i was thinking of buying a camera for the nikon d40.. or d40x ... before i had a canon rebel xt and i did not like that.. i was in the store and some guy showed me the d40 which i wanted before...

what do you guys think

i am just new to dslr and just wanting to learn.. nothing professional

If the canon 40D is in your price range, check that out, shipping in early September. if you like the canon 30D, it should drop in price .

Nikon is supposed to be announcing something or other in the next day or 2, that might drive down the price of the nikon d40/x.

Canon just announced the 40D which is too much to drop on a body, especially if you're just starting. The massive price difference could buy you a few lenses for a D40.

Nikon announced the D3 (Full Frame Pro Camera), cross that off your list, and the D300 which is in the same ballpark as the Canon 40D.

The D40 is a great body to start with, its incredibly small and light...takes great pictures, and the 18-55 kit lens that's bundled with it is excellent (far better than Canon's kit lens)

The D40x is a higher resolution version with the CCD sensor lifted from the D80. Unless you're making 40"+ prints, I wouldn't bother. It's a few hundred dollars more in cost to gain a bit more resolution. What you lose is high ISO image quality (aka more noise in low light). Definentaly not worth it. I'm still using my 2.5 year old D50 body with the same sensor as the D40 and I make 8X12 prints all the time, and sometimes larger if I take them to a lab. 6.1MP is just fine for that.

My only gripe with the D40 is that it only has 3 Auto Focus zones, which means if youre photographing sports or a lot of kids running around at the same time in the field of view, you may have a rough time focusing. Basically, the more expensive of a camera you get, you start getting more features like AF zones and the like. The D40 is also only compatible with the Nikon AF-S series lenses, which means a some of the neat lenses they make (like the $120 50mm f/1.8D) won't focus automatically. The camera will still meter, but youll have to do the focusing on your own. Most of the Nikon zoom lenses like the 18-55, 18-200, 55-200, 70-300, etc are AF-S lenses, so unless youre planning on getting exotic super wides, fisheyes, or primes, I wouldn't worry about it all that much.

Overall the camera is great, I'd probably choose it over the Rebel XTi as well. The Rebel isn't exactly in the same class, it slots in somewhere between the Nikon D40 and Nikon D80, but doesn't really match any Nikon model directly, the D40x was made to be somewhat of a competition for that higher resolution, entry level segment...but for about $100 more, you can get the XTi which is technically better than the D40x. Besides, none of the rebels have Auto ISO like the Nikon's do. What's up with that?

Anyways I'll stop babbling, go to Best Buy and play with them...see which handles the best for you

And check out www.kenrockwell.com for some good reviews about things other than test charts :x

I personaly prefer Nikon than Canon products. I personaly picked a D40x which I compared to an XTI. On the paper the XTI wins : usage the D40x is so much better. Picture qa is going to be the same as it really depends on the lens/filters.

Actually talking about lens, pick a Nikon 18-200 VR ; Cannon doesn't have anything like this and it's a jewel !

Awesome camera. I bought the D40+18-55mm lens kit last wednesday and I totally love it.

I also gotten hold of the Nikon camera Control pro software for both windows and mac. I dusted off my repro-stand and I now have a 460 euro photographic 6Mpixel scanner as well. That software is really fun. You can completely control the camera from your computer apart from the particular shooting mode/varimode program. You set the shutter-speed, ISO, AF-mode, exposure mode and then shoot the picture from the computer. It gets immediatly and automatically transfered to the computer as well. Very nice software.

I did have trouble installing the Nikon camera control software on my hackintosh at first (it kept giving me stack errors) but today I tried again and it strangely installed :-?

