How funny, That's the reason I decided to take digital photo instead of film. And it's a wonderful camera. You'll see that you have the sharpest, best photos in the class because most other students have cheaper regular digital cameras.

yes i am a junior in high school and i love this camera it is a great all around camera and is very easy to use even in manual mode. i would recommend it to anybody

In my opinion, this is a great camera for a beginner or experienced photographer. I have been using the D3000 for over a year and I really like it.

i'd rather recommend a d3100. similar price (albeit a bit higher), much more modern and will serve the kid for a longer run than a d3000. but if price is the sensitive point, try to get hold of a used d40 with a comfortably low number of exposures (~10000).

Viewfinder required for this model.

This camera doesn't have a live view. You will need to use the viewfinder.

To put it simply, consider a pixel as a "dot". So the more pixels, the more "dots" there are to make up a photograph. However, you also must consider viewing distance. As an example, you would not want to view a billboard from one foot away. The best viewing distance for a billboard is from 20-30 feet or more. For most photographers a 6MP camera is more than enough. The D3000 is a great camera for a beginner or advanced photographer. At 10MP, this camera will take excellent photographs. The attached photos where taken in RAW (Nikons Native format) with a D3000 and converted to low resolution jpg for uploading (Nikon has a file size limit). Original images are 10MB each, converted jpg's are 1.5MB.