Nikon D3200 Review

Zoom
Fair performance with the 18-55mm VR kit lens.

18mm, f/8	55mm, f/8

The Nikon D3200 comes bundled with the same Nikkor AF-S DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR (Vibration Reduction) kit lens the D3100 did. This 3.1x zoom lens has a 35mm equivalent focal length of about 27-83mm because of the D3200’s 1.5x “crop factor.” Sharpness and contrast are fairly good across much of the frame at full wide-angle and f/8, though images are a touch soft overall. There’s minor coma distortion in the leaves at the corners and some flare is noticeable in white areas of the building, though chromatic aberration isn’t an issue because it is suppressed by the D3200’s image processor (see below). Results at full telephoto are fair at f/8, with good sharpness near the center of the frame. Corners are a little soft and you can see where the D3200’s processor has suppressed C.A. in the edges of some leaves, while some flare is still visible. Overall, not a bad performance for an inexpensive kit lens, but you’ll likely want to invest in premium glass to get the most out of the D3200’s 24-megapixel sensor.

Macro
An average-sized macro area with the kit lens, with soft detail overall. Flash throttles down well.

Macro with 18-55mm Kit Lens 55mm, f/8	Macro with Flash 55mm, f/8

The Nikon D3200 captured an average-sized macro area with the standard 18-55mm kit lens, measuring 2.46 x 1.63 inches (62 x 42 millimeters). Detail is good but a touch soft, and there is 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 D3200’s flash throttled down well at minimum distance, resulting in a well exposed image with fairly even coverage, though color balance is somewhat cool.

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

Barrel distortion is 1.2 percent at 18mm

Almost no pincushion distortion at 55mm

The Nikon D3200’s 18-55mm kit lens produced about 1.2 percent barrel distortion at wide-angle, which is higher than average and noticeable in its images. At the telephoto end, there is only about two pixels worth of pincushion distortion which is negligible. 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 0.2 percent

The Nikon D3200 offers an Auto Distortion Control feature to reduce geometric distortion automatically with most recent Nikkor lenses. As you can see it worked quite well with the 18-55mm lens, reducing barrel distortion at wide-angle significantly, though some of the image was cropped away in the process. (Since distortion at telephoto was so low without correction, we didn’t bother testing Distortion Correction at full telephoto.) 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.

You can also 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 C.A. in JPEGs, much higher in uncorrected RAW files at wide-angle. Corners are soft at wide-angle and telephoto with the kit lens.

Maximum Aperture
Wide, f/3.5: Upper right C.A.: Moderately low Softness: Soft	Wide, f/3.5: Center C.A.: Very low Softness: Fairly sharp
Tele, f/5.6: Upper right C.A.: Low Softness: Quite soft	Tele, f/5.6: Center C.A.: Very low Softness: Slightly soft

Chromatic Aberration. Chromatic aberration is moderately low at the full wide-angle setting of the Nikon D3200’s 18-55mm VR kit lens, suppressed by the D3200’s image processor. (See below for crops from uncorrected raw files.) 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.)

Corner Sharpness. The Nikon D3200’s 18-55mm VR kit lens produced soft corners at full wide-angle. All four corners were moderately soft at wide-angle, with some of the softness likely stemming from C.A. suppression. Softness didn’t extend very far in the frames, though, and the center was fairly sharp. At full telephoto, all four corners were also soft, with the upper right being the softest, but the lens is softer overall at telephoto than at wide-angle. There’s also some vignetting (corner shading) at both ends of the zoom, as indicated by the darker corner crops.

f/8 Aperture
Wide, f/8: Upper right C.A.: Moderately low Softness: Minor blurring	Wide, f/8: Center C.A.: Very low Softness: Fairly sharp
Tele, f/8: Upper right C.A.: Low Softness: Soft	Tele, f/8: Center C.A.: Very low Softness: Slightly soft

Stopped-down to an aperture of f/8, corner performance did improve particularly at wide-angle, but corners were still somewhat soft at telephoto, and the center was slightly soft at telephoto as well. Vignetting was negligible.

Uncorrected Raw
Higher levels of C.A. at wide-angle and telephoto from uncorrected raw files.

