live View switch on its top panel, in very convenient reach of your index finger. Flick it at any time, and the mirror flips up, with the camera immediately entering Live view mode. A button located adjacent to the shutter button is used to start and stop movie recording when live view is active.

Live View Mode Displays

A particularly nice feature of the Nikon D5100's live view mode is its (optionally available) full information display. The live view shooting info display shows you a lot of what you'd normally see looking through the viewfinder, yet manages to keep most of the information out of the way of the image preview area. Information displayed includes current metering mode, shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation, ISO setting, shots remaining, exposure mode, face detection active/inactive (more on this in a bit), file mode (RAW or JPEG), and white balance setting. It also shows microphone status and minutes/seconds of movie recording available at the current resolution and quality settings. There's also an optional grid overlay mode, as well as a reduced size preview with menu options to the right and below. One thing we miss in the Nikon D5100, though, is the live histogram display that's an option on the Nikon D3 and on some competing SLRs, including those from Nikon's arch-rival Canon.

Like the D5000, the Nikon D5100 has only one type of autofocus method in Live view, and it's not the traditional phase-detect AF. The D5100's only option for autofocus in Live view mode is contrast detection. This is a fairly radical departure compared to other camera makers.

Contrast-detect vs. Phase-detect Autofocus

By way of explanation, the phase-detect/contrast-detect distinction is one of the fundamental differences that separates digicams from digital SLRs, and is the core reason that SLRs focus more quickly. Contrast-detection autofocus involves looking at the image from a camera's main image sensor and evaluating it to see how abruptly brightness values change from one pixel to the next. If an image is soft and fuzzy, brightness changes between adjacent pixels will be relatively slight, but if it's sharply focused, they'll be much greater. The point of ideal focus is found by moving the lens elements back and forth and determining whether the contrast signal gets stronger or weaker. Achieving focus this way necessarily involves some back-and-forth hunting, which can take a while to accomplish. By contrast (no pun intended), phase-detect AF uses a system of prisms, lenses, and a secondary sensor to determine not only whether the image is in focus or not, but by how much it's out of focus and in which direction. The camera can then adjust the focus setting to exactly the position needed in a single step. As a result, phase-detect AF systems are generally much faster than contrast-detect ones.

The catch with phase-detect AF though, is that it requires some of the light passing through the lens to be diverted to the focus sensor. This is fine in an SLR when the mirror is down between exposures, as part of the mirror is typically partially transmissive, with the light passing through it deflected by a secondary mirror down to the AF sensor, usually located in the bottom of the mirror box. When the mirror is raised in live view mode, though, light from the lens can't get to the separate AF sensor. This accounts for the rather lengthy (and noisy) AF cycles in most live view-capable SLRs: To focus the camera the mirror has to be dropped, focus determined, and the mirror raised again, adding several tenths of a second to the normal non-live view shutter lag. For example, the Nikon D5100 has a shutter lag of only 0.273 second when using the optical viewfinder and a single AF point. This increases to an average of 1.276 seconds in Live view mode via contrast-detect, all other settings being the same. While it takes some time for the mirror to drop and re-open for phase-detect AF in Live view mode, the overall result can still be faster than when relying on contrast-detect autofocus. The Nikon D300, for instance, can focus and capture a shot in 0.465 second in Live view mode using phase-detect AF.

With the above as background, you can see why we were surprised to find contrast-detect AF the only autofocus option available on the D90, and that they've carried that limitation forward on the Nikon D5100. The Nikon D5100's contrast-detect AF in Live view mode clearly isn't something you're going to be using for sports shooting.

One advantage of contrast-detect autofocus, though, is that you're not restricted to focusing only on those areas where you happen to have an AF point. The Nikon D5100 lets you put the focus box anywhere in the frame when in Live view mode.

Face detection. Here's a look at the D90's face detection working with a live subject, which operates the same way on the Nikon D5100. Click to view/download 1.7MB MPEG-4 file.

Besides the ability to position the AF area wherever you like it, the Nikon D5100's contrast-detect AF in Live view mode also offers face detection. Up to 35 faces can be detected in an image in Face Priority mode, and the AF areas adjust to match the size of each face detected. The face-detect box shows yellow when not in focus, and green when in focus (after half-pressing the shutter button). The video clip at right shows the D90 tracking a live face while zooming in and out and panning around. While the Nikon D5100 can detect many more faces simultaneously, its face detection autofocus mode is otherwise very similar.

Playing with face-detect autofocus in Live view mode, we were pleased to see that the camera not only tracked the faces, but was also intelligent enough to set focus based on the eyes of subjects, rather than on their noses or mouths. (In portrait work, the eyes are the most critical part of the face to render in sharp focus. Other parts of the face can be soft but viewers will regard the shot as properly focused if the eyes are crisp.)

Other Nikon D5100 Live view autofocus modes are: Wide Area, designed for hand-held shots of landscapes and other non-portrait subjects; Normal Area, designed for pin-point focusing using a tripod; and Subject Tracking. This mode is designed to track just about any selected subject as it moves through the frame -- it need not have a face.

Manual Focusing in Live view Mode

During manual focusing, the Live view display on the Nikon D5100 can be magnified quite considerably, but it seems it's not all that you might expect from the specifications. In Live view mode, pressing the magnifying glass button on the camera's back lets you zoom in up to a maximum of 7.7x. The viewfinder image at this magnification isn't sharp, though; it seems the camera is actually grabbing fewer pixels than that section of the sensor actually contains and then interpolating them to form the image. (You can check this by snapping a shot and then magnifying the resulting image to the same degree in playback mode. Doing this, you'll find the image is quite a bit sharper than what you saw on the LCD in Live view mode.) While the magnified Live view display is still usable for focusing, it isn't as sharp as it could be, nor as sharp as the Live view display on some of Canon's SLR models sporting this feature.

Video

Nikon D5100 Video Recording

Nikon pioneered video capability in its D90 digital SLR, and it's rapidly become a must-have feature, with essentially all the major manufacturers now providing some form of video capture in their DSLRs. Positioned as an affordable mid-range model, the Nikon D5100 includes a fairly sophisticated feature-set that offers significantly more creative control than in many DSLRs, while retaining some options that cater more to consumer needs.

