Nikon D3200 Live View is SO NOISY!!!

[nickthefish]

Hello everyone.

II recently brought my D3200 into my work to compare to their Canon T3i.

When I put each camera in live view, I noticed horrible noise on the D3200 screen which got much worse when digitally zoomed in, yet the Canon T3i looked great.

Anyone else have this problem?

I do product photography and typically when shooting stills or video with the T3i I will set it on a tripod and use the camera's digital zoom in order to see up close and make sure I am totally in focus before taking the shot. It is utterly impossible to do that with the D3200. The noise is so bad that I can't even tell if I am in focus, and it looks like a bad VHS tape or something. It is much darker and the live view does not reflect the aperture and shutter speed settings like the Canon does. On the canon, I can tweak settings and I get a pretty good idea of what the image will be. The Nikon stays the same regardless of settings.

To make matters more pronounced, I usually plug the camera via HDMI into a TV in order to see it larger. Like I said, the Canon is clean and clear, even digitally zoomed in on a 24" screen, but the Nikon is not usable. I can even see the noise when zoomed digitally in on the built in LCD when in Live View.

Is the Nikon Live View that crappy, or do I have a bad model?

 

[bigal1000]

Time to upgrade.........

 

[Gavjenks]

Don't have much experience with Nikon live view, but I'm not sure why it SHOULD have any more noise at all than the same settings do in normal mirror-down mode. The only possibility I can think of is that the sensor is heating up from electrical activity and getting noisier as you leave it open and focus, etc. Try lining up the shot so you're all ready, then turn off live view, wait a few seconds, then live view on and immediately hit capture. See if it makes a difference.

If not, I don't know what to tell you as per any reason why that would happen.

And I can testify than Canon live view is baller. I can easily do accurate AUTO focus with both of my Canons in live view, even with a 16-stop neutral density filter on the front of an already-slow lens. In other words, live view will correctly autofocus during mid day on the Canons with the equivalent of f/1,433 worth of light hitting the sensor... And also meter perfectly accurately up to that amount of ND.

 

[BlackPoet]

Don't see why the 3200 live view would be noisy when my 3100 is crystal clear. Perhaps you should take this up with your warranty..?

A side by side with Canon T3i though..I remember reading about Canon's display being more pixels per dot or however you phrase that....or is it the other war around? Nikon more than Canon? Anyhow..my live view is solid and the 3200 at the camera store looked great too.

 

[TheNevadanStig]

My D3200 looks pretty good through live. Maybe yours is just having an issue?