Nikon D3200: Performance

Performance

The D3200 in kit form is fairly light and compact as DSLRs go, and quite comfortable to carry on all day shooting sessions.

Shooting Performance
The camera powers up in typical DSLR fashion, which is to say pretty quickly, with focus points going active immediately upon flipping the power switch. I was able to acquire focus and get off a first shot in about one second after power up. Single shot to shot times are basically as quick as you can reacquire focus and press the shutter button for each subsequent shot. Shutter lag was 0.01 seconds but we measured a fairly slow (for a DSLR) 0.33 second AF acquisition time with the kit lens in our studio tests.

AF Acquisition (press-to-capture, no pre-focus)

Continuous Shooting

In the field, the D3200 did not impress me as being particularly slow when it came to AF acquisition time - it seemed like a typical entry level DSLR with regard to speed in this area. Once I became aware of the measurement I spent some time just shooting various scenes and subjects, and even going from focus on a subject at minimum focus distance to a subject out at infinity. With the kit lens onboard and going from focus at minimum focus distance to focus at infinity (and vice versa) AF acquisition times seemed in the ballpark with our studio measurement. In the course of normal shooting, with different subjects and varying distances (but not one extreme to the other) the D3200/kit lens combo acquired focus promptly, certainly on a par with other entry-level DSLRs I have reviewed.

I also swapped the kit lens for number of my other AF-S Nikkor lenses, including the 70-200VRII f/2.8, 14-24 f/2.8 and 24-70 f/2.8. These are pro-grade AF-S lenses and in each case the D3200 seemed a bit quicker to acquire focus, even in the extreme focus situation. The kit lens is an AF-S consumer grade model with an MSRP of about $200; the 70-200 and 24-70 go for about $2400 and $1900, respectively. Obviously, all AF-S lenses are not created equal and throwing a bunch of money at high end glass seems to include slightly quicker AF acquisition times as part of the deal. But having shot the D3200 for about two weeks, with the exception of the minimum focus distance/infinity focus distance situation, overall AF acquisition times seemed average. The camera does take a bit more time to acquire focus as lighting conditions go into the dim range, a not uncommon occurrence with many DSLRs.

Continuous shooting measured 4 fps for JPEG fine images, right in line with Nikon's claimed "up to four fps." The D3200 produced 54 images at this rate (14 if shooting RAW images) before slowing as the buffer becomes saturated. It should be noted that this buffer capacity was based on the camera at default settings, and as I'll explain later in the lens performance section there is a distortion control feature (disabled by default) that may be enabled to help with some lens distortion issues. Apparently distortion control soaks up a healthy chunk of processing power and produces a dramatically lower write speed that causes the buffer to fill much more quickly. How quickly? That would be 10 JPEGS, 9 RAW or 8 RAW/JPEG combos before things slow down.

Continuous auto focus performance in the continuous shooting mode is pretty good while tracking moving subjects, but with only 11 focal points to choose from small, fast-moving targets such as seabirds can sometimes slip out of focus if you're not very precise holding the focus point on them. The camera has Nikon's dynamic area autofocus mode which in theory continues to track the subject with surrounding focus points should it wander off from the primary focus point, and is my method of choice for shooting moving objects like surfers and jets at airshows. With the 51 point systems in my D3S and D300S you have to try pretty hard to lose focus on moving objects, but the D3200 with 40 fewer focus points to choose from is a bit less forgiving. Still, continuous autofocus tracking is at least the equal of any entry-level DSLR I've reviewed.

Nikon lists a guide number of approximately 39 feet for the D3200 built in flash at ISO 100 - this translates into a maximum range of a bit over 11 feet at wide-angle. Flash recycle times shooting in auto mode were rapid with a fully charged battery - basically as quick as you could reacquire focus and shoot again, at least for the first several shots. Shots designed to produce a full discharge of the flash resulted in recycle times of about 3.5 seconds.

Battery life for the D3200?s EN-EL14 lithium-ion battery is listed as 540 shots, so prudence would dictate a second battery for all day shooting sessions.

Lens Performance
The 18-55mm VR zoom lens provided in the D3200 kit is fairly typical of lenses in this class, having maximum apertures of f/3.5 and f/5.6 at the wide-angle and telephoto ends of the zoom, respectively. The "VR" designation stands for vibration reduction, Nikon's trade name for stabilization. The lens is made in Thailand, features a metal mount and composite barrel along with a zoom ring marked at the 18, 24, 35, 45 and 55 mm focal lengths. The action of the zoom ring was smooth although a bit on the heavy side, at least compared to my other AF-S Nikon zooms. The focus ring is light and quick, requiring rotation through only about 60 degrees to set focus from near to far. Unfortunately, focus is accompanied by a rotating of the front element of the lens, so filters that require manual rotation (polarizing, variable neutral density) will require constant attention as your focal points change.

One nice aspect of this lens is the minimum focus distance is approximately 11 inches throughout the entire focal range. This distance is measured from the subject to the sensor plane within the camera, not from the front of the lens to the subject, producing a fairly decent close-up capability without resorting to a dedicated micro (close-up) lens. Here's a look with the kit lens at minimum focus distance at the telephoto end of the zoom, and another using Nikon's 105 mm VR micro lens.

18-55mm Kit Lens

105mm VR

While not overly fast, the kit lens turns in a fairly credible optical performance otherwise. There is barrel distortion present at the wide-angle end of the zoom, but this has pretty much disappeared by the time the lens is zoomed into the 26 to 28mm focal range. The telephoto end of the zoom shows just a tiny bit of pincushion distortion. However, the camera provides a distortion control feature in the retouch menu - options are automatic or manual. Here's a look at an uncorrected wide-angle and then the same shot after automatic distortion control has been applied in the retouch menu.