Like the D3100 before it, the D5100 can offer live contrast detection autofocusing with tracking capability during video recording, albeit with some adverse effects on video and audio quality. Experienced videographers will find intriguing possibilities in the D5100's ability to control the lens aperture manually before capture starts, to accept an external microphone, and to adjust audio gain. The D5100 also offers Full HD (aka 1080p) high definition video capture, ensuring that its movies -- all recorded using H.264/MPEG-4 AVC compression -- will look their best even on the latest high-def displays.

Nikon D5100 Basic Video Specs

• 1080p (1,920 x 1,080) or 720p (1,280 x 720) HD recording at 30 / 25 / 24 fps
• 640 x 424 SD recording at 30 / 25 fps
• MPEG-4 / H.264 AVC compression, .MOV container
• Full-time live autofocus is possible during recording, including tracking and face detection, albeit with actuation noise levels depending on the lens used
• Single-servo auto and manual focus also possible
• AF point position and size can be manually controlled
• Programmed-auto or aperture-priority exposure (set before recording starts; no shutter-priority)
• Exposure compensation and lock are available both before and during recording
• Picture control system provides creative options
• Monaural audio recording via built-in microphone
• Stereo audio recording via external microphone jack
• Image stabilization during video capture, if offered by lens
  

Nikon D5100 Video: Image Size, Frame Rate, and Encoding

The Nikon D5100 records movies at three progressive scan resolutions: either 1,920 x 1,080, 1,280 x 720, or 640 x 424 pixels. The highest resolution 1,920 x 1,080 pixel mode is commonly known as Full HD or 1,080p, and has a 16:9 aspect ratio. The intermediate 1,280 x 720 pixel resolution also has a 16:9 aspect ratio, and is better known as 720p. These both offers a choice of three frame rates, nominally listed as 30, 25, and 24 frames per second, although the highest and lowest rates are actually 29.97 and 23.976 fps. When the D5100's video output is set to the North American NTSC format, a choice of the nominal 30fps and 24fps movie recording rates are available. If switched to PAL format, the D5100 offers a choice of 25 fps or nominal 24 fps rates. Finally, the non-standard 640 x 424 pixel mode has an approximate 3:2 aspect ratio. With this standard definition mode, recording frame rates are fixed at either the nominal 30 fps for NTSC, or 25fps for PAL.

Regardless of resolution and frame rate, recording times are limited to 20 minutes or four gigabytes per clip, whichever limit is reached first. Nikon hasn't explained the reason for the time limit as of this writing, but it's likely due to sensor heating issues that might start to degrade image quality. The Nikon D5100 records movies using H.264/MPEG-4 AVC compression with Linear PCM audio, and stores them in .MOV files. Compared to the Motion JPEG format used by some cameras, H.264 is much more conservative of memory card space. It also avoids some of the severe image quality loss suffered by AVCHD cameras, when faced with significant amounts of change in image content between frames. (AVCHD uses a subset of the H.264 standard, which among other things mandates a limit in recording bandwidth, translating into a lesser ability to convey rapidly-changing detail.) The choice of H.264 comes with the requirement of greater processing power, though -- not only from the camera when recording, but also when playing back or editing videos. The more sophisticated encoding used in the H.264 standard requires quite a bit of processor power to pull it apart and put it back together again, so frame-accurate editing of H.264 requires a fast processor and capable editing program.

Here's a list showing what to expect for file sizes with the Nikon D5100's video recording:

Nikon recommends using an SD card with at least a Class 6 rating to capture and playback movies.

Nikon D5100 Sample Videos

Here are some examples of video from the Nikon D5100, showing typical results under daylight and night conditions.

Nikon D5100 Video Samples (shot with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 G VR kit lens)
1,920 x 1,080, 30fps, High Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (12.5 seconds, 30.1 MB)
1,920 x 1,080, 30fps, Normal Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (14.4 seconds, 22.0 MB)	1,920 x 1,080, 24fps, High Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (15.1 seconds, 38.8 MB)
1,280 x 720, 30fps, High Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (15.4 seconds, 22.9 MB)	1,280 x 720, 24fps, High Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (15.0 seconds, 18.9 MB)
640 x 424, 30 fps, High Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (15.6 seconds, 11.3 MB)	1,920 x 1,080, 30fps, High Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (15.6 seconds, 37.1 MB)
1,920 x 1,080, 24fps, High Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (19.7 seconds, 47.3 MB)	1,280 x 720, 30fps, High Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (16.7 seconds, 23.9 MB)
1,280 x 720, 24fps, High Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (16.0 seconds, 18.7 MB)	640 x 424, 30 fps, High Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (14.9 seconds, 10.0 MB)

Nikon D5100 Video-Mode Focusing

Unlike some of Nikon's digital SLRs, the D5100's Live View mode -- from which Movie recording is initiated -- lacks the company's separate Handheld and Tripod modes. Instead, autofocus during live view and movie capture is always performed using contrast detection autofocus, which operates based on data streaming from the image sensor -- the same technique referred to as Tripod mode on some models. (On cameras that offer a choice, you can switch to Handheld mode to use the camera's phase detection autofocus system before movie starts, so long you don't mind a brief interruption of the live-view feed so that the reflex mirror can be lowered to let light reach the dedicated AF sensor. All of Nikon's DSLRs, like the vast majority of interchangeable-lens cameras, must rely on contrast detection AF during video capture.) The good news is that, while not quite in single-lens direct view or compact camera territory, the D5100's contrast detection autofocus is quicker than the average, among those offered by its peers. A measure of Nikon's confidence in the D5100's contrast detection performance can, perhaps, be read from the fact that it not only offers full-time AF during movie capture, but also provides an AF tracking function.

