Beginner Used 3200 or new 3300?

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deadonkey

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Hi,
I've been interested in photography for a while now and I'm finally ready to buy my first dslr.
Around 12-18 months ago I was in the same situation and was set on a cannon 100d but I never went through with it, for one reason or another.

I've researched what to buy and read the entire Internet, and this time around I am thinking about the Nikon 3000 series as a beginner dslr.

I have however seen the price of the Nikon d3200 on ebay and it seems like a bit of a bargain
I could get a new d3300 for £370 with the 18-55 kit lens or a used d3200 for around £215 with the kit lens.

I'm thinking that if I had have bought a camera 18 months ago and decided to get a nikon instead of the 100d I would have most likely bought a 3200 new and still have it now and still be happy with it.
So why spend the extra on the 3300.

I intent to mainly take photos not video of landscapes, being in the lake district and a keen walker I will be taking a camera on walks up the fells with me.
I have a friend who I walk with who has bought a penta k50 due to it being weather sealed but I don't see that as a massive advantage as he did as I'm not likely to be in the mood to take photos in the rain.

If I look at the d3300 over the d3200 it has :
1080 60fps which I'm.not really interested in.
Better performance at higher iso which although is better I won't be shooting indoors or in low light so I don't see this as a massive advantage and finally the kit lens is smaller and lighter, which I'm not so bothered about either.

I'm looking for advice of other photographers and other beginners if it's worth spending the extra but I suspect there are plenty of happy d3200 or even d3100 users here.
 
I can't comment on those exact camera bodies, but when i was starting out my first 3 cameras were second hand and i'm glad i went that route as it wasn't until i used a DSLR that i found the limitations with each one, but by buying second hand it was relatively painless on the wallet to chop it in against a different model

It wasn't until my 3rd body that i finally realised what i wanted and settled on a D7100 which i bought brand new as by that point i knew i would be keeping it for some time

So i'd always recommend a beginner to start out buying second hand as you won't really understand it's limitations until you discover them yourself, and the money saved can be put against better glass, which would be of a greater benefit than a slightly upgraded body............. all IMO of course
 
I'd go with the 3200. I'm using one to learn with before I eventually upgrade to the 7100 and its great.
 
deadonkey said:
Hi,


I have however seen the price of the Nikon d3200 on ebay and it seems like a bit of a bargain
I could get a new d3300 for £370 with the 18-55 kit lens or a used d3200 for around £215 with the kit lens.
Click to expand...

You could also get a brand new D3200 kit for around £270 IIRC.
 
Have a look at HDEW Cameras. They are a uk based company. Yes they are grey imports but they offer a uk backed 3 year warranty. I have bought a d7100 and several lenses from them and always had good service.
 
MartinCornwall said:
Have a look at HDEW Cameras. They are a uk based company. Yes they are grey imports but they offer a uk backed 3 year warranty. I have bought a d7100 and several lenses from them and always had good service.
Click to expand...

Ditto the above, this is where i eventually bought my first brand new camera from, and no issues thus far ;)

But i would still recommend buying second hand until you have found your feet as you may find the need to upgrade sooner rather than later by entering the DSLR world on the bottom rung
 
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I bought my D3200 two and a bit years ago; I deliberated long and hard over that or the D3100. Added sensor res of the D3200 nudged it for me, as I have an interest fish-eye lenses that can waste 2/3 or more of your pixels, through masking or cropping; other wise I would have got the D3100.

D3300 with higher res is appealing to me, but, incomparability with 'cheap' non-brand batteries and other accessories disinclines me from it, amongst other things, significantly like, buying more lenses rather than a new body!

MEANWHILE, daughter's doing her GCSE photography, and booked to carry on and do A-Level; I just bought her, 2nd hand a D3100 and 35mm prime. As a starter SLR I CANNOT fault the thing. My O/H, feeling left out, then decided to get herself one; and snagged a D3100 and kit 18-55 for only a little over £120 in a gum-tree add; boxed, with matching serials ad warranty card! At that money you CAN'T go wrong.

And I have to say D3100 is a cracking camera. 'low' sensor res is NOT a major draw-back; it has most features you will want; and is very Newby freindly. Dealer prices? You ought be able to pick up a 2nd hand body and kit, easily for under £180, leaving you plenty in budget to start bulding up a 'kit' around it; maybe an ultra-wide-angle, or longer telephoto, to extend the focal length 'range' of the kit zoom, which is a tad restrictive; to get a bag, maybe a flash, or spare batteries, SD cards, tripod, etc... all of which you can keep and get use from later if/when you decide you really DO need 'more' by way of features or sensor res.

