The following images were taken with a final production Nikon D3000, equipped with the Nikkor DX 18-55mm VR kit lens.

The Nikon D3000 was set to Large Fine JPEG mode, Auto White Balance, 3D Colour Matrix Metering, and the Standard Picture Control. Noise Reduction and Active D-Lighting were both switched Off by default. VR Stabilisation was enabled for all these handheld shots.

The individual exposure mode, file sizes, shutter speeds, aperture, ISO and lens focal length are listed for each image.

The crops are taken from the original files, reproduced at 100% and saved in Adobe Photoshop CS4 as JPEGs with the Very High quality preset, while the resized images were made in Photoshop CS4 and saved with the default High quality preset. The three crops are typically taken from far left, central and far right portions of each image.

Note: you may wish to open a number of galleries for direct comparison of detail and noise: Canon EOS 1000D / Rebel XS sample images, Sony Alpha A230 sample images, Nikon D5000 sample images.