In-camera JPEG	Uncorrected Raw
Wide: Upper left C.A.: Low	Wide: Upper left C.A.: High
Tele: Upper left C.A.: Low	Tele: Upper left C.A.: Fairly low

As you can see from the crops above comparing camera JPEGs to uncorrected raw files, levels of chromatic aberration are higher in uncorrected raw files, particularly at wide-angle.

Coverage
About average coverage accuracy from the optical viewfinder. Excellent accuracy from the LCD in Live View mode.

60mm, Optical	60mm, Live View LCD

The Nikon D3200’s optical viewfinder showed about 96 percent coverage with our reference Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 macro lens. This is a bit better than average for an entry-level digital SLR and slightly exceeds Nikon’s specification of 95% for the D3200, however the viewfinder image is shifted horizontally somewhat and slightly tilted compared to the imaging sensor, which unfortunately is not that uncommon in consumer models. In Live View mode, the Nikon D3200’s LCD showed essentially 100% coverage, which is excellent.

Saturation & Hue Accuracy
Realistic saturation levels and good hue accuracy.

ISOÃ Sensitivity
100	200	400	800
1600	3200	6400	12800
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. Mouse over the links above to compare ISOs, and click to load a larger version.

Saturation. The Nikon D3200 pushes dark greens and blues by a moderate amount, but slightly undersaturates bright yellow, light green, and some cyans. Reds are also pushed a bit, but not as much as by most cameras. Overall saturation levels are quite accurate, and remain fairly stable as ISOÃ climbs.Ã Mean saturation is 105.6% or only 5.6% oversaturated. The average for consumer SLRs is closer to 10% oversaturated, so some may find the D3200’s colors a little flat, however the fine-grained saturation adjustment (see below) makes it easy to customize color to match your personal preference. 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. The Nikon D3200’s Caucasian skin tones looked just about right when using manual white balance in simulated daylight. A very good job here. 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 D3200 did shift cyan toward blue, red toward orange, and light green toward yellow, 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.) With an average “delta-C” color error of 4.81 after correction for saturation, overall hue accuracy was better than average. Hue is “what color” the
color is.

Saturation Adjustment
The Nikon D3200 has a total of seven saturation levels available, three above and three below the default saturation, plus an Auto setting. This covers a pretty wide range of saturation levels, about as wide a range as you’re likely to find photographically relevant, apart from special effects that are arguably better achieved in software. The fine steps between settings mean it’s easy to program the camera to just the level of saturation you prefer. Saturation also doesn’t impact contrast, which is very good.

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

The table above shows results with several saturation settings, see the Thumbnails index page for more (look for the files named D3200OUTBSATx.JPG). Click on any thumbnail above to see the full-sized image.

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

Exposure and White Balance

Indoors, incandescent lighting
Good color with the Manual white balance setting, but overly-warm results with Auto and Incandescent. About average positive exposure compensation required.

Auto White Balance +0.3 EV	Incandescent White Balance +0.3 EV
Manual White Balance +0.3 EV

Indoors, under normal incandescent lighting, color balance was very warm and reddish with the Auto white balance setting. (We’d say unacceptably so, though unfortunately this is common.) The Incandescent setting was a bit better, but 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 setting by far produced the most accurate results, if just a touch cool. The Nikon D3200 required an average amount of positive exposure compensation here, at +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.

Ã

Outdoors, daylight
Excellent results under harsh lighting, with very good handling of contrast, detail, and color.

Manual White Balance, Default	Auto White Balance, Default

Outdoors, the Nikon D3200 performed very well here, requiring no exposure compensation for our “Sunlit” Portrait shot to keep the face reasonably bright. (The average for this shot is +0.7 EV, so the D3200 does much better than average.)Ã Contrast is a little high as you might expect under such harsh lighting, but the camera did a very good job of holding onto detail in the highlights and deep shadows. We preferred skintones from the Manual white balance setting as they were a little pinker than Auto, but both were pretty good. The Nikon D3200 also produced good exposure and natural-looking color with our Far-field scene with very few blown highlights, though there are some very dark shadows in the trees. Overall, though, an excellent performance for its class here.

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

Resolution
Very high resolution, ~2,500 to ~2,600 lines of strong detail from JPEGs, slightly more from raw files.

