Nikon D40 ..........?

Question

What do you like/dislike about the Nikon D40? What would be the best lens for it and at what price? Is it worth buying the "kit" with 2 lenses or just the body with the 1 lense?

p.s. It would be my first dslr. I want one and it is the less expensive Nikon and probably better for starting out on. I had an old Nikon FM10 35mm, but am sick of using a relative's little Kodak point and shoot.

I am going to look at it in the morning since it will be Black Friday

BTW, i am pretty serious in photography, so it's not something ill get bored of in a month- i may want to do photography proffessionally eventually and want to start getting more into it

Answer 1

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EDWIN
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Maybe he'll see his name, because I have one comment for him and then I'll talk about the D40.

Popular Photography writer Michael McNamara has a piece about image stabilization on-line. The two schools of thought are to either put the image stabilization technology in the lens (as Nikon, Canon and Sigma do) or in the camera (as Pentax, Olympus, Samsung and Sony do). He says, "So far, lens-based IS has the lead, with one Nikon VR lens logging a 3- to 4-stop improvement (a few big tele zooms barely reached 2 stops). In contrast, the best result from a sensor-shift DSLR is 2 to 3 stops, with the average closer to 2 stops." Read the whole article here: http://www.popphoto.com/cameras/4615/image-stabilization-special-stop-the-shake.html There is a chart on page two that is a real eye-opener. Far and away the best at image stabilization is the Nikon 18-200 VR lens, which shows gains of 3-to-4 stops!

All I'm sayin' is that image stablization is a good thing no matter where you have it, but putting it in the longer lenses where you need it is not such a bad idea after all. One day, maybe sensor-based "IS" will catch up to lens-based "IS," but that day is not here yet.

Now about the camera. I agree that the Pentax line is worth a look. Pentax has finally jumped into the big pool for digital SLR's. The K100D is right in the ballpark with the D40 for price and it's a fine camera.

I'll counter with the answer to your question, which was specific for the D40.

You are probably looking at the kit with an 18-55 lens and a 55-200 lens. At B&H Photo, they are showing this setup for $569.95 after rebate. This means that you are only paying $90 for the 55-200 lens, which normally sells for $169.95. That's worth considering, but so is the 55-200 VR lens. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, it costs $60 more than the non-VR lens, but we own both of them and the VR version seems like a nicer lens - even if it didn't have VR. Popular Photography rated this lens as one fo the Top 25 Best Buys this year.

Hmm. You could buy the 2-lens kit for $569.95 or buy the basic 1-lens kit plus 55-200 VR lens for $709.90. That's not pocket change... Consider this. Buy the 2-lens kit "for now" and see how you feel about VR in 6-12 months. You are getting the 55-200 cheap enough that you could sell it on eBay and make out okay or you could even put it in a drawer for no reason. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/755244335/ for a real life demo about VR. The Pentax Edwin mentioned would probably give very similar performance to this example.

Now, on to the D40 itself. Here's one of my favorite stock answers.

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The Nikon D40 is a great little camera, very easy to use and quite reasonably priced. It's just under $500 with a lens. It has a few "consumer friendly" totally automatic modes that make it very easy to use - including a "Child Photo" mode - but still offers total photographic control when you are ready to take charge. It will get you in the Nikon family which is a great place to be. If you buy accessories and lenses, you will be able to use everything on any Nikon that you might upgrade to later on. The user manual is among the easiest to use, also, including three pages of "frequently asked questions" that could put Yahoo! Answers out of business.

Check out Nikon's "Picturetown" promotion, where they handed out 200 D40's in Georgetown, SC. http://www.stunningnikon.com/picturetown/

Here are a few reviews, in case you have not read them yet. Be sure to note that they are several pages long and some of the reviews also have some sample images that you can look at.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond40/
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_reviews/nikon_d40.html
http://www.popphoto.com/cameras/3756/camera-test-nikon-d40.html
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40/d40-recommendations.htm

I hate to see people slam the camera because it can't autofocus with older Nikon lenses. It is true that there is a "slight problem" with older Nikon lenses not autofocusing on the D40, but if you do not own a bag full of older lenses, it is not going to be a problem. It is barely a problem anyhow. If you check www.nikonusa.com for "AF-S" lenses, which are ALL 100% compatible with the D40, you will find 23 lenses, including 7 "VR" (vibration Reduction) lenses and one true macro lens with "VR". There are another 25-plus lenses in the current catalog that provide all functions except autofocus as well as many (possibly dozens) "out of print" lenses that will work just as well. In addition, although these lens will not autofocus, most of them will still give focus confirmation. From the D40 manual: "If the lens has a maximum aperture of f/5.6 of faster, the viewfinder focus indicator can be used to confirm whether the portion of the subject in the selected focus area is in focus. After positioning the subject in the active focus area, press the shutter release button halfway and rotate the lens focusing ring until the in-focus indicator is displayed." (See http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/nikonafs.txt for a list of AF-S lenses or see http://www.nikonians.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=read_count&om=16715&forum=DCForumID201 for even more...)