As in the earlier consumer-oriented D3100 model, the Nikon D5100's contrast detection-based continuous autofocus mode carries a different name from its phase-detection equivalent. Dubbed Full-time Servo AF (AF-F for short, as opposed to AF-C / Continuous-Servo AF for phase detect), this function does involve some hunting around the point of focus, and can lag behind changes in your subject's focus distance somewhat. If your subject is relatively static, you can instead opt for the Single-servo AF mode, which will still allow you to perform single autofocus operations during video capture by half-pressing the shutter button. You can, of course, also focus manually by appropriately setting the Focus-mode selector on the camera's front panel (as well as that on the lens, if applicable).

The D5100 offers four AF-area modes for use during movie capture: Face-priority AF, Wide-area AF, Normal-area AF, and the aforementioned Subject-Tracking AF. The Wide and Normal-area modes are self-explanatory, providing two different focus area sizes, which can be manually positioned anywhere within the frame (and even moved during video capture.) Face-priority AF -- which can identify up to 35 individual faces within the frame during live view, but an (undisclosed) lesser number during movie capture -- will select the closest subject among the group when adjusting focus. This individual will be indicated by a double-yellow frame on the D5100's LCD panel. Finally, the Subject-tracking AF function allows you to manually position the point from which autofocus tracking should commence, and to start or stop the function by pressing the OK button when your subject falls under the AF point. The D5100 will then indicate the point at which it is currently tracking the subject with a focus frame that changes between either green to indicate a focus lock, or red to indicate that a focus lock hasn't currently been attained.

Like most interchangeable lens cameras capable of AF during video, the D5100 has a tendency to pick up autofocus drive noise quite clearly in the audio track of its movie clips. This can at least be mitigated somewhat by use of an external microphone, and by adjusting the D5100's three-step manual gain control, however. If AF noise is too much of an issue, you can of course switch to focusing manually, during a recording, and the true manual operation of AF on Nikon's lenses means you can do this more or less silently, simply by being careful about turning the focus ring. (Some interchangeable lens cameras we've tested use "fly-by-wire" focusing, whereby the focus ring only instructs the camera to move the lens elements rather than moving them directly via a mechanical coupling. This can mean that focus operation is still audible, regardless of how slowly you turn the focus ring. With true manual operation of its lenses, the Nikon D5100 doesn't have this problem, although it's possible that third-party or older Nikon lenses might produce audible noise while their focus was adjusted.)

As we've noted in other SLR reviews, the good news with focusing for video is that you can get surprisingly good depth of field in video mode by stopping the lens down, thanks to the relatively low resolution of the video image. With a pixel resolution of only 2.1 megapixels in the Nikon D5100's highest-resolution 1,080p "Full HD" mode, 0.9 megapixels in 720p HD mode, and just 0.3 megapixels in the standard-definition mode, images that would be unacceptably blurred as 16 megapixel still shots look perfectly fine as video frames. This not only provides greater depth of field at any given aperture, but is also more forgiving of diffraction limiting at very small lens apertures. Diffraction at small apertures means you'd usually want to avoid f/16 or f/22 for still images, but again, the results generally look perfectly fine at video resolutions. Bottom line, with the Nikon D5100's lens set to f/16 or f/22 (assuming you're shooting under fairly bright conditions), you'll be surprised by how little focus adjustment is needed during a typical video recording.

Nikon D5100 Video Exposure Control

With the Mode dial set to any position except A or M, the main exposure variables -- shutter speed, aperture, and ISO sensitivity -- all remain under automatic control when recording movies with the Nikon D5100. If the Mode dial is in the A or M positions, however, you can shoot movies in Aperture-priority mode, with the proviso that you must dial in your desired aperture prior to entering Live View mode, unless you're shooting with a PC-E lens. (This one lens type allows aperture changes during live view, but for all other lens types, the aperture value remains locked until you exit live view.) Note that unlike in the D7000, ISO sensitivity and shutter speed must always be controlled automatically during movie capture.

Regardless of the metering mode selected, movies will always be recorded using Matrix metering, with the Center-weighted and Spot options available only for still image capture. You can, however, adjust exposure compensation, and use the Autoexposure Lock button to lock the metered exposure, even after movie capture has already started. You can apply Nikon's Picture Controls as well as specify the color space for movies, as long as they are selected before recording begins. This is useful if you'd like to for instance record in monochrome, or with more saturated colors, etc.

Nikon D5100 Video: Audio recording

The Nikon D5100 has an internal microphone comprising three holes located directly above the D5100 badge on the camera's front panel. As noted previously, the internal mic has a tendency to pick up camera handling and autofocus drive noise on the audio track of captured movie clips, with the severity of this likely varying significantly depending on the videographer, and the lens model in use. Thankfully, the D5100 also provides for an external mic, courtesy of a 3.5mm stereo input jack under a flap on the left side of the camera's body. Simply switching moving to a shoe-mount mic with some form of shock mount can do wonders for your DSLR audio, while moving the mic off camera at a distance can completely resolve the issue.

Another feature that can help resolve audio problems -- and one that's extremely unusual at this price point -- is the adjustable sensitivity for the microphone. There are three sensitivity levels to choose from (Low, Medium and High), along with Auto gain, and Off settings. The settings apply to the built-in microphone as well as to an external mic. We found the D5100's internal microphone to be quite sensitive when using Auto gain. It has no problem picking up even quiet conversation from across a room, as long as there are no background noises. Ah, but there's the rub: The mic will pick up all sorts of background noise if you're not careful. Given that most users will likely be using the D5100's video recording for short clips of memorable moments, its tendency to pick up every sound is probably a positive feature. For those wanting the best audio quality, an external microphone will almost certainly prove a better choice, however, allowing selection of a microphone with the desired characteristics, as well as reducing the effects of noise from handling the camera body or using the focus and zoom mechanisms.

The D5100's Linear PCM audio is recorded with a bit depth of 16-bits, and a sampling rate of 48 kHz, plenty enough for good quality audio.

