Posted: 7/24/2007 10:08:59 AM EDT
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What are your opinions on the Nikon D40? My 15 year old daughter is thinkin about buying one with her summer job earnings... Here's a link to her photography blog. Her stuff so far is taken with a Kodak ezshare z650. Thanks, |
FYI if you have a Costco membership they have a VERY cool D40x (10mp) kit with 2 lenses, a bag and other stuff (including "how-to" DVDs) for under $1k. (It's not on their website, I just looked  )Edit: She's 15 and that far along? Good for her! My only suggestion is to get her working on better composing her shots (and/or cropping them better later) ... And to remember that gimmicks (like sepia tone) are no subsitute for good composition and contrast. Just MHO, of course, and those are SUGGESTIONS, because when she starts taking college-level photography courses, her work will take off, and she has a very good base to build on. |
Yes it is intended to be a replacement, for that price point. The D40 isn't a real replacement for the D50 in terms of function and capability. Don't get me wrong, the D40 is good, but I would get a used D50 or D70 before getting a D40 due to some of it's shortcomings. |
Ditto. I havent the clue why the hell Nikon decided to lose the internal focus motor for the D40(x). Then again I'm still trying to figure out WHY the hell they decided to go SD only on the D80 and why they lost the 1/8000 shutter speed the D70's had. |
Because with the D80 you have an extremely capable camera that professionals could use. It uses the same imager as one of their high-end cameras (D200? I can't remember which one offhand) in fact. I know at least one professional photographer that has a D80 as his backup camera. Uses the same lenses as his high end first-line camera, but cost half as much. |
My D70 can use the same lenses as a D2X (and the other high end ones). Hell it does something a D80 cant. Use the same memory cards as the high end D2X and friends. Sucks ass having to keep 2 types of memory cards when out shooting. There was no legit reason NOT to set the D40 up to allow use of ALL nikon lenses lik the other D** camera bodies. |
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The D80 is a great camera, and is an upgrade in many respects from the D70. It has a slower max shutter speed, and a slower flash sync, but on the other hand, it features a lot of upgrades as well. The sensor is the same as the D200, but reads the information from the sensor more slowly thus only giving you 3 FPS. The D80 takes all the lenses that the higher end cameras take, that I am aware of, as did the D70. I don't know what drove the switch to SD cards. It isn't like a DSLR like the D80 doesn't have room for the larger CF format. The D40 on the other hand is a step back in terms of a camera system. Yes, it is smaller and has a good meter and sensor, but it's lens compatibility is troublesome. Show me a good and inexpensive low light lens for the D40. The D50 could use the good 50mm f/1.8 which costs $100. For a newbie, on a limited budget, I would try to find a good used D50. |
They just want people to upgrade to the better D200 unfortunately. I had a pile of CF cards I could have used with my D80.
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Yeah it seems like they had 3 great cameras out all at once, and so they quickly had to rethink their product line. |
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I had a D50 and it was a great camera. I moved to a Canon 30D but would certainly recommend the D50 as a starter dSLR. One caveat; if she (ie: you  ) were to invest in lenses for future bodies I would go with Canon (like the Rebel series)eta: Oh, yeah, the above means that I would recommend against a D40 
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