Strong detail to ~2,500 lines horizontal Camera JPEG	Strong detail to ~2,600 lines vertical Camera JPEG
Strong detail to ~2,600 lines horizontal ACR processed RAW	Strong detail to ~2,600 lines vertical ACR processed RAW

Our laboratory resolution chart revealed sharp, distinct line patterns down to about 2,500 lines per picture height in the horizontal direction, and to about 2,600 lines in the vertical direction. Extinction of the pattern didn’t occur until around 3,400 lines in both directions. We weren’t able to do much better in terms of absolute resolution with raw files processed through Adobe Camera Raw, perhaps just slightly more in the horizontal direction (about 2,600 lines), though color moire and chromatic aberration was more evident. 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
Slightly soft images but with very good detail. Minor edge-enhancement artifacts visible on high-contrast subjects. Moderate noise suppression visible at base ISO.

Good definition of high-contrast elements, with only minor evidence of edge enhancement.	Subtle detail: Hair Noise suppression tends to blur detail in areas of subtle contrast, though detail remains strong in the darker parts of the model’s hair here.

Sharpness. The Nikon D3200 produced very good detail overall when coupled with a sharp lens such as the Nikon 35mm f/1.8G prime used in the above left crop, though images are still slightly soft overall. Some very minor edge enhancement artifacts are visible on high-contrast subjects such as the halos around the branches in the crop above left, but overall results are quite good. Edge enhancement creates the illusion of sharpness by enhancing colors and tones right at the edge of a rapid transition in color or tone.

Detail. The crop above right shows some mild to moderate noise suppression, as the darker and lower-contrast areas of the model’s hair show significant smudging where individual strands of hair merge. Still, a pretty good performance here considering the resolution and target market. 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 D3200 delivers very detailed JPEGs that are a little soft overall even with a prime lens. Better detail can often be obtained from carefully processing raw files, without additional sharpening artifacts. Take a look below, to see what we mean:

Camera JPEG (Fine)	Raw via Nikon ViewNX 2	Raw via ACR

In the table above, mousing over a link at the bottom will load the corresponding crop in the area above. Examples include in-camera Fine JPEG, and a raw file processed through Nikon’s ViewNX 2 software using default settings, and the same raw file processed with Adobe Camera Raw 6.7, then sharpened in Photoshop. We found that sharpening with 300% unsharp mask and a radius of 0.3 pixels worked well for the Nikon D3200’s NEFÃ files.

As you can see, results from a rawà file converted with Nikon’s ViewNX 2 software are very similar to the in-camera JPEG, and the software wasn’t really able to extract more detail. Adobe Camera Raw was able to extract quite a bit more fine detail in the pine needles, but as expected, it also shows slightly higher noise levels as well as some chromatic aberration that the camera suppresses in its JPEGs. Bottom line: When coupled with a good raw converter, the Nikon D3200 rewards raw shooters with amazing detail, especially considering the price.

ISO & Noise Performance
Good detail versus noise handling up to ISOÃ 800.

High ISOÃ Noise Reduction = On (Default)
ISO 100	ISO 200	ISO 400
ISO 800	ISO 1,600	ISO 3,200
ISO 6,400	ISO 12,800

Noise levels are fairly low at ISOs 100 through 400, though some detail is lost to noise reduction even at base ISO. ISOÃ 800 shows a very fine noise “grain” but detail is quite good, though some chroma noise is visible in the darker shadows. At ISO 1,600 noise levels increase with a touch more blurring in the fine details and more visible grain, but detail is still pretty good. This trend continues as ISOÃ rises, with progressively stronger luminance noise and increased chroma blotching, though we see less smearing than expected. ISOÃ 12,800 is quite grainy with poor detail and obvious purple and yellow blotchiness in darker areas.

Overall, pretty good noise performance considering the 24-megapixel resolution, but it’s no surprise that noise is higher at the pixel level than its 16-megapixel siblings. See our Print Quality analysis section below for recommended print sizes at each ISO.

A note about focus for this shot: We shoot this image at f/4, usually 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. We know this; 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. 🙂 The focus target position will have been adjusted to insure that the rest of the scene is focused properly.

Extremes: Sunlit, dynamic range, and low light tests
Very good detail in both highlights and shadows, very high resolution and good overall exposure. Good low-light performance, capable of capturing bright images in near darkness.

