2 New Tools for me - D40 Nikon and 10 to 20 Sigma

I've expanded my artilary to include a beautiful little Nikon Camera and an ultrawide lens of very high standard.


I have been contemplating another s,mall compact DSLR as a backup and also to have a nice small light weight camera to take with me on trips, vacations and walk around stock photo outings. My D70s's have been really nice tools for this purpose but are long in the toothand in need of replacement. The introduction of the Nikon D40 (the D40x didn't appeal to me even though it has a higher pixel rating)  provided a very appealing camera to work with my investment of Nikon lenses - plus in some ways it is a big improvement on the D70 as far as viewfinder and large LCD screen are concerned.

There have been lots of  raves about certain aspects of this new camera - and a few negatives. It happens that the negatives have no effect on what I was looking for as I was used to some of these differences from using an Olympus E-500 as my main professional body for several months prior to my aquiring  my Nikon D200.

* The 18-55 kit lens (28-85 with 35mm film) that comes with the D40 provides great image quality, is very quite when focusing and pretty fast at getting to the accurate focus - and when it nails focus, it appears to me to be right on.
* The D40 body is wonderfully small, feels great in my hands and feels very sturdy just like every other Nikon I have had - as a matter of fact what is really appealing is that there is no learning curve as everything is very similar to me D70's and D200.
* It has a large, bright and accurate LCD screen which interestingly contains all of the information normally associated with the top LCD that is now absent but is on other Nikon cameras. This didn't bother me in the least as I was used to this from my E-500
* The viewfinder appears to be a little bigger and brighter than the "tunnel" view of my D70's. I like it and can even maual focus which I couldn't do with the D70.
* Believe it or not - it also has a much valued RGB Histogram which is a huge plus compared to the D70. You won't notice it at first, but it becomes available when pushing the "OK" button 3 times. This also puts you into a color correction area where you can change the color values of the histogram to come up with a different color balance (white balance) and then save this as a new image (without degradation) by clicking OK.
* Only 3 auto focus points don't bother me either as I was used to that with my E-500 and generally tend to only use the center sensor or one of the side ones for most of my shooting  anyway. I actually find the D200 very hard to use with its multiple points and awkward arrangement when mvoing from one to the other with the jog pad.
* Same great image sensor  and 6MP resolution as my D70's which I have many excellent quality very large enlargements from - it's all I need - - - and 6MP jpeg file sizes are so much easier to manage.
* Only accepts lenses with motors built in - which is fine as the standard lens is great and it works extremely well and fast with my other zooms like my 18-200VR  Nikkor. I got rid of the 50mm 1.4 that I so foolishly purchased last fall and have never used. My only other fixed focal length lens is an 85 1.8 which has been worn out and I just wasted $200 to have it rebuilt with the rsult of it being as noisy and lousy and inaccurate at focusing as it was when I sent it to Nikon a few months ago. I have a Nikkor 80-200 D 2.8 comming in later this week which should be more valuable to me and will even work well on my D40 if I choose.
* Auto ISO which I love and generally always have on for natural light - - - and also flash sync at 1/500'th second like the D70, which I loved for perfect fill flash outdoors


I was going to purchase an Olympus camera and lenses again - either the E-500 or the very interesting E-330 - because I really loved the one I had before and the image color and quality out of the camera was like nothing I've seen before.  The problem was that like before when I was using an E-500 and D70, I would have to haul duplicates of the lens ranges I use, around with me and that was a bit of a nuisance. The other thing that I wasn't as fussy about is trying to keep two different positionings of camera controls straight when shooting. In general this wasn't a massive issue - but it was at times when I was shooting quickly or in verylow light and couldn't find the buttons I was looking for. I am very pleased with my choice - - - except for the Nikon quality of image instead of the beautiful tone and color of the Olympus. The D40 almost feels the same in my hands as my E-500 did, but thankfully feels a little more familar as I am very at ease with Nikon's controls and menus.  My wife is grateful that I got it also because she hates handling my heavy D200 -and was never even really comfortable with my D70's with the bulkier lenses tha I had. This little package fits her perfectly and I'm sure she'll make far more use of it also.
 
This shot of the D40 (I haven't blacked out all of the Nikon Logos yet to put it in to stealth mode)  is taken with my D200 and new Sigma 10-20 in a dark kitchen, slow shutter and 1600ISO.