This July, I spent an amazing week alpine mountaineering in the Swiss Alps. What better way of breaking up 5 days of solid climbing with the trusty Nikon 3100? I tell you what though, it nearly killed me but it was worth it! Some beautiful landscapes and views and a true challenge trying to capture it. For description and full resolution goodness just click through to the DeviantArt.
#4 and the last one are spectacular. Did you do HDR by blending exposures, or in camera? The first one doesn't look HDR-esque because the left side of the picture is blown out. I'm jealous though... I do "mountaineering" in scotland but would love to do proper mountaineering in europe!!
Thanks guys! It was my first proper time using a DSLR. I think I started with a shutter count of 30 or 40 and by the end of the last day it was around 500! Which may not sound strange, but bear in mind even an entry DSLR is heavy and bulky. It can't really be clipped on the outside of the rucksack or harness (for fear of dropping it down the mountain more than anything else) so taking shots along the way was difficult. You're really limited to summit and base camp shots! @Lenny: #1 involved stitching about 10 pics together all shot with the same shutter/aperture/ISO to get the wide angle. Since the D3100 lacks exposure bracketing, I had to compromise and shot everything in RAW and apply HDR post shooting. For reference, #3 is the same scene shot 3 times each with different exposures, blended post shooting. So more of a proper HDR shot I guess. But well spotted I went as part of an introduction crash course to alpine climbing. Before this, I'd only scrambled and climbed indoors. We covered a ton of ground and it was very intensive but insanely good fun. Highly recommend it, especially if you're a regular hill walker and scrambler!
They're very good, nothing like a grand subject to make an interesting photo. Shot 3 looks almost like a painting.
5 and 6 are very good and very natural looking 1 is very nice also, i would try a more conservative approach on the PP, maybe darken it a bit to give it more depth 3 looks like a very amateur (for the lack of a better word) HDR. lots of halos are visible around high contrast areas, even though the scene itself is very nice overall looks like you had a fun trip, well done
Quality photo's! I've been thinking about jumping into the dslr world and buying the D3100 for a couple of weeks, these aren't helping in convincing me to bung the cash into my mortgage fund rather than buying the camera! I know there's millions of threads over the net for purchasing the newbie dslr, whats your thoughts on the D3100? I could get the D3000 for a ton less or thereabouts, but would rather have the upto date kit, although £400 makes me squirm a little! I haven't used an SLR since my Praktica MTL3 that i inherited ten years ago.
Yup, thanks for the feedback. I'll have to play about the HDR options a little more to find the right balance. From one point it's hard for me to give you an accurate review as the D3100 has been my first DSLR and I can't really compare it to much else. I'll try anyway Image quality is miles ahead of any camera I've ever owned, the sensor is just mind blowing. This difference is especially noticeable at low light conditions - so little noise. Video recording is also smooth and clear. Flash is okay, you can get better ones to plug into the hotshoe though. Build quality is solid. No exposure bracketing makes HDR shooting hard. No pop-out display can be a problem filming. The display isn't fantastic overall, can be hard to see in the sunlight - it was worse than my phone's display for example. Kit 18-55mm lens lacks the versatility of a bridge camera but that's what the xx-200mm is for I guess. Overall verdict? Well worth the £400 if you use it. Also the major features the D3100 offers over the D3000 are 1080p/24 video and liveview. If you don't need these features get the D3000 instead. Preferences?
Thankyou sir for your little review, sounds as though my preferences and review search make it the right choice, many newbies to the dslr world say similar to yourself, and the awesome pics like those speak a thousand words! Now must sell my junk to afford one, rep awarded when I'm off tapatalk, many thanks!
Remember a DSLR's can quickly become much more expensive than £400 for the body and kit lens. Even with a single lens purchase your budgets gone past £600.
Absolutely, but once I'm on the band wagon I'll get donations for lenses for presents etc as I'm terrible at asking for stuff on special occasions. I've several friends who have Nikons and already in negotiations to borrow any lenses that fit for the short term.