0 EV	+0.3 EV	+0.7 EV

Sunlight:
The Nikon D3200 handled the deliberately harsh lighting in the test above very well. Though contrast is a little high, shadow and highlight detail are both very good. The default exposure (0 EV) did the best job here, producing a bright face without blowing out too many highlights in the white shirts. Despite the bright appearance, there are relatively few clipped highlights in the mannequins’s shirt and the flowers. Some shadows were pretty dark, but remained fairly clean. The camera’s contrast adjustment also did a good job of decreasing overall contrast without also affecting color saturation. (See below.) Still, be sure to use fill flash in situations like the one shown above; it’s better to shoot in the shade when possible.

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.)

Dynamic Range Analysis
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.

JPEG. The graph at right (click for a larger version) was generated using Imatest’s dynamic range analysis for an in-camera Nikonà D3200 JPEG file with a nominally-exposed density step target (Stouffer 4110). At the base ISO of 100 (the optimal ISO), with Active D-Lighting set to Off and default Contrast setting, the graphà shows 12.3 f-stops of total dynamic range, with 7.65 f-stops at the “High” Quality level. These are are good results for an APS-C model. Compared to the highly regarded Nikon D7000, the D3200’s JPEG did much better in total dynamic range (12.3 f-stops versus 10, though a lot of the improvement is likely due to improved JPEG), but the D3200 didn’t do quite as well at the highest quality level (7.65 versus 7.97 f-stops) because of its higher noise levels as a result of its smaller photosites. 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.

RAW. The graph at right is from the same Stouffer 4110 stepchart image captured as a rawà (.NEF) file, processed with Adobe Camera Raw using the Auto setting. As can be seen, the score at the highest quality level increased 1.19 f-stops from 7.65 to 8.84 f-stops, while total dynamic range increased one f-stop from 12.3 to 13.3. Again, these results are quite good, though results at the highest quality level fall short of the D7000’s 10.1 f-stops, again because of higher noise levels. Still, pretty good results. It’s also 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 higher quality thresholds.

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 D3200’s contrast setting offers seven levels, plus an Auto setting.

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

At its lowest contrast setting, the D3200 did a very good job of preserving highlight detail and bringing out shadow detail. Highlight retention was improved, but the contrast setting had a larger impact on opening up the shadows. The lower contrast setting opened-up shadows in our Far-field shot as well, without making the image too flat looking. Overall, very good results here.

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. 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.

Nikon’s contrast adjustment is that it has very little effect on 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. As usual, Nikon did a very good job here.

Outdoor Portrait Active D-Lighting
Off	On

Nikon’s Active D-Lighting
The shots above show the results with Active D-Lighting Off and On. (Like the D3100, the Nikon D3200 only has these two settings, while Nikon’s more advanced models let you choose from a range of strengths of the effect). This is different than 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 leaves raw file data strictly as it comes from the sensor.) Mouse-over the links to see the difference, and click on the links to load the corresponding full-resolution image.

As you can see from the images and histograms above, enabling Active D-Lighting resulted in reduced highlights, while the darkest shadows were boosted slightly. Midtones were reduced as well, though, making the image look a bit too dark, so we preferred the leaving it Off for this shot. The effect of Active D-Lighting will vary quite a bit with the subject and lighting: The camera decides what needs adjusting, and by how much, so the effect can be quite a bit greater or lesser depending on what the camera sees.

Far-field Active D-Lighting Example
Off	On

Above is another example of Nikon’s Active D-Lighting at work, this time with our Far-field shot in bright daylight. Again, mouse-over the links to see the difference, and click on the links to load the full resolution images. Highlights were subdued while shadows were boosted, this time without reducing overall exposure.

Face Detection
Off Aperture-priority 0 EV	Portrait Auto mode 0 EV	Live View with Face-priority AF 0 EV

Here, we can see the effect of the Nikon D3200’s full Auto mode which selected Portrait Scene mode, as well as face detection enabled in Live View mode. As you can see from the shots above, the Portrait Scene mode made an improvement to exposure versus Aperture-priority at f/8, reducing overall contrast and lightening shadows, though noise is a bit higher as it boosted ISO sensitivityà to 400. Portrait mode also selected a wider aperture of f/4 for better subject isolation, and a faster shutter speed of 1/320s to avoid subject motion blur. In Live View using Aperture-priority, Face-priority AF mode made a huge difference, actually overexposing the subject by using a slower shutter speed of only 1/25s. (It would have likely done better if it had more control over exposureà in Program mode.)

