Sony a3000 vs D3100

[AbraamAbdullah]

I have been recently searching for a camera that fits my budget with high quality photo and large sensor and a viewfinder , i found the sony a3000 and it is really amazing but i was told that the EVF is very poor and to me it will bbe very disappointing as i ilike using the viewfinder not the LCD so i wanted to ask if the EVF of the a3000 is really that bas or it is just OK , and now i am comparing it to the Nikon D3100

 

[razor512]

If you like to shoot in manual mode, then EVF's will pretty much always be worst, the reason why is you are viewing a backlit image instead of seeing through the lens. This causes issues as not all EVF's are calibrated exactly the same and an LCD or OLED display will not have anything close to the dynamic range of your eyes, this means when shooting in manual, you will be more likely to get the exposure wrong with an EVF, at least until you get fully used to that EVF, but as soon as you move to a different camera with EVF, you have to get used to it all over again.

With an optical view finder, you can pick up a Nikon D4 and get perfectly exposed manual shots, and you can quickly switch to a canon 1Dx and still get perfect exposures manually.

From looking at sample pictures from both cameras, the D3100 has slightly better noise performance at ISO 3200, but for both cameras, ISO 6400 will not be a setting that you will want to use unless you really had to.

If you pretty much only shoot manual, the D3100 may work a little better for you, but personally in this range, I would accept the worst view finder and go with the A3000, as it offers more detail in its sample images (and if scaled down to the resolution of the D3100, the images look better and less noise. Only down side the A3000 uses contrast detect AF only so low light shooting will be more difficult if you rely on the autofocus as compared to the D3100, though with this class of camera, you will not be night time concerts.

 

[Ubrales]

Keep in mind the quality of the lenses. For the serious professional photographer Nikons are the clear choice!