Nikon D40 Review: Digital Photography Review

Menus

	The D40's menus are of the new more sophisticated appearance we saw introduced with the D200 and also the D80. Navigation remains the same, the four-way controller and OK button. Another nice feature is the 'shadow' left behind when you move from the current setting to a new one, it's a useful reminder.

Menu color scheme

By default the camera menus have a light cream / brown color scheme, selecting the 'Classic' information display format (Setup > Info display format) switches to a more traditionally Nikon-like white text on a dark blue background.

Menu color with Graphic display format (default)	Menu color with Classic display format

Help

The D40 gets the same in-camera help facility we have seen on the D2X, D200 and D80. In menus the question mark icon (?) indicates that help is available for the currently selected item, just press the help button beside the LCD monitor to see a context sensitive help page.

Shooting Menu

The shooting menu defines most of the important / high-level parameters for the camera, these include image processing, image size, quality and noise reduction as well as white balance and ISO sensitivity. It's worth noting that image size/quality, white balance and ISO sensitivity can be set using the shortcut buttons beside the LCD monitor, without entering the menu.


Option	Values / Actions	Notes / Sub options
Optimize image	• Normal • Softer • Vivid • More vivid • Portrait • Black and white • Custom Done Image sharpening Auto Normal (0) Low (-2) Medium low (-1) Medium high (+1) High (+2) None Tone compensation Auto Normal (0) Less contrast (-2) Medium low (-1) Medium high (+1) More contrast (+2) Custom Color mode Ia (sRGB) II (Adobe RGB) IIIa (sRGB) Saturation Auto Normal (0) Moderate (-) Enhanced (+) Hue adjustment -9° to +9°	Select image parameters from one of the six presets or define your own custom set. Note that unlike the D80 you can not apply different color filters to B&W.
Image quality	• NEF (RAW) • JPEG fine • JPEG normal • JPEG basic • NEF (RAW) + JPEG basic	Select image quality. Frankly I'm not impressed that Nikon crippled RAW+JPEG by only providing a 'Basic' quality JPEG.
Image size	• Large • Medium • Small	- 3008 x 2000 / 6.0M - 2256 x 1496 / 3.3M - 1504 x 1000 / 1.5M
White balance	• Auto • Incandescent • Fluorescent • Direct sunlight • Flash • Cloudy • Shade • White bal. preset	- Menu to fine tune WB (-3 to +3) - " - " - " - " - " - " - Select / program preset WB
ISO	• Auto • 200 • 400 • 800 • 1600 • HI 1.0 (~ISO 3200)	- Auto / Vari-program modes only (Auto ISO is available in P, A, S and M modes but only by using custom setting 10)
Long exposure NR	• Off • On	Enables dark frame subtraction NR for exposures of 1/2 sec or longer.