Nikon D40

Looks like every camera manufacturer is going out of his way to make an entry level digital SLR camera that will seem less threatening to new users, just to initiate more people into the world of pro-level photography. Because one thing’s for sure—once you’ve used an SLR, there’s no going back.

The 6.1 megapixel Nikon D40 has the same processing engine as the higher end models (D80, D200), but there have been cuts in other departments. We will look into all that and its performance a little later, as first we’re going to look at what’s up with the build quality on this one.

Build
The first thing you’ll notice about the D40 is how light it is. At 522 grams, it’s practically weightless for anyone who’s been using digital SLRs on a regular basis. Even with the 18-55mm lens, the D40 is the most compact D-SLR that Nikon has ever produced.

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Besides the weight, the camera looks a bit minimalistic with just a few buttons provided for all the basic functionality. The small-sized body of the D40 makes it a bit uncomfortable to hold in fully grown hands, especially when compared to other budget SLRs. My little finger was constantly running out of grip space while holding the camera to take a picture.

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The 2.5 inch display is very neat and informative as it also doubles up with the status and attribute display screen. It’s nice, to have a nice and bright screen showing you all the camera settings, but it’s very interfering to have that glowing screen down there when you hold the camera up to your face to shoot a picture. Removing the LCD display on top did reduce the overall size and weight of the camera, but it was essential.

Another thing they cut down on the D40 is a second jog dial dedicated to adjusting the aperture size. This one’s purely a matter of preference, but any Nikon user moving on to this camera will definitely miss the ease that a second jog provides. Still, luckily, the controls are easy to understand in this one and it won’t take much time for a veteran photographer to get used to it.

To the delight of casual users, the D40 uses a Li-Ion battery, which keeps the weight of the camera in check while providing enough juice for it to shoot hundreds of pictures on a single charge.

Features
While most cameras releasing these days include the CCD vibration technology for dust removal, Nikon has kept that gimmicky but essential feature out of the D40. I wouldn’t try changing the lens at dusty places if I were you. Also the autofocus as been cut short to 3 area TTL as compared to the 5 area TTL in the D50.

New to the D40 are the in-camera retouching features for red-eye reduction, cropping, image overlay, monochrome and other such features.

The camera supports sensitivity levels from ISO 200 to ISO 1600 along with a HI 1 level equivalent to an impressive ISO 3200. There’s no optical image stabilization built into the camera body. It’s weird that Nikon didn’t include a feature as important as that in a starter-level camera.

On a brighter note, the camera does have some user friendly shooting modes like Auto, No-flash, Portrait, Landscape, Child, Sports, Macro and Night Portrait. These modes should help make the camera friendlier for users upgrading from a consumer camera.
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Performance
In terms of basic performance, the Nikon D40 delivered. Considering the camera’s limitation of 6.1 megapixels the images were adequately sharp.

Colors however were top notch. The image sensor got the right amount of depth in the dark areas and always kept the images looking natural.

The scene modes worked pretty well when set for the right scenario. The shot below was taken in portrait mode, and as you can see, the camera kept the focus on the main subject while blurring the objects in the foreground and the background.

High sensitivity shots like the one below (taken at ISO 1600) were not too hot though.

When it came to speed, the camera started up and shut down in less than a second, and shot at 2.6 frames per second in burst mode.

Conclusion
Though the guys at Nikon gave us an MRP of 40,999 on the D40, we got an average street price of under Rs. 30,000. At a price like that the Nikon D40 is definitely a steal. Sure the features are not that hot when compared to other budget D-SLRs out there, but at its price it’s all justified.

I would highly recommend this one to photography students who are strapped for cash in their first D-SLR, and for those who want to move on to SLR cameras but without spending a bomb on it.