Nikon D5100 Movie Recording User Interface

The Nikon D5100's movie recording functionality is accessed from Live view mode. To start and stop capture, you simply press the red button adjacent to the still image Shutter button, while live view is active. You can control the aperture manually with the Mode dial in the M or A positions, so long as you select the desired aperture before entering Live View mode. With the Mode dial in any other position, movies will be recorded as if the Mode dial were in the Program position. Autofocus can be set automatically or manually both before and during movie recording, and if available on the mounted lens, zoom can also be set manually at any time. Focus and zoom operation is likely to result in motor / handling noise being recorded on the audio track, although use of an external microphone that is distanced from the camera body should help minimize these issues.

The D5100 groups several settings related to video capture in a dedicated Movie Settings menu, accessed from the last page of the Shooting menu. It also offers limited in-camera movie editing functionality. You can select either a start or end point for a video clip, and save the resulting trimmed video as a new file, and it's also possible to extract single frames from a video. These functions are accessed from the Playback mode's Retouch menu.

Rolling Shutter Artifacts ("Jello Effect")

Nikon D5100: Rolling Shutter Artifacts (shot with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 G VR kit lens)
1,920 x 1,080, 30fps, Normal Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (5.7 seconds, 9.3 MB)
1,920 x 1,080, 24fps, Normal Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (5.8 seconds, 9.5 MB)	1,280 x 720, 30fps, Normal Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (5.5 seconds, 5.4 MB)
1,280 x 720, 30fps, Normal Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (5.8 seconds, 5.0 MB)	640 x 424, 30fps, Normal Quality View on Vimeo | Download Original (5.8 seconds, 2.9 MB)

Essentially every video capable digital SLR currently on the market exhibits motion-related distortions called rolling shutter artifacts. These are caused because the image data is captured and then read off the chip sequentially by rows, rather being captured all at once. In the case of the Nikon D5100, with its variable frame rate, this means that image data for the last row of a given frame is captured and read out anywhere from 1/24th to 1/30th second after the data for the top row was captured. The effect on moving objects is similar to that of a focal plane shutter in an SLR, but more pronounced, because the video frame is read out much more slowly than the slit of a focal plane shutter moves across the sensor.

For a camera that scans video frames vertically (as all do that we're aware of), rolling shutter artifacts will be most noticeable for subjects that are moving rapidly side to side, or when the camera itself is being panned horizontally. Verticals in the scene will appear tilted to the right or left, depending on the direction of camera motion. As an example, consider the case of a camera being panned from left to right, with a flagpole or other vertical object in the middle of the scene when recording for a particular frame begins: If the top of the object was centered horizontally when the first line of the video frame is acquired, by the time the last line of the frame has been captured, the bottom of the object will have shifted to somewhere left of center: As a result, the vertical object would appear to be leaning to the right.

Computer Requirements for Viewing HD Video

A typical computer these days has little trouble dealing with still images, but high-definition video can be another matter. Depending on the file format involved, it can take a pretty beefy computer to handle HD-resolution video playback without stuttering or dropping frames. The H.264/MPEG-4 AVC image compression used by the Nikon D5100 is one of the more compute-intensive formats, and its 1,920 x 1,080 (1080p) resolution means there's a lot of data in each frame to deal with at full resolution. The net result is that you'll want a relatively recent and powerful computer to play full-res high-def video files from the D5100 on your computer. At lower resolutions, the requirements will be more modest. You can, of course, view your movies on a TV -- either via the composite A/V Output, or on an HDTV via the Type-C Mini HDMI output.

Flash

Nikon D5100 Flash

Flash photography has been a particular strength of Nikon SLRs for some time now, and the D5100 retains the company's implementation of Nikon's 3D Color Matrix II metering for flash exposures. This advanced exposure metering system takes advantage of subject-distance information relayed by the lens to compute more accurate flash exposures than more conventional systems based on reflected light alone.

Like 2008's Nikon D60, flash capability is an area where the Nikon D5100 shed some substantial capability relative to the D90 and higher models, though, in that its built-in flash can't serve as a Commander in Nikon's Wireless Lighting System. You can still use the Nikon D5100 with a Nikon SB-700, SB-800 or SB-900 flash or SU-800 wireless Speedlight Commander to control multiple remote flash units, but the built-in flash doesn't have that ability on its own.

The flash modes available vary depending on the setting of the mode dial, with some of the more automated/programmed modes restricting your choices. The full list of flash modes includes Auto, Auto+Red-Eye Reduction, Auto+Slow Sync, Auto+Slow Sync+Red-Eye Reduction, Fill, Red-Eye Reduction, Slow Sync, Slow Sync+Red-Eye Reduction, Rear Curtain, and Rear Curtain+Slow Sync. Slow Sync combines the flash with a slower shutter speed for night portraits. (This reduces the harsh effect of nighttime flash shots, allowing more of the ambient illumination into the picture.) Slow Sync mode works with shutter speeds as slow as 30 seconds to preserve color in night shots. Red-Eye Reduction mode fires the (very bright) AF-assist light before the main flash exposure, to reduce the Red-Eye Effect in shots of people. Finally, Rear-Curtain fires the flash at the end of the exposure, producing light trails that appear to follow (rather than precede) moving subjects. A Manual flash exposure mode is available via Custom Settings Menu option e:1.

Flash exposure can be set over a range of -3 to +1 EV by holding the Flash and Exposure Compensation buttons down simultaneously, while rotating the Command Dial. (Flash exposure can also be adjusted via the Shooting Display and Multi-Controller arrow keys, which some users may find more straightforward.)

The Nikon D5100 has a 1/200 second maximum X-Sync speed, and its built-in flash is not FP High-Speed Sync-capable. Basically, this means that the on-board flash can't sync at shutter speeds greater than 1/200 second. There is no support for external flash units that are FP-capable either, so it seems that 1/200 second is the fastest shutter speed you'll be able to use with the flash, regardless of mode or flash source.

