Review of my first experiences with Nikon D5200

A year ago I purchased the Nikon D3100 to upgrade from the D40.  Nikon really nailed some great things with the D3100.  
I also felt that they failed me in one area, but I was able to work around that aspect.  I didn't like the remote set up they had for the D3100.

I work around it by using the self timer which is set to 10 seconds.  My Olympus camera has some better choices at self timing.  12, 10, and 2 seconds.

I kept eyeing the new D5200 with the tilt swivel screen. 

 
I think Canon was the first to come out with this.
After spending many years of twisting myself into a pretzel to get some ground shots, or low level shots, I decided that I would like to add the tilt screen plus the new features that where offered by Nikon's D5200.

dpreview did a nice in depth review of this camera.  So why did I stay with the dark side?  Simple.  I have the kit lenses, I have a 50mm prime lens, and now the 40mm Nikkor lens.
I've become loyal to Nikon.

Out of the box, this Nikon did well.  The first shot I tried was on Auto.  One of the things I like to do is work my way through all the menus on the camera one at a time.

Today I put the camera on the 'child' symbol and basically pointed it at the dog.  The flash popped up and the AF found the dogs eyes and nose.  Did I say that I had the Micro 40mm lens on also?  Not the right choice for the shot, but hey ... I like doing things my way.

I've used it on Manual also for some low light shots of Christmas presents.  I haven't used 'Vivid' for color~~the colors do not seem to need enhancement with this camera.

Example from the previous post:

I love the choices in the ISO menus!  I like that I can now auto bracket shots too.  There is an HDR choice but I haven't used that yet.
There is a scene menu which I'd have to try out.  The only one I see that is really could be quite useful would be the sunset and dusk/dawn menu for quickly getting sunrise shots instead of fumbling around as I sometimes do to get a proper exposure.

I'm used to the Nikon D40 menu buttons and the D3100 buttons.  With those I was fairly fast at being able to change items like the ISO, Aperature, and Shutter speeds.  
The design on the back of the D5200 will take some real getting used to.

Just more hands on in different situations.  I probably won't do much with the video portion of the camera.  Video is not that important to me.

However there is an option to do interval time lapse photography.  
In fact every time I look in the basic 'start up' book it seems I find something else that this camera does.

The potential for this camera is fantastic.  
I can't wait to get out and put it through some real tests.

I will probably make use of the Live View when doing those shots that require me to lay on the ground upside down.

Like I had to for this shot...

The AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G lens

It came on Monday late in the afternoon ... after the town truck dribbled sand on the 'brown' ice. 

So I gleefully attached it to my Nikon D3100 and decided to take some test shots inside the house with Morris as my model.

What I've learned from this, is that I need to move around for the best shots.  I can't just zoom in and forget it.

This shot was taken with a flash [dark in the house].  But it clearly gives me a fairly crisp shot of Morris's face and gives me a nice 'bokeh' for the rest of the photo.

In the above shot, I wanted more items in focus.  I simply moved back and focused on the dog.  I read the f stop ~~ f5, which gave me a slightly larger field of focus.
The first shot was done at f1.8, so you can see the change in the depth of focus.

Next test was outside.  How would it do?  Since it is labeled by some as a great portrait lens, I wanted to try it out and see what it would do...

So I set the f stop to 5.6 and got this of the road:

 The image looks nice and crisp to me.

Next Morris and Dixie started to play and run along side the road.
I put the camera in program mode and pointed and shot quickly hoping to get something I could use.

The camera chose f 6.3 and I got this photo.

These shots were done in RAW format, edited in CorelAfterShot Pro [30 day trail] and I used Topaz Adjust 5 to enhance the shot of the dogs for just a bit of exaggerated detail.

I'm pretty sure this lens is going to serve me well.  I need to practice of course to see what its limitations are.
But I'm thinking that this lens could prove to be a handy one to have when photographing wildflowers in the woods and fungi.

It is a fast lens.