D3200's, at the moment, don't seem to represent that much of a bargain over buying new; nice as an owner to know I have only 'lost' £50/£60 on what I paid not so long ago; but I doubt that will hold for too long, when the D3300, which has only been on the shelves a year, starts filtering down into the 2nd hand market.

If you must buy new.. and there are reasons to do so; (DO check out the Nikon cash-back deals if applicable though, 'cos can mean you have to pay maybe £100 more than the sticker price, then wait to get it back on a gift-voucher....) I would probably go 'in for a penny in for a pound' and go for the D3300.... but mainly because having done so, be a long time till I could afford to upgrade it, so might as well have as much as I can to start with.

Now, though; I tend to take anything Ken Rockwell says with a lot of seasoning and scepticism; but on this one, I do agree with having stuck legacy 35mm primes on the front of my 3200; it's the glass that's the weak-link, not the sensor. And, I can say a lot of the the vaunted sensor-res of the D3200, is lost with the kit 18-55 and even my kit 55-300, so even more likely wasted on the D3300. So, if you were to get one, it would be a case of playing catch-up, investing in glass that could exploit the camera body for a long while... and THERE it starts getting expensive; an 'independent' lens that gives the same sort of coverage as the kit 18-55, but might resolve the sort of detail that the sensor can capture is like as not to cost as much as the whole 'starter kit' you are considering!

Sort of brings us back to the 2nd hand D3100, .. with the kit lenses, its a well balanced package; probably far more camera than you need for a awful long while; and cracking value for money, leaving you quids in, to invest savings in glass that will work fantastically on that camera, AND on any later up-grade.. as the more 'considered' choice, and what was and remains, my recommendation.. unless you like fish!

Another thunk for you; when I got the D3200; I was warned to get as BIG an SD card as I could, 'cos the bigger pixel count means bigger file sizes. This is true, and only likely more so, given higher cot of the D3300. BUT... nievely coming from film.. when they started talking about 'card-speed'.. I struggled, thinking 'but the ISO setting is like film-speed?".. no.. data transfer rate.. it IS important, first time I tried machine-gunning a band and the BIG 32Gg SD card in my camera saw it lock up, when it rapidly ran out of 'buffer'.

DON'T buy 'cheap' SD cards; get the more expensive, 30 or 40+ Mb/s trasfer rate cards.

16Gb holds a LOT of pictures even at 24MPix 'fine' resolution, especially if you are a J-Peg user; and prices on SD's have been coming down while specs go up, a lot more than on the cameras; so get as good as you need, and as small as you can get away with, and 16Gb/45Mb/s are going for about a tenner at the mo; so would be my starting recommend; then buy bigger & better as and when you are filling it faster than you can clear it to computer!

Put any other 'immediate' saving into a 'good' glass screen protector; spare battery or two, and then a tripod; probably in that order; THEN start looking to maybe extend range of lenses or accessory flash etc..

2nd Hand, in general, gives useful savings over new, for this sort of stuff, but 2nd hand D3100; being the reletive bargain it is in the market-place, at the moment; while delivering so much of what more expensive cameras can, while being so user / newby friendly, and such good starting point, either to use as is, or build up a more extensive 'kit' around, that can be carried over to a better body later, offers a heck of a lot of 'all-round' picture taking 'value', and something of an 'optimum' starting place, at the moment, I think. And while I own a D3200; at this moment in time, I find it hard to recommend one, new or 2nd hand against the D3300 or D3100. New, the D3300 is the better choice; it's a 'new' camera and still has headline features to warrant the premium price.. but as I found with the D3200.. only really worth it for 'bragging points' or if you start chucking serous money at lenses that can actually let all them mega-pixes 'breath'.. which can lead you into a different world, that the four-digit 'entry level' Nikon's don't really live in..
 
Hi, I recently traded in my Pentax gear to switch to Nikon. I went with the d3300 and spent the remainder on a few prime lenses, with a view of upgrading the body at a later stage. I went with the d3300 because when I decide to upgrade to a newer model I may get be a little more back. Got to say though the d3300 is a very capable little camera and can't see myself upgrading for a while, I love it.
 
Get the d3200, i have and it's a good camera to be learning with.
Let's face it, after a while we'll def' be upgrading to another body.
 
Buy the 3200. Put the £155 left over into a camera fund. Soon enough you'll probably get that new gear urge, and that £155 will get you a sweet 35mm/1.8, or a tripod, or some filters, or....
 
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