Nikon D40

Whatever anyone might say to counter it, Nikon is the world’s foremost imaging company, with very few being able to match its versatility and dedication to quality. For ages it has come up with quality lenses, flash units, camera bodies and other imaging equipments, and standards which other companies are looking forward to matching now. The only thing many people complained about as far as Nikon was concerned, was that Nikon and the word affordable were never (or could never be) used together. Even that changed in 2006, when Nikon came out with its first ever affordable entry level DSLR, the D40. This is a 6.1mp DSLR, which also happens to be Nikon’s smallest in terms of DSLR.

Nikon D40’s all-plastic construction makes it very light, especially if you have used a more expensive DSLR. The same is true of the supplied 18-55mm kit lens, which again is made entirely of plastic. The camera is generally well-made and designed. The Nikon D40 follows conventional DSLR design in having a shooting mode dial on the top of the camera, which allows the user to select either one of the advanced mode like Aperture-priority, or 7 scene modes. The menu system of the D40 is very clear and easy to use. There are 4 main menu options, Playback, Shooting, Custom Setting Menu, Setup and Retouch, represented by both icons and text. The various options in each of the 4 menus are clearly displayed in a large font size, and cleverly the current setting for each one is shown to the right as an icon. At less than 500gs without battery, the beautifully styled and compact D40 makes high-performance digital SLR photography easier and more convenient than ever. The large 2.5-inch LCD monitor enables image preview at up to 19 times magnification and has large type fonts and easy-to-view menus as well as three all-new display options: classic, graphic and wallpaper. The D40's image optimize setting lets photographers adjust color, contrast and sharpening as well as other image settings according to the type of scene or output desired. Settings include: normal, softer, vivid, more vivid, portrait, custom and black and white. Highly versatile in-camera editing features include: Nikon D-lighting, red-eye correction, image trimming, image overlay, monochrome black and white, sepia and cyanotype along with skylight, warm tone and custom color filter effects. This camera is compatible with SD/SDHC cards.