Besides the main flash modes listed above, the Nikon D5100's onboard speedlight can also be used in manual mode, in which you can set its power output to fixed levels of full, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, and 1/32 power. The Nikon D5100's internal flash is reasonably powerful, with a guide number of 12 meters or 39 feet at ISO 100 in auto mode, extending slightly to 13 meters (43 feet) in manual mode. The greater range in manual mode is because it doesn't have to expend energy on the metering pre-flash. (Novices should note that 39 feet is the guide number, not the range. Divide the guide number by your lens' aperture setting to produce the actual range in feet.) Guide numbers at ISO 200 are 17 meters (56 feet) in auto mode, and 18 meters (59 feet) in manual mode.

Also included on the Nikon D5100 is an external flash hot shoe, just behind the pop-up flash compartment, but there's no separate PC-style sync terminal as found on professional models. Nikon does however sell a sync terminal adapter (Part Number AS-15) that converts the hot shoe to a sync terminal. The hot shoe accommodates Nikon accessory flash units, as well as a wide range of third party flashes. The full range of flash sync modes remains available for compatible flash units, but third-party models may not support all modes. Different Nikon speedlights offer different features when used on the D5100 as well. Current Nikon flashes (the SB-900, SB-800, SB-700, SB-600 and SB-400) will give you full capability in all exposure modes. Older models such as the SB-80DX, SB-28DX, SB-28, SB-27, and SB-22S will only offer non-TTL (non through-the-lens metering) auto or manual flash modes.[>

3D Color Matrix II Flash Metering
As noted above, the "3D" aspect of the Nikon metering system is that it uses subject distance information from the lens (only available with G or D-type lenses) to guide its exposure decisions. This is particularly key with flash exposures, because flash illumination falls off quite strongly as the subject gets further from the camera. The "Color Matrix" part of the name refers to the use of a 420-segment RGB sensor for exposure determination, which significantly improves the accuracy with which the camera can determine various scene types, for lookup in its 30,000-image exposure database. We at IR are huge fans of Nikon's flash technology, it's really a case of technology working perfectly in the service of creativity. The camera just quietly does its job, so you can focus on composition, color, interacting with your subjects, etc. It doesn't remove the creative decisions of how you want to light your subject, it simply removes the technical legerdemain from the equation. It won't by any means turn a duffer into a pro photographer, but it'll certainly take an average shooter a long way in that direction.

The Nikon D5100 with Nikon's Creative Lighting System
Nikon has long been a leader in flash technology, but in late 2003, they significantly upped the ante with their Creative Lighting System. This system of flashes and supporting camera bodies lets the photographer control up to three separate groups of remote flash units, with an essentially unlimited number of individual strobes in each group. The exposure and operating mode of each group of flashes can be controlled independently, and exposure is metered through the lens (TTL) for all units.

While the D5100 built-in flash can't act as a controller for remote strobes, it's perfectly compatible with the system if you slip an SB-700, SB-800 or SB-900 flash, or an SU-800 commander into its hot-shoe. The control and creative freedom Nikon's Wireless Lighting system offers is truly amazing: See our Nikon Creative Lighting System review for more info.

Flash Test Results

Coverage and Range
Slightly weak flash with uneven coverage at wide-angle. Our standard shots required a slightly above average amount of compensation.

Coverage and Exposure. Flash coverage was rather uneven at wide-angle (18mm), but more uniform at telephoto (55mm). Some of the light fall-off in our test images above is no doubt due to the lens itself, though. (We measured about 3/4 EV falloff at wide-angle and about 1/2 EV at telephoto when we tested the same lens on SLRgear.) For our Indoor Portrait scene test, the Nikon D5100's flash required +1.0 EV exposure compensation adjustment to get bright results, which is a little higher than average among the cameras we've tested. (The average is +0.7 EV for this shot.) The camera's Slow-Sync flash mode produced very bright results without any compensation, though with a stronger pinkish-orange cast from the abient room lighting.

Flash Range: Wide Angle
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100

Flash Range: Telephoto
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100

ISO 100 Range. At wide-angle, the Nikon D5100's flash exposures started out dim at 6 feet, though brightness increased before decreasing, peaking at 8 feet which was still a little dim. Image brightness gradually dropped-off from there but was acceptable out to about 11 feet. At the telephoto end, flash intensity also started out dim at 6 feet but didn't drop-off noticeably until about 9 feet, and became gradually dimmer from there on.

Manufacturer-Specified Flash Range
Wide Angle	Telephoto
11 feet ISO 100	7 feet ISO 100

Manufacturer Specified Flash Test. The Nikon D5100's flash Guide Number (GN) is 12 meters in auto flash mode at ISO 100, which translates to a range of about 11.3 feet at f/3.5 and 7 feet at f/5.6, the maximum apertures of the kit lens at full wide-angle and telephoto respectively. The flash shots above were taken at 11 and 7 feet respectively, and are both underexposed by a little more than 0.5 EV, indicating the D5100's flash output doesn't quite perform to Nikon's specification in our tests. Our standard test method for flash range uses a fixed setting of ISO 100, to provide a fair basis of comparison between cameras. We've now also begun shooting two shots using the manufacturer-specified camera settings, at the range the company claims for the camera, to assess the validity of the specific claims.

High ISO Noise Reduction

Nikon D5100 High ISO Noise Reduction

The Nikon D5100's four noise-reduction settings provide good flexibility in choosing how you want to make the trade-off between subject detail and noise levels. The Nikon D5100 user manual doesn't say when High ISO NR kicks in, so we've included crops from the base ISO in the tables below.

The crops below show the effects of the Nikon D5100's four levels of noise reduction available, under the studio HMI lighting we use to simulate daylight. See for yourself how the noise reduction works under daylight-balanced lighting. Click on any of the crops below to see the corresponding full-sized image.