The camera is simply fantastic. And that kit-lens has an amazing macro. I totally love it. I used to have an Eos 620 SLR film camera before and also had several compact superzoom digicams (the most notably the HP850 and Kyocera M410R). I was considering the Fuji S9600/6500 or the Canon S5 IS until I saw Nikon's Cash back offer. A quick calculation revealed that this D40 comes out cheaper than the Canon S5. In fact I discovered that (to remain with Canon) the Canon Powershot G7 shoots much better photos that the S5 (at lowest ISO). Anything higher than the lowest ISO on both the Canon S5 and G7 turn for the worst while the D40 shoots marvelous photo's even at ISO800. To compare current prices in my region: The 6x Zoom-rangefinder G7 cost 550 euro while the 12x zoom Canon S5 costs "only" 499 euro. I paid 460 euro for the Nikon D40-kit including 2GB SD-card and minus the cash-back.

Ofcourse with a dSLR you'd ditch viewfinder-photograpy, recording videoclips and more importantly the super-mega zoom of Compact digicams in that price range. But you get an Amazing wide-angle and macro lens, great manual focus (really needed in some circumstances), High ISO photograpy and that unbeatable instant-on approach that is so typical for dSLR's.

Ofcourse there is also a Cash-back offer from Canon at the moment. You get 80 euro's cash back with the Canon 400D. Where I bought the D40 the Canon 400D costs 669 euro's with 18-55mm kitlens without memory card and minus the cash-back. This is still 200 euro's more (+40% expensive) than the D40-kit.

As a novice moving up from compact digicams to dSLRs you can't beat the Nikon D40.

The things that I find very good on the D40 are summed up below:

-Fast Flash X-Sync is 1/500 sec (Yes, even with the build in flash)
-ISO3200 (Not that you'd "need" it but its nice to know that you have the extra option)
-compared to the 400D the Nikon D40 feels very well build and very solid IMHO. Though it's also a full plastic camera.
-the kit lens included is/feels/apears much better then the Canon 18-55mm kitlens. You won't be buying another lens very soon with the D40-kit. Did I mention is has a GREAT macro-setting. ;-)
-The user interface is soooo easy. You just can' believe why nobody else has made something like this before even on compact digicams.
-1/4000 shutter speed. That is really cool. Not many compacts can actually achieve this.
-AF assist lamp that doesn't NOT need the flash (or have the flash activated).
-fast USB transfer. You have no idea how slow the Canon 400D is in this aspect untill you sent over a few hundred pics. It's astonishing how fast the Nikon D40 is. Both in PTP/WIA and disk-mode which the Canon 350D/400D lacks. BTW, the camera must be in PTP-mode if you want to use Camera Control pro.
-oh.. also (this can be very important for macro shots) the D40 has Spot-metering which the 350D/400D lack.

Sure you "only" get 3 AF points. In some cases you'd be glad to have less AF-points. In fact I learned to shoot with only one AF-point (my old-skool EOS only had one AF-point). So I didn't mind at all. At least you'll learn to use AF/EA-lock which is an important step in photography.

What i don't like is this.

I've only have this camera for a few days and yesterday I noticed that I already have dust on the ccd-sensor. I'll get sensor-swaps tomorrow and see how that goes. This is very weird since I only used the camera inside mostly and only played with it ouside on sunday for a few hours. The lens hasn't come off since I only have this lens. So I must have gotten this dust on Sunday inbetween the few hours that I used the camera outside.

Nonetheless I've been using the camera even with the dust on the ccd today and the pics still come out great.

Also if you want to benefit from Nikon's Cash-back offer then hurry up because the cash back offer ends on August 31st. The same is true for Canon's cash-back offer.

Cheers,

EPDM

Does anybody know D40 has the same long life battery as D80?

I own a D40 and I do around 1200 shots with a charge. That value drops if I use flash somewhere around 700-800.

I prefer canon products. I am a photographer and have used both. the quality of the cameras are just better. Any SLR by canon is the was to go. I have a 10d and a 5d. They are great and easy to use. Industry standard is canon as well. Nikon are used but are not as prevelant. If in doubt, follow the professionals.

I would suggest the D60 or the D80. The D80 is cheap now.