Recently a friend reached out to figure out which camera is appropriate for her daughter, who is in School and has keen interest in Photography. She was mainly confused between Mirrorless and DSLR. We exchanged few chats on whatsapp and after a call, we reached to a conclusion for buying an entry level DSLR. Then we started exploring options across brands but photographer's mom has affinity towards Nikon.
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During that research, we concluded to order Nikon D5600, but the close competitor was Nikon D3500. I thought of dumping all key insights which helped us making the decision. Since such questions come multiple times, it's better to capture my thoughts about the camera.
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Let me list down reasons which makes it a good entry level DSLR for a photography enthusiast :
1. The biggest advantage Nikon D3500 has it's weight. It's weight is 365 gms. Weight is an important factor for many and makes lot of difference specially when you use your camera during travel.
2. Nikon D3500 is a 24 megapixel DSRL camera. 24 megapixel camera gives you great output and opportunities to crop photographs in post-production as well as options for high quality printing of your photographs.
3. Nikon D3500 has ISO range till 25600, which is huge in comparison to cameras I have been using. ISO ranges have improved a lot in last 5-10 years. This will help you click photographs in low light well.
4. Nikon D3500 can shoot at 5fps in Continuous mode, which is pretty good for an entry level camera.
5. Nikon D3500 can shoot videos with 1920*1080 resolution.
6. Nikon D3500 has great battery life and it can click approx 1500 photographs in single charge. That's a great number.
7. Nikon D3500 offer bluetooth connectivity.
8. You can use your smartphone as remote for Nikon D3500, which is pretty cool.
9. Nikon D3500 supports UHS-1 cards.
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You may want to chose other camera over Nikon D3500, if following capabilities are important as well as deal-breaker for you :
1. Nikon D3500 has fixed LCD screen and not the movable one. Cameras which have rotating LCD, offer great flexibility when shooting your subjects in odd position, location, direction.
2. Nikon D3500 doesn't have wireless connection capability, which may not be really a challenge if you ask me as a photographer. It's a good to have camera feature in my opinion.
3. Nikon D3500 doesn't have microphone port. This can be deal breaker for people who are looking to shoot videos with good quality audio or want to use the camera for documentary/journalism kind of video production.
4. Nikon D3500 doesn't have AE bracketing, which is usually needed to manage touch light conditions. This can be a deal breaker for folks who shoot in different lighting conditions and especially in environments which has varied light sources. Cameras struggle to do appropriate metering and this feature comes handy.
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Here are few features of Nikon D3500, which may work for some and not for others :
1. Nikon D3500 doesn't have touch screen.
2. Nikon D3500 has 11 focus points.
3. Nikon D3500 doesn't have timelapse recording.
There are many obvious features offered by Nikon D3500, but hope above details will help you make your decision.
If I may suggest, consider Nikon D5600 if weight is not so important factor for you. Nikon D5600 offers far more superior capabilities in comparison to Nikon D3500.
Please feel free to drop your questions through comments section in the bottom of this post or contact-us form on right panel of the blog.
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