Nikon D5100 18-55mm VR Kit review

Nikon’s latest mid-price consumer SLR is pitched to go head-to-head with the Canon EOS 600D. The two cameras are uncannily similar, with very little to separate their dimensions, weights and prices. Both can record 1080p video at various frame rates and both have articulated, high-resolution LCD screens – a major asset particularly for video capture.

The Canon nominally has the edge for detail with its 18-megapixel sensor to the Nikon’s 16 megapixels. However, the Nikon compensates digitally for lens distortions and chromatic aberrations; the latter can make a big difference to sharpness towards the corners of frames.

The Nikon’s 11 autofocus points are two more than Canon offers, and it’s a tad faster in continuous mode at 4fps to the Canon’s 3.7fps. That advantage only lasted for 13 frames, though, after which it slowed to 1.9fps. The Canon was a little quicker to fire off shots in its Single drive mode, too. However, the Nikon has a dedicated autofocus-assist lamp, so it’s quicker to focus in low light when the flash isn’t raised. So far, it all adds up to a big fat draw.

In most other respects they’re both pretty similar to their entry-level siblings, the Canon EOS 1100D and Nikon D3100. There are 18-55mm stabilised kit lenses all round, along with similarly sized optical viewfinders, solitary command dials and other controls that mostly rely on the LCD screen to relay settings back to the user.

The D5100 is shorter than its predecessor, the D5000, partly because the screen is hinged at the side rather than the bottom. That makes more sense, as it can be flipped out to the side for self-portraits or when the camera is flush against a wall. It also means that the strip of buttons that appeared down the left side of the D5000’s screen have been scattered to other parts of the camera.

Sadly, Nikon hasn’t taken this opportunity to reconsider the function of these buttons. There is still a pair dedicated to zooming in and out during playback or magnifying the live view image. Another two, marked Info and i, bring up various information and settings on the screen. However, there are no buttons for ISO speed, white balance or drive mode. Instead, these functions must be browsed to using the i button and navigation pad. Even these controls aren’t comprehensive; defining a manual white balance temperature or toggling the Auto ISO function is only possible via the main Menu, which is even slower to navigate.

It’s particularly disappointing that the D5100 doesn’t inherit the cheaper D3100’s lever for selecting drive modes. To make matters worse, the self-timer and automatic HDR modes reset to single frame advance after each shot, and reactivating them using the convoluted controls was extremely tedious. The one positive aspect to the lack of labelled buttons is that the navigation pad provides direct control of the active autofocus point when it’s not doing anything else. However, reach for this control too quickly after shooting and the camera starts browsing through shots stored on the SD card instead.

It’s not all bad news, of course. There are some new features that we really like, including the aforementioned HDR mode – something that’s common on Sony and Pentax’s SLRs but not seen before from Nikon. It’s fairly simple, taking two shots at up to 3 EV exposure difference, aligning them to counter small differences in how they’re framed and blending them for a single, high-dynamic-range photo. The ability to recover lost highlights and shadows wasn’t as dramatic as we expected but the results looked more natural than we’ve seen from other cameras.

There’s a range of special effects with names such as Color Sketch and Night Vision, although anyone with image-editing software won’t see much point in applying them in-camera. The High Key and Low Key effects are more useful, though, adjusting settings to correctly exposure the brightest or darkest parts of the scene.

The video mode is a vast improvement on the D5000’s, recording at 1080p at a choice of 24, 25 or 30fps. AVC compression and a 21Mbit/s maximum bit rate gave a good balance of high picture quality and manageable file sizes. Noise reduction was modest to the point of non-existent, but even at the maximum ISO 6400 sensitivity allowed for video capture, the fizz of noise in darker areas of the frame wasn’t particularly invasive. Detail levels in videos were breathtakingly sharp, although that’s partly down to insubstantial anti-aliasing filtering. As with all the Nikon and Canon SLRs we’ve reviewed, the downside was moiré interference on dense, repeating patterns such as bricks and fabric.

The built-in mono microphone sounded a little thin but there’s a stereo input for an external microphone. Noise from the autofocus motor appeared on the soundtrack but it was much less invasive than on the 600D, and focusing was substantially quicker too. That makes the D5100 a much better option for casual video capture. However, it lacks the 600D’s full control over video exposure, which is essential for serious video production. The aperture is locked for the duration of clips and it’s possible to lock the overall exposure too, but there’s no direct control over the shutter speed or sensitivity.

As with virtually all the SLRs we’ve seen recently, noise levels were staggeringly low, with print-worthy results all the way to ISO 6400. The Canon 600D’s JPEGs retained subtle textures a little better at this setting and the D5100 produced smoother shadows, but neither was obviously better than the other. An expanded sensitivity mode stretches to ISO 25600, and these shots were perfectly acceptable for posting online.

Colour rendition was excellent at default settings and is extensively customisable – again, differences between the D5100 and 600D were trivial. However, the D5100’s highly customisable automatic ISO function provides the potential for better exposures in dim lighting, albeit only for those with the patience to master the unintuitive controls. Meanwhile, its chromatic aberration removal proved more useful than the 600D’s higher resolution, virtually eliminating coloured outlines to high-contrast lines, such as in the example below. It also exhibited none of the autofocus errors that we saw from the 600D with its kit lens.

These three issues mean that the D5100 has the edge over the 600D for image quality, and its superior video autofocus means it’s a better choice for casual video capture too. It’s a non-starter for serious video use, though, and its controls will frustrate anyone who likes to make regular adjustments while taking photos.

As such, the D5100 feels like an entry-level SLR that happens to have a high-resolution, articulated screen. With the D3100 offering the same 1080p video capture mode, it’s only really the D5100’s screen, slightly faster continuous performance and a few features such as bracketing and HDR capture that distinguish the two. The D3100’s 14-megapixel resolution certainly isn’t a turn-off and we actually prefer its controls, thanks to its drive mode lever. There’s a lot to like about the D5100 but we’d recommend going for the D3100 and using the £340 saved to accessorise it with a flashgun and Nikon’s 35mm f/1.8 lens.