Original, Wide Angle

With Post-Process Distortion Control

Better still, the camera shooting menu features an auto distortion control setting (off by default) that may be enabled to provide correction as you shoot without resorting to post processing. Here's a look at both wide-angle and telephoto ends of the zoom with auto distortion control enabled.

Wide Angle, Distortion Control Enabled

Telephoto, Distortion Control Enabled

However, there's no such thing as a free lunch - enabling auto distortion control reduces the buffer size for JPEG Fine images from 54 to 10 (suggesting that the process of correcting the images is diverting a lot of processing power from image writing speed), so if you're shooting a lot of continuous sequences you need to really examine the need for distortion control to be enabled while shooting or left for a post processing step with select images.

Optically, the lens is fairly sharp in the center at wide-angle with a bit of softness in the edges and corners along with a bit of light drop-off in the corners. In the 26-28mm focal range where distortion goes neutral optical performance appears about the same but without the light fall off. At telephoto center looks fairly sharp and while the edges and corners are softer, they are less so than at wide-angle. There is some chromic aberration (purple fringing) present at the wide end of the lens in some high contrast boundary areas, although most cases this takes enlargements in the 200-300% + range to be readily visible. The telephoto end does a bit better in this regard, with much fewer instances of the defect being present.

Video Quality
Video quality is quite good in the D3200 and you can go to video capture from any shooting mode except the guide mode. While there is a dedicated video capture button, you first have to be in live view, but the locations of the live view and video capture buttons respectively make this a simple task when hand holding. Activate the live view button with the right thumb, half push on the shutter button to acquire focus and then the video capture button is a short distance from the shutter button, an easy push for the shooting finger.

Download Sample Video

As with any camera with a CMOS sensor, rolling shutter effect is a possibility when rapidly panning the D3200 in video mode, but I found the D3200 required exaggeratedly fast pans to produce a slight effect. The built-in microphone is susceptible to wind noise and can also record sounds of lens during zooming, autofocus and stabilization. There is no wind cut feature per se, but the microphone may be set for automatic or manually established sound levels.

While nominal clip length is 4GB or 20 minutes, the camera can shut down automatically before these limits are reached in order to prevent thermal damage due to overheating under certain conditions, such as high ambient temperatures.

Image Quality
Default image quality out of the D3200 was quite nice with regards to color rendition and fidelity, but I found the images shot in the automatic mode, while very good overall, seemed generally just a bit too soft for my taste. Switching to the manual modes, my impression was sharpness was even a bit less satisfying than automatic, so I ramped up the sharpening level in the camera to the maximum and found that produced a more pleasing sharpness, at least for my eye. Here's a look at default images in automatic and aperture priority modes, and the third in aperture priority at maximum sharpness.

Auto Mode, Default Sharpness	Aperture Mode, Default Sharpness
Aperture Mode, Maximum Sharpness

Even if the results of any particular image is not quite to your liking there's always the opportunity to post process, particularly if shooting RAW files, but between pretty good automatic mode image quality and the ability to fine tune camera settings for the manual modes most folks should be able to get output directly from the camera that meets their needs and likes with little, if any additional image crunching.

The "set picture control" menu offers manual mode shooters a palette of color options including standard (the default), neutral, vivid, monochrome, portrait, and landscape. Here's a look at all six.

Standard	Neutral
Vivid	Monochrome
Portrait	Landscape

I used the standard color mode for most images captured for this review.

Auto white balance was used for all the imagery captured for this review and did a good job across a range of light including daylight, incandescent, open shade, and flash. Manual mode shooters have incandescent, cool white fluorescent, direct sunlight, flash, cloudy, shade and preset manual white balance options.

Auto White Balance, 5500k fluorescent light

The D3200 has matrix, center weighted and spot metering exposure methods on board, with matrix being the default for the manual shooting modes. In all other modes the camera chooses the exposure metering method, but matrix is the method of choice for most situations. Shooting manually, the matrix method would on occasion lose highlights in some high contrast scenes but overall it did a fairly good job.

With 24.2 megapixels of resolution packed onto an APS-C sized sensor, I was curious to see how the D3200 would do in the noise arena as ISO sensitivities ramped up. ISO 100, 200 and 400 were virtually indistinguishable - I had to look long and hard at 100% magnifications to find a spot here or there with little success. For all practical purposes I believe you can shoot these settings interchangeably with no noticeable effect on large print quality. ISO 800 was virtually indistinguishable from 400, with perhaps just a hint of graininess starting to appear on the white background. The jump from 800 to 1600 was the first that was somewhat easy to tell apart, as there was a slight but definite increase in graininess in the background on the 1600 shot.

ISO 100	ISO 100, 100% crop
ISO 200	ISO 200, 100% crop
ISO 400	ISO 400, 100% crop
ISO 800	ISO 800, 100% crop
ISO 1600	ISO 1600, 100% crop
ISO 3200	ISO 3200, 100% crop
ISO 6400	ISO 6400, 100% crop
ISO HI	ISO HI, 100% crop

ISO 1600 was still quite clean, with some slight losses in a few fine detail areas - but still a usable setting for large prints. ISO 3200 shows a more definite drop-off from 1600, but is still holding fairly good fine details in most areas. ISO 6400 and 12800 both show increased graininess with loss of fine details and smudging becoming more apparent. All in all, I would be comfortable shooting up to 1600 if necessary for large prints, 3200 for smaller prints and I'd save 6400 and 12800 for those situations where a high ISO sensitivity was necessary to get the shot.

Additional Sample Images