Contents
Introduction
This a somewhat superficial review of my Nikon D40. I bought it because I was looking for a lightweight digital SLR for carrying everywhere ("just for the case"), and that was also easily attachable to my William Optics 66SD telescope (for astro or bird photography) without stressing the scope's focuser or creating any balance problems on the overall setup.
Features
Main relevant technical features of the Nikon D40:
- 6 megapixels, DX Format CCD
- ISO 200-3200
- Shutter 30s- 1/4000s + Bulb
- 3 AF points
- SD memory cards (supports SDHC)
- Li-Ion proprietary battery
- Size: 126x94x64mm
- Weight: 522g with battery
- Fully works with AF-S or AF-I lens (lens with built-in motor).
Other Nikon-mount lens also work, but without auto-focus and in same cases without auto-exposure
- Supports infrared remote shutter
The D40 has no mirror lock-up (except for sensor cleaning), but till now I had no problems with blurred pictures. The mirror appears to be very well dampened.
Camera does not have a depth-of-field preview function, and although I miss it sometimes, it is not problematic in the digital world because you can simply take the photo and verify the depth-of-field immediately.
There is also no automatic exposure bracketing function. I really would like to have this, so I could easily (and without touching the camera) take a sequence of varying exposure photos for creating high dynamic range pictures.
Ergonomics
Camera is solidly built, very light and sufficiently small to take everywhere in a small camera bag that wasn't even designed for SLRs.
The handling is very good, and very well balanced. The first time I tested one before buying, I was a little disappointed because I found the grip somewhat small for my large hands (indeed, I feel all cameras smaller than a Nikon D200 too small for my orangutan fingers). But I started naturally to held the camera in a slightly different way, and now it feels very comfortable to me. Regarding this point, I also tried the Canon 400D (horrible grip for me, I rejected it immediately), the Pentax K100D (nice, but I slightly prefer the D40), the Olympus E-400/E-410 (I like it but the chrome strap lugs are annoyingly positioned), and more recently, the Olympus E-510 (nice, but again I prefer my D40, because it feels more balanced).
There are no buttons for direct adjustment of parameters like ISO, White Balance, etc., although it does have one programmable button. Setting parameters through the menus is easy, but in certain situations I do feel the need for a quicker way to do it. Anyway, buttons feel very nice.
Viewfinder is very bright and sufficiently large (although much smaller than the one on the Nikon D200, not to mention my Nikon FM or Olympus OM-1). The 3 focus point brackets are easy to see and do not complicate the viewfinder. No gridlines available.
The D40 does not auto-focus with older motorless lens, but the viewfinder focus indicator is able to assist manual focusing with lens with f/5.6 or greater maximum apertures. This mechanism works fine with my f/5.9 telescope, even at low light.
The back LCD is very good, sufficiently good to judge the exposure and colors of the photos, and menus are very readable and easy no navigate.
Image Quality
Excellent technical image quality. Very good colors to my taste. Any current digital SLR has very good image quality, and in my opinion the most important difference in image quality between cameras (or between camera brands) is the color rendition. Regarding this point, go to pbase.com, search for photos for each camera you are considering buying, and see which one is generating photos with colors that better match your taste. I bought the D40 and not the Pentax K100D mainly because I prefer the Nikon colors. Other technical differences in the image quality produced by different cameras in the same class are mostly negligible.
Auto-exposure works generally well, but I have to correct it more times than I wanted (slight tendency to overexpose).
The 18-55mm ED GII AF-S kit lens
I found it to be optically very good. Sharp throughout the focal length range. Corner sharpness really better than I expected. Chromatic aberration is clearly visible in photos like branches against bright sky, but unnoticeable in the majority of my photos, so it's rarely a problem for me.
Main negative points in the 18-55mm lens: some flare and loss of contrast when photographing certain scenes with bright sunlit areas or against the sun (and no lens hood is provided), and front lens rotates when focusing, not practical for use with a polariser filter. Focus ring is also a little thin but usable.
The lens auto-focus is very silent, reasonably fast, and rarely (or never) misses. I use the camera mainly in single focus point mode.
I compared this lens with my Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 AI (from my Nikon FM). At 28mm, the kit lens produces similar center sharpness, better corner sharpness (I was surprised because the 28mm AI lens is full-frame), and better color rendition for my taste. One of the reasons I selected Nikon for my next camera was that I already had the 28mm f/3.5 AI and read that this lens was exceptional for use with DX-format digital Nikon SLRs. Now I just can't see any practical reason to use it. The 18-55mm is much more versatile, has silent auto-focus, and is even lighter (although longer) than the fixed 28mm.
Are 6 Megapixels sufficient?
In the majority of the situations I'll say yes, because:
- Any camera shake or slight focus problem easily brings the effective image resolution down to levels below 6 megapixels;
- You need a good lens to fully use 6 megapixels in a APS-sized sensor (and even with a good lens, you may need to stop it down and/or select its optimal focal length in the zoom range).
- Depending on your type of photography, there are several factors that may restrict you from making use of all available pixels: fast moving subjects (e.g. motor sports), heat waves while telephotographing in nature, atmospheric turbulence or telescope guiding problems in astrophotography, etc.
- Finally, 6 megapixels allow you to print very good A3-sized photos (16x12in or 40x30cm). You may naturally need or want higher resolution levels for your kind of photography, but then you probably would be looking for another class of camera.
Regarding the common argument that more pixels allow greater freedom to crop the images, that is undeniable, but for instance, a 10 megapixels image only allows you to crop it to 77% of its original dimensions before reaching the size of a 6 megapixels image, and so I do not find this crop freedom that great (it is less than a 1.3x zoom on the image).
Anyway, more pixels are good if you are able to make use of them and have no problems about the extra space and processing times needed for the larger files.
Remote Shutter Control (Tips)
The Nikon D40 allows the use of an infrared remote shutter controller, the Nikon ML-L3. There are several generic controllers selling on eBay, but you may try to use any programmable remote controller for TV/DVD. There is at least one Sony TV model whose Power ON/OFF infrared signal also fires the D40's (and other Nikon SLRs) shutter. Probably your already have a VCR/DVD remote controller that allows being programmed to control a TV, so try it.
Using the remote controller and setting the camera to fully manual exposure control, you can make a Timed shutter release (mode T or Time in some cameras) for long exposures: press button once to start exposure, press again to finish. Do not operate remote controller in the field of view of the lens, because the CCD will record the infrared light.
Conclusion
The D40 does very well what it was meant to do. It does not do what it was not built to do, so just check the features to see if the things missing are important you.
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