Noise Reduction Comparison Daylight-balanced illumination
	NR = Off	NR = Low	NR = Normal	NR = High
I S O 1 0 0
	NR = Off	NR = Low	NR = Normal	NR = High
I S O 2 0 0
	NR = Off	NR = Low	NR = Normal	NR = High
I S O 4 0 0
	NR = Off	NR = Low	NR = Normal	NR = High
I S O 8 0 0
	NR = Off	NR = Low	NR = Normal	NR = High
I S O 1 6 0 0
	NR = Off	NR = Low	NR = Normal	NR = High
I S O 3 2 0 0
	NR = Off	NR = Low	NR = Normal	NR = High
I S O 6 4 0 0
	NR = Off	NR = Low	NR = Normal	NR = High
I S O 1 2 8 0 0

To our eyes, the default "Normal" level of noise reduction strikes a good balance between noise and subtle subject detail, although the red fabric swatch presents a real challenge at higher ISOs, as it does for virtually all cameras we test. Cranking the noise reduction setting up to "High" produces smoother-looking images, while still maintaining good detail in areas of high local contrast (as seen in the circular scale), but a lot of detail is lost in areas of subtle contrast (the red fabric swatch is a particularly challenging subject, and the detail loss there is worse than you'd find in most real-world examples). At the other end of the scale, the "Off" noise reduction setting (which doesn't totally disable noise reduction at ISO 1,600 and above) leaves more noise in the image, but also leaves a lot more subject detail: Use this setting if you have good third-party noise reduction software; with appropriate processing, the result could be quite good. You should be able to do even better working from the RAW files.

RAW Files

Nikon D5100 High ISO RAW

We've recently started looking at RAW files converted with dcraw, an excellent freeware raw converter. dcraw usually offers timely support for the latest cameras, but more importantly, it does not apply any noise-reduction, sharpening or other corrections such as geometric distortion correction to the output files. (We found that Adobe Camera Raw still applies some limited noise-reduction when its NR settings are set to zero, and it also applies other corrections depending on the make and model of the camera). There will always be differences between RAW converters, in terms of the sort of de-mosaicing algorithms they use (the processes by which they convert the separate Red, Green, and Blue data sets to an array of full-color RGB pixels), but dcraw seems to use a fairly generic algorithm that delivers good sharpness with relatively few artifacts, and can be counted on to not apply any noise reduction if you don't want it to. (That said, looking at the ISO 6,400 and above examples below, it's clear that dcraw's de-mosaicing approach does have some tendency to produce rectilinear artifacts in response to high noise levels.)

Below are crops from Nikon D5100's 14-bit RAW files compared to RAW files from other consumer SLRs, converted with dcraw.

High ISO RAW Comparison with Canon T3i, Pentax K-r and Sony A580 RAW files converted with dcraw, no NR, no sharpening Daylight-balanced illumination
	Nikon D5100	Canon T3i	Pentax K-r	Sony A580
I S O 8 0 0
	Nikon D5100	Canon T3i	Pentax K-r	Sony A580
I S O 1 6 0 0
	Nikon D5100	Canon T3i	Pentax K-r	Sony A580
I S O 3 2 0 0
	Nikon D5100	Canon T3i	Pentax K-r	Sony A580
I S O 6 4 0 0
	Nikon D5100	Canon T3i	Pentax K-r	Sony A580
I S O 1 2 8 0 0
	Nikon D5100	Canon T3i	Pentax K-r	Pentax K-7
I S O 2 5 6 0 0		N/A ISO 25,600 Not Supported		N/A ISO 25,600 Not Supported
		N/A ISO 25,600 Not Supported		N/A ISO 25,600 Not Supported
		N/A ISO 25,600 Not Supported		N/A ISO 25,600 Not Supported

The crops above compare the Nikon D5100's RAW noise performance to that of other similarly priced consumer models. All cameras were equipped with our Sigma 70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro reference lenses, stopped down to f/8 for maximum sharpness. As you can see, the Pentax K-r produced RAW files with the lowest noise, though it also has the largest pixels (lowest resolution), giving it a slight edge in light gathering capability per photosite. The K-r also applies some subtle noise reduction at ISOs above 1,600 that can't be disabled, which leads to cleaner images but also to some blurring. The Nikon D5100 comes in a close second, while the Sony A580 arguably comes in third, and the Canon T3i fourth. Excellent performance from the Nikon D5100.

Here's a comparison with the D5100's two immediate siblings in the current Nikon SLR lineup:

High ISO RAW Comparison with Nikon D3100 and D7000 RAW files converted with dcraw, no NR, no sharpening Daylight-balanced illumination
	Nikon D5100	Nikon D3100	Nikon D7000
I S O 8 0 0
	Nikon D5100	Nikon D3100	Nikon D7000
I S O 1 6 0 0
	Nikon D5100	Nikon D3100	Nikon D7000
I S O 3 2 0 0
	Nikon D5100	Nikon D3100	Nikon D7000
I S O 6 4 0 0
	Nikon D5100	Nikon D3100	Nikon D7000
I S O 1 2 8 0 0
	Nikon D5100	Nikon D3100	Nikon D7000
I S O 2 5 6 0 0		N/A ISO 25,600 Not Supported
		N/A ISO 25,600 Not Supported
		N/A ISO 25,600 Not Supported

Here, RAW noise performance is similar, though the Nikon D3100 appears to be slightly noisier than both the D5100 and D7000, despite having larger photosites. The Nikon D7000 seems to have just a slight edge over the D5100, but it really is close between the two.

Menus

Nikon D5100 Modes and Menus

Nikon D5100 Capture Modes

The mode dial on the right side of the D5100's top panel provides access to its various exposure modes, with the usual Program, Aperture-priority, Shutter-priority, and Manual operating modes found on all Nikon DSLRs, plus an Auto mode, a total of six Scene modes (which Nikon calls "Vari-Programs"), a Scene setting that accesses an additional 11 scene modes not on the dial, and an Effects position that accesses 7 special-effect modes. Here's a full list of what's available:

