Nikon D3100 VR

Cairns76

Hi all, I'm new to the forum. I'm interested in the Nikon D3100, but there seem to be a couple of options available; one which has a VR lens and one which has a standard lens kit. What are the advantages and disadvantages? I'm looking to use the camera for family and general shots.

Cheers,
Paul

PBked

Hi Paul,
VR stands for 'vibration reduction'. In other cameras it is often called IS for 'image stabilization'. The beauty of VR is that it enables you to take shots a few stops lower than is possible with a standard lens. Useless if you have hands of concrete and you are like a statue when shooting, but I don't know of anyone who is. Even those who claim to have rock steady hands get blurred shots thru camera shake. So, long and short of it, go for VR every time if you can.
Regards,
PBked

ohyeahar

For hand-held shots, the general rule to avoid blur from camera movement is to shoot at a shutter speed that is the reciprocal of the focal length. This rule applies to full-frame cameras so us DX shooters will need to take our 1.5x crop factor into consideration.

That means if shooting at 35mm focal length, the shutter speed should be 1/(35 x 1.5) = 1/52.5 or 1/50.

VR (or whatever marketing term used by the lens) generally works, but I tend to treat the feature as insurance rather than depend on it for sharp images. So I’d still shoot 1/50 even though VR theoretically allows me to shoot 1/15.