The D40 only has 3 autofocus zones arranged horizontally at the center, 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions. This might be considered a limitation, but realistically, most people will find this perfectly adequate, especially if you are moving up from a point and shoot with only a center zone.

There is no "Status LCD" on top of the camera, but Nikon chose to use the rear LCD for this information. This is actually a nice move, as the display is bigger than the top display and you aren't using the read LCD for anything BEFORE you take the picture anyway. This is not a step backwards and it actually makes sense to me.

You can get the D40 with the 18-55 kit lens at B&H Photo available through Yahoo! Shopping or at 1-800-622-4987) for $480 (November 2007). Add a Lexar Platinum (60X speed) card for $25 or 2 GB for $35. Or - get the D40 with 18-135 lens and 1 GB Lexar card for around $700. This is a decent lens and it is very versatile. You will find it suitable for pretty much anything you want to do, other than really long telephoto shots. It will let you explore the range of focal lengths to decide where to start filling in your lens collection. If you don't want to buy any more lenses, this one will carry you through pretty much everything. B&H also have used D40's with the lens from $419.

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Oh snap! I forgot I had written a comparison on the D40 vs. K100D, so here you go:

Nikon D40 vs. Pentax K100D

I was devoted to Pentax film cameras for most of my life. They have just started to come on strong in digital camera development, but Pentax has always been a concervative company, in my opinion.

Others make the point that you should choose a camera system by its lenses and this is definitely true. Both Pentax and Nikon have a full catalog of lenses to choose from, although fhotoace points out that it may be harder to find good used Pentax lenses. Finding used Nikon lenses will not be a great help for you if you buy the D40, as most will not autofocus with the camera. It requires the newest generation of lenses, the AF-S lenses for auto-focus. However, most of the older lenses will still work perfectly well in all other functions. Most will even give you focus confirmation as you focus manually.

The Pentax has built-in image stabilization, but as far as I can determine, it is only one mode. Nikon offers some "VR" lenses that have two modes of image stabilization to be used under different circumstances. I admit that this may still be an advantage for Pentax. Lens-based "VR" has been tested better than sensor-based "VR," though, so maybe Nikon is the winner in the end.

I have two stock answers that I will spare you reading, as the real decision here is how the camera feels in your hands. Since you have some camera experience, you will know what to look for. Go to a camera shop and ask to handle each camera. Ask how each one would be put into the different modes. They each have a mode dial, but once you are in shutter or aperture priority of manual mode, see what you have to do in order to actually adjust the shutter speed or aperture. Frankly, I'd like to see a few more buttons on either camera so you would not have to dive into the menu system to make changes, but I guess that's part of being "entry level."

From the spec sheets, it concerned me that the Pentax uses "AA" batteries. I didn't know that until now. True, you can use NiMH rechargeables, but dpreview said that they have gotten "many hundreds" of shots out of dispoable lithium CR-V3 batteries, so I guess that is not an issue.

For an SLR, this quote from the dpreview page also concerns me: " K100D is acceptably quick in most everyday respects but doesn't feel as snappy as you would expect from a modern digital SLR. The biggest disappointments would probably be the lack of instant startup, relatively sluggish record review and a virtually pointless continuous shooting mode (just four JPEG frames)."

My usual pitch is to say that the Pentax K100D is the cheapest digital SLR worth owning and the Nikon D40 is the one I would choose for myself. I would stand by that decision after some review on your behalf tonight.

Check out this comparison page. Click on "In-depth review" and "Read Owner Opinions" for each camera. Be sure to note that the reviews are many pages long so you don't stop after page one. Check the sample images, also. You can enlarge these to full size images if you click on the file name shown below the picture. You will have to then put your cursor in the white space to the right of the picture and click once. After that, you can pass your cursor over the image and it will turn into a magnifier. Click it as a magnifier once and the image will go to full size and you can really examine the detail or look for artifacts like purple fringing around items in high contrast photos or noise in darker areas of the picture.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=pentax_k100d%2Cnikon_d40&show=all

Fortunately, these cameras came out at about the same time and both reviews compare one camera to the other in many aspects. This will help you with your decision.

Answer 2

I started with the D40 and have now upgraded to the D80.

I think the D40 is an excellent entry level DSLR however there are a couple of shortfalls you should be aware of.

1) Its lowest ISO setting is 200 which can cause some issues with long exposure shots.
2) it has no bracketing facility.
3) the 6.2 mp sensor is good but could leave you wanting if you want to produce A3 or poster size images.

I would save ,my pennies and go for the D80.

Answer 3

IMO, the camera really worth looking at is one of the Pentax series - the K100D, K100D Super or the K10D. The K100's both have 6.1mp and the Super adds Dust Removal for the sensor. The K10 has 10mp and Dust Removal. The K10 is also designed for the new "DA" lenses Pentax is releasing.

What really makes them stand out, IMO, is the Image Stabilization (IS) in the camera body. Every lens you mount can take advantage of it - even lenses originally designed for the venerable Pentax K1000 35mm film camera. Yes, the older lenses require manual focusing but you sure have access to a lot of quality glass.

Cameras without IS in the body make you pay for it every time you buy an IS lens. To me this is like having to buy new tires every time you fill your car up with gas.

Just my thoughts.