• Auto: The camera sets almost everything. Used for snapshots or users who just don't want to be bothered with the details of how the camera will do its work. The AF-assist light will come on if needed, and the camera selects the AF point covering the closest subject.
• Program: Puts the camera in charge of aperture and shutter speed, though all remaining camera settings are available. You can vary the combination of aperture and shutter speed the camera has selected, while retaining the same exposure level, by rotating the Command Dial. Called Flexible Program in Nikon parlance, this function is otherwise known as Program Shift, and is a great way to quickly bias your exposure without needing to switch to a Priority mode.
• Shutter Priority: The user controls shutter speed, from 1/4,000 to 30 seconds, while the camera sets the aperture value.
• Aperture Priority: The opposite of Shutter Priority mode, this mode lets the user control the aperture within the range available from the attached lens, while the camera sets the shutter speed.
• Manual: Gives the user complete control over the exposure (both shutter and aperture settings), and provides access to the camera's Bulb shutter setting, for exposures longer than 30 seconds.
• Effects: Provides a selection of special effects modes that can be useful for artistic images. These include Night Vision, Color Sketch, Miniature Effect, Selective Color, Silhouette, High Key, and Low Key. Most are self-explanatory, but a few bear more explanation. The Night Vision mode boosts ISO sensitivity to a maximum of ISO 102,400 equivalent, but also necessitates either manual focus or the slower contrast detection autofocusing that's used in Live View mode, as well as monochrome imagery. High Key and Low Key bias exposure towards predominantly light or dark scenes, respectively.
• Close up: Reds and greens are pumped up, camera selects center focus point, but other points can be chosen with the Multi-Selector. The built-in flash will pop up and fire if the lighting is too dim; tripod use is recommended.
• Sports: Uses higher shutter speeds, camera switches to continuous focus while the shutter button is held down halfway, tracking the subject in the center focus area. If the subject leaves the central AF area, the camera will follow it and judge focus from the other focus areas. The beginning AF area can be chosen with the Multi-selector. Both flash and AF illuminator are turned off and will not fire.
• Child: This mode boosts sharpness and saturation for clothing and background details, but renders skin tones soft and natural-looking. The built-in flash will pop up and fire if the lighting is too dim.
• Landscape: Boosts color saturation, contrast, and sharpening for city and forest landscape shots. Closest-focus AF is used, and the flash and AF-assist light are turned off in this mode.
• Portrait: Adjusts the lens aperture to soften background details to help the main subject stand out more clearly. Sharpness and color saturation are moderated somewhat, to give softer, more natural-looking skin tones. The built-in flash will pop up and fire if the lighting is too dim.
• Scene: The D5100 retains the D5000's separate Scene position, which now offers a slightly reduced selection of 11 modes accessed from a single Mode dial position. They are: Night Portrait, Night Landscape, Party/Indoor, Beach/Snow, Sunset, Dusk/Dawn, Pet Portrait, Candlelight, Blossom, Autumn Colors, and Food. The Silhouette, High Key, and Low Key modes from the D5000 have been moved to the Effects position, while Night Portrait and Candlelight are new additions for the D5100.
• Auto (Flash Off): In this mode, exposure is automatic but the flash is disabled, and the camera will vary the ISO up to a maximum of 3,200, to capture images using available light. The AF-assist light will come on if needed, and the camera selects the AF point with the closest subject. This mode is great for museums and other places where flash isn't permitted, more natural-looking indoor shots, etc.
  
  

Nikon D5100 Menus

The menu system on the Nikon D5100 follows that of the D5000 fairly closely. Pressing the Menu button provides access to the camera's full menu system. See the tables below for details.

Playback Menu:

Shooting Menu 1:

Shooting Menu 2:

Shooting Menu 3:

Custom Setting Menu a:

Custom Setting Menu b:

Custom Setting Menu c:

Custom Setting Menu d:

Custom Setting Menu e:

Custom Setting Menu f:

Setup Menu 1:

Setup Menu 2:

Retouch Menu 1:

Retouch Menu 2:

Retouch Menu 1:

Recent Settings or My Menu:

Recent Settings or My Menu mode can be selected. Recent Settings automatically adds 20 of the most recently used settings to this menu, while My Menu mode lets you define and order what appears on this menu. The screenshot below shows Recent Settings mode.

Press Release

The Versatile New Nikon D5100 D-SLR Offers A New Perspective On Creativity

With a New Swing Out Vari-Angle LCD, Full HD Movie and New In-Camera Effects, The Nikon D5100 and ME-1 Stereo Microphone Provide the Tools and Inspiration to Create Stunning Photos and Movies

MELVILLE, N.Y. (April 5, 2011) – Today, Nikon announced the new 16.2-megapixel Nikon D5100 Digital SLR designed for those ready to artistically express themselves and need a versatile camera that can keep pace creatively. The Nikon D5100 D-SLR houses a host of new and innovative features aimed at giving photographers the tools to shatter creative constraints and tell stories with amazing image quality and stunning HD movies.

The Nikon D5100 includes features designed to enhance the shooting experience, including an impressive new 3-inch, super sharp 921,000-dot Vari-angle LCD screen and full HD (1080p) movie recording with full-time autofocus. The 16.2-megapixel D5100 is also the first Nikon D-SLR to provide in-camera effects that can be applied to both photos and movies to deliver even more creative expression.

“Now more than ever, consumers want to pack only one device with them when travelling on excursions both far away and close to home,” said Lisa Osorio, general manager of marketing at Nikon Inc. “By providing consumers with a simple path to creative freedom for both stills and movies, the Nikon D5100 is designed to become an essential camera for capturing all of life’s occasions.”

Ready for the Adventure of Life The D5100 allows photographers of all levels to confidently execute new and creative ways to tell stories with amazing color and clarity. Whether shooting high over crowds or down low to a toddler’s point of view, the swing out style Vari-angle LCD screen makes it easy to compose and share great images. Displaying even the most subtle details with clarity, the super sharp LCD has a 1000:1 contrast ratio and 921,000-dot resolution, with the ability to rotate 180 degrees horizontally and vertically.

