Digital Home Thoughts: Notes from my Nikon D5100 Pre-Release Briefing

In lieu of a full report, which is no longer interesting to me at this point, I decided to write up, point form, some of the interesting things I learned about the Nikon D5100 DLSR and ME-1 microphone - the things that aren't necessarily in the press release. Enjoy, and let me know if you have any questions - I'll do my best to answer.

• The D5100 and ME-1 Stereo Microphone should be in-market by the end of April. The earthquake/tsunami in Japan didn't have an impact on the production of these products.
• The D5100 is compatible with UHS SD Cards, along with the usual SD, SDHC, SDXC
• Based on some of the impressive new in-camera creative features, I asked Nikon if there were any plans to roll out similar features to other EXSPEED 2-powered cameras such as the D7000 or D3100 via firmware updates. The answer was no. I think this is unfortunate - it makes little sense to have a new and powerful camera such as the D7000 lacking features that the D5100 has. And, certainly, the D3100-using crowd would love some of the new features.
• I asked about the in-camera HDR; it only uses two images, and typically for HDR you want three or more. Two images is the optimal number of images for non-tripod users according to Nikon. As in, three would be hard to do hand-held and too much ghosting would occur with more than two. There's no "tripod mode" for the HDR however, and worse, you can't use it with raw files. This is a simplistic, JPEG-only, two shot tool. You can, however, set it to +1/+2/+3 stops on the exposure - so your first photo is at +0 EV, and your next one is between +1 and +3. You also can't convert previously captured JPEGs. Lots of unfortunate limitations here, but let's face it, if you want high-quality HDR images, you're going to want to shoot three to nine images in raw format on a tripod and use dedicated software such as the ultra-awesome NIK HDR EFEX PRO (seriously, it rocks).

• There are more video modes to choose from: 1080p 30fps, 1080p 24fps, 720p 30fps, 720p 24fps, and likely at least one standard-definition capture. Each setting has a high-quality and a normal quality option. I asked Nikon what the bit rates were for these settings, and other than confirming that the two options differed by bit rate, I was not provided with the information. Nikon did the same thing with the D7000 - it's bizarre they won't tell us what the bit rate is!
• This is the same 16.2 megapixel CMOS sensor as the D7000; that means from an image quality perspective, it will be a leap beyond the D5000 and the D3100. It uses the EXSPEED2 processor as well.
• At 4fps, it's not bad from a speed perspective, but while it might have the same sensor as the D7000, it can't keep up in the fast action department.
• It's rated for 100,000 shutter actuations, but will typically do twice that without issue.
• The D5100 is 50% faster at processing image data than the D5000.
• It uses the same 11-point auto focus system found in the D3100. Ditto for the 420 pixel RGB metering sensor. The D7000 sensor by comparison is 2016 pixels.
• It has a three inch, 921K dot resolution screen. It's the same screen as the D300, D7000, etc. This is a very nice screen and it's a welcome addition to a DSLR under $1000.
• There's an infrared receiver - the ML-L3 - on the front and back.
• There's basic in-camera editing for video, along with a still frame grab (at 1920 x 1080 resolution). Video is shot using the h.264 codec, and there's a 20 minute time limit per clip.
• There's an external microphone input, making this a clear step above the D3100 when it comes to video.
• Guess what plugs into that external microphone input? The new ME-1 Stereo Microphone. $159.99 Canadian MSRP. Optimal cord placement - it doesn't come out the back like some do. Comes with a wind screen, a lock cut filter on the back to help deal with the wind, and doesn't pull power from the camera - so it's a "cold shoe" attachment. It's battery powered and plugs into the audio input in the camera.
• There's a boatload of special effects. Notably, you can turn on Live View or D-Movie mode and see some of the effects such as Colour Sketch, Selective Colour, and the Miniature Effect.
• You can select up to three colours at a time in an image to retain, the rest of the image/video turns to B&W - and you can see this real-time. Sweet!
• Some of the effects don't record at 30fps; the miniature effect for instance records 2-3 fps then builds it back into a 30fps clip - looks a bit like a stop-motion effect.