Ã	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

Low Light. The Nikon D3200 performed very well on the low-light test, capturing usable images at the lowest light level (1/16 foot-candle) with the lowest sensitivity setting (ISO 100). Auto exposure was a little off at the lowest light level (a fairly common occurrence in all but the best SLRs), so we used manual exposure for these shots.

As you’d expect, noise increases as ISO goes up and light levels go down, but remains well controlled and fine-grained to ISOs as high asà 3,200. There were a few hot pixels here and there especially with NRà turned down, but nothing unusual. Some minor banding could be seen at ISO 12,800, as well as some minor heat blooming in the bottom right, but that’s not unusual either.

Color balance was good with the Auto white balance setting, just slightly cool, though there’s a strong shift towards magenta at lower light levels.

The camera’s phase-detection autofocus system was able to focus on the subject down to just below the 1/8 foot-candle light level unassisted with an f/2.8 lens. That’s not bad, but not quite as good as some SLRs. The Nikon D3200 was however able to autofocus in complete darkness with the AF assist enabled. In Live View mode, the camera’s contrast-detect autofocus was able to focus below 1/16 foot-candle which is surprisingly good and very useful, since 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 D3200 do much better than point & shoots, but you still shouldn’t expect a quick autofocus lock with moving subjects.

Print Quality
Great print quality, making a terrific 24 x 36-inch print at ISO 100; ISO 3,200 images look great at 11 x 14; and ISO 12,800 images make a good 4 x 6.

ISO 100 shots look terrific printed as large as 24 x 36 inches, with good detail and color. Wall display prints are possible to 30 x 40 inches.

ISO 200 shots look great at 20 x 30 inches.

ISO 400 images also stand up to printing at 20 x 30 inches.

ISO 800 prints start to show a little more noise in the shadows and a little softer detail at 20 x 30, so while we’d call them usable, we prefer them printed at 16 x 20 inches.

ISO 1,600 prints are pretty good at 13 x 19 inches. A bit of noise is creeping into a few areas, but still good for the ISO.

ISO 3,200 shots are a bit rough printed at 13 x 19, but pass muster at 11 x 14 inches, with just a bit of noise in flatter areas.

ISO 6,400 images are much rougher, looking somewhat usable at 8 x 10 inches, but the noise in the shadows is objectionable, so we prefer the 5 x 7 inch prints.

ISO 12,800 images are certainly usable at 5 x 7, but look closer to a clean photograph at 4 x 6 inches.

Overall, the Nikon D3200 doesn’t disappoint in the print size category. It’s nice to be able to achieve great 24 x 36 inch prints at base ISO, and to still be able to make a nice 4 x 6 at ISO 12,800.

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 Canon Pixma MP610 here in the office. (See the Canon Pixma Pro9000 Mark II review for details on that model.)

Good to slightly slower than average speed for an entry-level digital SLR.

The Nikon D3200’s startup time was about average for an SLR, but shutdown was quite fast and difficult to measure.

Mode switching was pretty fast for a consumer SLR: Play to Record and displaying a captured large/fine JPEG image were so fast they were difficult to measure, though switching from Record to Play immediately after capturing an image was about average.

The Nikon D3200’s full autofocus shutter lag when shooting the same target multiple times was on the slower side of average for a consumer SLR. The D3200 required about 0.28 second for full AF using the center focus point. Enabling the flash raised shutter lag to 0.29 second, which is actually pretty good, as very little delay was added for the metering preflash. Shutter lag increased to 0.39 second in Auto-area AF mode. Continuous autofocus shutter lag was 0.163 second and Manual focus shutter lag was 0.141 second. When prefocused, shutter lag dropped to 0.114 second, which is also a little slower than average these days, but still pretty fast.

Full autofocus was much slower in Live View mode, as expected. The Nikon D3200 only offers contrast-detect AF in Live View, which took about 1.4 seconds to focus in our tests. (How fast the lens can adjust focus makes a big difference here.) Prefocused shutter lag was also slower in Live View mode, at about 0.51 second.

