Nikon D40 Review
The Nikon D40 is an all new affordable, compact, point-and-shoot digital SLR from Nikon, it follows on from the d50 but at a significantly lower price point and with a subtly different feature set. The biggest news however is probably fact that Nikon resisted the temptation to keep chasing megapixels (hooray for that) and instead appear to have concentrated on what makes a good camera, a decent viewfinder, short shutter lag, very short viewfinder blackout. They’ve trimmed some of the ‘less important features’ (you can not change the exposure steps for example) but have squeezed a range of new features such as custom Auto ISO which we welcomed with the dslr D80.
Auto Focus only for AF-S or AF-I lenses
Perhaps the biggest negative on the D40 is that it does not have an internal focus drive motor and hence no mechanical drive pin focus, instead it only has contacts CPU which means it can only Auto Focus with AF-S and AF-I lenses ( those with built-in focus motors). Indeed our ’standard’ the lens Nikkor 50 mm F1.8D (and the F1.4D) are manual focus only on the D40. The images below show the difference between the mount on the D40 and D80, the D80 has a focus mechanical drive pin at about the 7 o’clock position.
Nikon’s choice of “compromises” with the D40 are switching to a new three area AF sensor (although it seems to be just as fast), removing some of the flexibility (you can not change the CW average area, exposure steps are fixed at 1 / 3 EV and there’s no bracketing) and removing the status LCD (although this has more to do with making the camera smaller than saving money). What the D40 shares with the D50 are some of the important things, the six megapixel sensor, the 420 pixel metering sensor (also used on the D80), the more ‘consumer like’ default IIIa color mode and 2.5 frames per second continuous shooting ( although now unlimited in JPEG mode). To get more info about nikon cameras just visit http://photography-fun.com
- No related posts
Posted in Shopping | No Comments »