Just curious as to what most people might think of this camera. I am an amature when it comes to cameras and was thinking about buying one of these. Thanks for your comments!

I use Nikon cameras exclusively. I have the D90 and love it. A D90 may be more than you want to spend. The D3100 looks like a pretty solid camera. I do a lot a nature photography and have some fairly expensive lenses. The lenses and other equipment is where the money begins to add up.

Thank you Curt.

What do you want to shoot? General purpose? People? Outdoors? Sports?

Here's a not-very-complimentary review of the D3000, which would be very similar to the D3100:
http://www.bythom.com/nikond3000review.htm

Exhaustive camera reviews here:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/

No guesswork required:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/best-cameras.html

The D5000 comes out better than then the D3100 at both those sites.

Thanks Tallgrass..to answer your question, landscape and wildlife and grandchildren.

I'll preface this by saying I know almost NOTHING about cameras. Having said that, I bought a Canon XSi a couple of years ago and can't imagine being without a camera of at least this caliber.
And Curt is correct....lenses can add up QUICK! The steves links provided above are an invaluable source of information.

The best thing you can do is educate yourself before you plunk down $400-$800+ dollars. Lenses that come bundled with SLRs often aren't what you need. Consider buying just the camera body and then getting the lenses separately.

Or make it really easy and get a superzoom camera that will cover everything from wide angle to a long focal length.

I've bought several thousand dollars worth of stuff from the sites below and have been happy with the service and prices:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/
http://www.adorama.com/

just bought this camera for my wife. she loves it, easy navigation, and extremely user friendly compared to many others. it is an introductory camera so if your a newbie its awesome to start out with. like tallgrass said, you can get a cheap/decently priced SLR but its the lens that costs the big bucks. seen em go up all the way to $8k, lens alone..

Guru,

Go take a look at http://www.kenrockwell.com/ and do some reading. Ken Rockwell is a wealth of expert information on Nikons. You may find the 3100 just has more options than you need.

Cheers,

George

I am certainly no camera expert but did end up purchasing a D3000 a little over a year ago and find that it fits my needs extremely well

Laterz,
dafanman

Thanks everyone for the info...I know I mentioned Nikon (that was what was at Sams), ended up with a Cannon SX30. It seems to do everything I am capable of doing. I appreciate everyone's response.