To minimize the effect of different lens’ focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance. We also use the same Sigma 70mm f/2.8 macro with most interchangeable lens cameras (on all platforms except NX, Four Thirds/Micro Four Thirds and Nikon models lacking an in-body focus motor), to further reduce variation, and because our tests showed that focus-determination time with this lens was close to the fastest, across multiple camera bodies from different manufacturers. Being an older design with a non-ultrasonic motor, it wouldn’t be the fastest at slewing from one focus setting to another, but that’s exactly the reason we measure focus determination speed, which is primarily a function of the camera body, vs focus adjustment speed, which is primarily a function of the lens.

Shot-to-shot cycle times were about average, at 0.47 second for large/fine JPEGs, 0.50 second for RAW files, and 0.49 second for RAW + Large/Fine JPEG frames. Continuous mode speeds were pretty good for an entry-level SLR, especially one capturing 24-megapixel images, at about 4 frames per second for any quality. Buffer depths were also pretty good for a budget model, at over 20 large/fine JPEG frames, 12 RAW frames and 8 RAW + Large/Fine JPEG frames. (We use a difficult to compress target for this test, so bursts containing JPEGs of typical scenes should be longer.) Buffer clearing times were good with a fast card, considering the 24-megapixel files and entry-level class. The flash took 4 seconds to recharge after a full-power shot, which is a touch slow for an SLR.

Connected to a computer or printer with USB 2.0, download speeds were quite fast.

Bottom line, the Nikon D3200 is a little slower than average when it comes to autofocus and shutter lag these days. Single shot cycle-time and continuous mode performance are pretty good for an entry-level model, though, especially considering the resolution.

Battery Life
About average battery life for a lithium-ion powered consumer SLR.

The Nikon D3200 uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a charger. Battery life when using the optical viewfinder is about average for a compact consumer SLR. Nikon does not specify battery life for Live View mode, but it will certainly be a lot lower. We recommend you pick up a spare battery and keep it freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings, or when using Live View a lot.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on either a fresh set of disposable batteries or a fully-charged rechargeable battery as appropriate), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Coverage and Range
Good flash performance, with good intensity but uneven coverage at wide-angle. Our standard shots required an average amount of compensation.

18mm	55mm
Normal Flash +0.7 EV	Slow-Sync Flash Default

Coverage and Exposure. Flash coverage was rather uneven at wide-angle (18mm), with very dark corners. Coverage at telephoto (55mm) was much better, but still somewhat uneven. (Some of the corner shading is due to the lens itself, though.) For our Indoor Portrait scene test, the Nikon D3200’s flash required +0.7 EV exposure compensation adjustment to get bright results in normal Auto flash mode with a 1/60 second shutter speed, which is about average for the SLRs we’ve tested. The camera’s Slow-Sync flash mode at 1/8 second produced bright results without any compensation, though with a stronger pinkish-orange cast from the room lighting.

Flash Range: Wide Angle
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200

Flash Range: Telephoto
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200

ISO 200 Range. With the kit lens at wide-angle, the Nikon D3200’s flash exposures started out a little dim at 6 feet, though brightness increased before decreasing, peaking at 7 feet. Image brightness didn’t start dropping off noticeably until after 11 feet. At the telephoto end, flash intensity started out a bit dim at 6 feet, and exposures varied with some longer distances brighter than shorter ones. Flash exposures were still usable to about 14 feet, which is quite good.

Manufacturer-Specified Flash Range
Wide Angle	Telephoto
17.4 feet ISO 200	10.6 feet ISO 200

Manufacturer Specified Flash Test. The Nikon D3200’s flash guide number is 13 meters in manual mode at ISO 100. At ISOÂ 200, that translates to about 17.4 feet at f/3.5 and 10.6 feet at f/5.6, the maximum apertures of the kit lens at full wide-angle and telephoto respectively. In the shots above, the D3200 appears to underperform by a small amount relative to Nikon’s specification, producing slightly dim exposures at the rated distances. The flash target was underexposed by less than 1/4 f-stop compared to the ideal exposure in both cases. Our standard test method for flash range uses a fixed setting of ISO 200, 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.