To further test creative boundaries, photographers can take advantage of the D5100’s in-camera Special Effects Mode. Applied to either stills or D-Movies, these innovative effects are easy to apply and add a high level of creativity and fun to the photo experience. By selecting the Effects position on the mode dial located on top of the camera, photographers can easily apply effects such as Selective Color and choose up to three different colors in a scene while the remainder of the scene is converted to monochrome. Color Sketch creates photos and a stop motion movie in a colorful sketched drawing style, while the Miniature effect records photos and high speed movies to bestow a feeling of a mini-scale scene. To record photos in extreme lighting conditions or to produce movies with a gritty appearance , the new Night Vision mode calls upon Nikon’s pro D-SLR performance to offer extreme low-light capability by enabling the camera to shoot up to a super-high 102,400 ISO. In addition to the Effects mode, users can create photos with amazing tonal range by selecting the high dynamic range (HDR) function within the camera. With this selected, the D5100 will automatically expose two consecutive images in rapid succession – one over and one underexposed up to 3EV stops to produce a finished photo with an amazing range of midtones and highlights that wouldn’t otherwise be possible in a single shot. Additionally, Active D-Lighting can be selected by itself or combined with HDR for an even more dramatic effect.

The versatile Nikon D5100 D-SLR will motivate shooters to further explore creatively with its advanced camera features including full manual controls (P,S,A,M on the mode dial) offering the ability to manage the camera’s aperture and shutter speeds. Once the photo is captured, photographers have the flexible retouch menu at their disposal to apply additional in-camera effects and editing options including color and filter effects, red eye correction and NEF (RAW) processing.

The remarkably wide ISO range of 100-6400 (expandable to a staggering 25,600 ISO), allows photographers to shoot confidently in outdoor and indoor low-light situations, even handheld with low noise. In challenging lighting conditions such as when a subject is backlit, Nikon’s Active D-lighting feature helps to keep shadows and highlights consistent for even exposures.

To further unleash creativity, the Picture Control system also affords users the choice for Standard, Neutral, Vivid, Monochrome, Portrait, or Landscape settings to apply a personal look and feel to their pictures. Additionally, the versatile Scene Modeslet them choose from Portrait, Landscape, Child, Sports, Close-up or Night Portrait and more for stunning results in just about all possible lighting conditions.

Create Full HD Movies The Nikon D5100 captures 1080p full HD movies with full-time autofocus and manual exposure control. Users can quickly switch focus modes to stay with the action through a variety of AF functions, including face priority which can track up to 35 human faces, subject-tracking and normal or wide-area autofocus. To activate D-Movie mode and Live-view, a new switch is ergonomically located on the top of the camera near the shutter button for easy access.

The D5100 D-SLR offers variable frame rates and resolutions for movies, and can record 1080p at a cinema-like 24 or 30fps, or a web-friendly 720p resolution at either 24 or 30 fps for up to 20 minutes per clip, in the AVC-HD H.264 codec. Once recorded, movie clips can be edited and trimmed in the camera to save time in post production. Whether utilizing a wireless or hot shoe mounted microphone such as the new ME-1, sound can be recorded via the stereo microphone input for professional audio results. Captured movies can be easily shared using the HDMI output, and controlled remotely with HDMI CEC compatibility.

Superior Image Quality The 16.2-megapixel DX-format CMOS sensor is capable of capturing images that erupt with color and offer amazing sharpness and clarity to create images and full HD movies even in low-light conditions. Coupled with Nikon’s exclusive EXPEED2 image processing engine, images are brought to life with vivid colors and amazing contrast, accurate exposure, and low noise levels resulting in brilliant image quality. The EXPEED 2 engine also drives the quick 11-point AF system on the D5100 to provide rapid focus acquisition even on fast moving subjects. When shooting action, split second shutter response and four frames per second burst rate make sure no moment is missed, forever putting to rest the story of “the one that got away”.

Whether shooting lush wilderness landscapes or an urban skyline, the D5100 utilizes Nikon’s exclusive Scene Recognition System to analyze subject information from a database containing more than 30,000 images to optimize focus, exposure, i-TTL flash exposure and white balance. To assist in creating amazing imagery, the Scene Recognition System reads data from the 420-pixel 3D Color Matrix Meter RGB sensor that examines the scene’s brightness and color data then optimizes the camera’s performance prior to the actual exposure.

An entirely greater world of creativity will open up to photographers when adding versatile AF-S NIKKOR lenses to the equation. With a wide range of focal lengths and versatile features, AF-S NIKKOR lenses help to create a variety of photo perspectives to images and movies such as the ability to isolate subjects with a shallow depth of field or zoom close to the action from afar. Combining the D5100 D-SLR with NIKKOR lenses also delivers the sharpness essential for HD movies, and Nikon’s innovative Vibration Reduction (VR) II technology helps to eliminate the effects of camera shake.

New ME-1 Microphone To address the needs of the ever growing community of shooters abandoning their video cameras for the versatility of a D-SLR, Nikon now offers the ME-1 stereo microphone. Engineered specifically for a D-SLR, the new ME-1 microphone attaches to the hot shoe and has noise dampening components designed to minimize noise resulting from AF operation. The microphone also has a low-cut filter to reduce wind and other noise not already blocked by the wind screen. Designed with D-SLR users in mind, the ME-1 is powered through the camera, and also features a cable stop to keep the cable out of the way when using the camera, and reduce instances of noise from unintentional contact. Because it utilizes a standard 3.5mm stereo jack, the ME-1 is ideal for the D5100 and other Nikon HD movie capable D-SLR’s such as the D3s, D300s, D7000, as well as the COOLPIX P7000 and any other camera with a 3.5mm stereo input jack.

Price and Availability The D5100 D-SLR camera will be available throughout the United States beginning mid April 2011 at an estimated selling price* of $799.95 for the body only, and $899.95 for the body and lens outfit that includes the AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens. The new Nikon ME-1 microphone will be available in April 2011, and will retail at an estimated selling price* of $179.95. For more information, please visit http://www.nikonusa.com, which links all levels of photographers to the Web's most comprehensive photo learning and sharing communities. Connect with Nikon and other photographers on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/nikon and get the latest news and information from Twitter by following @Nikon_USA.

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*Estimated selling price listed only as a suggestion. Actual prices are set by dealers and are subject to change at any time

Pricing and availability

The Nikon D5100 shipped in the US market from mid-April 2011, priced at around $800 body-only, or $900 in a bundle with the AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens.