I'm looking to get my first dslr. With a new baby the point and shoot isn't fast enough. Best buy had the d3100 on sale with 2 lenses for $499.and b&h has the same bundle for $496 but comes with a memory card and extra battery. If this is a decent camera I might see if bestbuy can do something to match the price.
depends, if you know how to manually use a DSLR (changing aperture/shutter speed/ISO & why you would) then you'll see a huge difference. If the cam is going to be set to Auto or Shutter Priority or Aperture Priority all the time, then you might not see a huge difference.
Another thing is the lenses, if they are crap you'll get crap sharpness.
Is the camera nice? in the hands of someone that knows how to use it, yes.
There was also a thread not to long ago where the 3100 vs 5100 was discussed @ Costco and the price difference wasn't huge. If you can swing the extra dough get the 5100
3 fps isn't much. My GH2 does 5 fps at 12mp and 40 at 3mp. I was at a reenactment with a guy who had a Canon EOS 50D and at the right setting it could fire off endless fps, until the card was full. I was quite jealous
Better to spend a bit more and get a good camera with a good kit lens than a so-so camera with an extra so-so lens.
