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Another D40 vs D40x post...

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LOL......Don't even go there!....been there done that! Are you planning on getting a tripod?
 
Oh...and once you get the camera.......your going to need a bag for it. The question is......should I get a slingshot....backpack.....fannypack......daybag?
Let me know if you need some advice on this issue....LOL!
 
Seriously, this is getting to be too funny. I could stay on here all day long, but I have to leave now for I am on my way to buy a new 4x4 truck for my new camera. Seems I can't get to some of the areas I want to shoot at in the car.......question is......long bed, short bed, quad cab.........LOL!
 
Just to offer my answer to op's question, yes, I have D40, and no I haven't wished I had the 40X for any reason. MP's are over rated. My other most used dslr is a D1H (2.7 mp).
 
yes, thanks for making me laugh! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with these questions/problems! Needless to say, this is a nice "problem" to have.
 
RAL said:
Just to offer my answer to op's question, yes, I have D40, and no I
haven't wished I had the 40X for any reason. MP's are over rated. My
other most used dslr is a D1H (2.7 mp).
Click to expand...
Megapixels certainly aren't overrated. The D40x must be one of the most hated cameras around, it's only sin being that it has too many megapixels! People started posting about how noisy this camera was going to be before it was released. In reality you have to be an olympic class pixel peeper to see the difference in noise between the D40 and the D40x.

Some of my favourite pictures are small crops from a larger photos. I'm quite sure I wouldn't have been able to get the same images from lower res originals. So for me, the D40x is the right camera. I was willing to pay slightly more for slightly more pixels.

Of course, photography equipment enthusiasts will point out that I should compose my photos perfectly every time and I'll soon be wanting more lenses and I'll need at least two off camera flashes and I'll want to use faster flash sync (I looked up what that means - I still don't care:). And last but certainly not least, I should have bought a D80.

Either camera with a nice sharp (and cheap) lens, like the 18-135 makes a fine replacement for a P&S, with a few more creative possibilities. A novice shooter can take nice looking images that they will be happy with. Give them a D80 and they will be frustrated with the camera and the output. A D200 is even worse from this point of view.
 
RAL said:
Just to offer my answer to op's question, yes, I have D40, and no I
haven't wished I had the 40X for any reason. MP's are over rated. My
other most used dslr is a D1H (2.7 mp).
Click to expand...
Some reasons (I'll quote myself, sorry):

6 MP actually is just 2-3 MP because of Bayer interpolation. If you crop it a little bit (because of composition or just cropping soft edges) it would be not enough to fill my monitor.

If you want just as little but real and crispy resolution, like 3 MP, you need at least 10 MP sensor.

With D40x vs D40, you get
  • better IR filter
  • finer noise patterns
  • much better AWB engine (and/or better sensor color reproduction), the D40 has sad yellowish cast even in mode 3a. With wrong WB you need a lot of post processing with doubtful results.
  • much better DR, with D40x you get almost no highlight clipping in most cases.
  • almost no moire
I think, these are important diffs.
 
I made no statement about 10mp noise. I simply stated that I had no second thoughts about the 6 vs the 10mp sensor. Also note that I am perfectly happy with my 2.7 mp D1H. I have never printed larger than 12 x 16 with it or my 6 mp cameras either and those came out great. I guess I should have said that "as far as I am concerned mp's are over rated". As far as cropping, do the math, if you take a photo that covers 10 feet across the entire image and crop the image down to 1600 x 1200 pixels, starting with a 10mp sensor would leave you with an image covering 4.2 feet and starting with a 6 mp sensor would leave you with an image covering 5.3 feet. That works out to slightly over 6" on either side of the image. I don't really see that as significant extra cropping ability. We each choose what we want to choose and are happy with, that's what makes the world go round. I tend to believe that the quality of the 6 mp images is better than the 10, if you choose otherwise, I have no problem with that. The op asked if anyone who had D40 wished they had the 40X instead, I answered with my no.
 
RAL said:
The op asked if anyone who had D40 wished they had the 40X instead, I
answered with my no.
Click to expand...
Thanks Ral. Yes, all the "technical" advantages/feature of the D40/D40x being given are just marketing mumbo-jumbo to me. It reminds me of comparing computer CPU's. Sure 3Ghz is faster than a 1Ghz machine but if all you are doing is word processing, checking emails and surfing the web, who cares?

All I'm interested in is are there any D40 owners who OFTEN find their pictures are unacceptable after they have cropped them? As far as I can tell, the +4 MP is the only major difference between the two cameras, and based on my limited knowledge, this difference would really only be noticeable if you crop/enlarge by a large margin. And even then, based on what I've read, if the picture was not crystal sharp to begin with it wouldn't look sharp on a 10MP either. But, I don't own either camera much less a DSLR so I wanted to hear about the 'real world' experience of existing D40 owners.

Don't get me wrong, the information posted so far has been very helpful and I appreciate you taking the time to post your comments.

Thanks,
Jim
 
I would get the D40 if I were you.

I bought a D40 as my first DSLR and thought it would be great (which it was) but soon found that I was looking for different features like wireless flash control and decided I wanted to get some non AF-S lenses like the 50mm 1.8 and the Tokina 12-24 so I sold it and bought a D80.

I don't think that the extra 4mp would be that noticable 99%of the time. If you crop your photos to the extent that you do notice then I would suggest a longer lens is more use to you than a higher MP camera. The photo's I took with my D40 don't look any different to the photos taken with the D80. The D40 also has a faster flash sync (1/500s) than the D40x & D80.

You seem happy enough to live without the extra features of the D80 so I would seriously consider the D40 18-55mm & 55-200mm AF-s Vr combo. Personally I think VR is worth every penny and would look at spending a little extra to get this over the 18-135mm.

At the end of the day both cameras are pretty much the same. Since you are looking at spending about the same amount of money either way, decide if you will use the extra features of the D40x more than the extra reach of a longer lens on the D40 and go from there.

Good luck!

Phil
 
I just got a d40x a couple months ago myself and if I was to choose again I would still get the d40x over the d40. The increase in resolution is a good plus (for me anywase cus I like to make big prints) and the starting iso of 100 is nice vs. the d40 200 iso. However this is off subject relavitly speaking, but now if i were to choose again I would actually opt for a d200 because even tho I use to manually focus back in the day I would like to have more AF opps. from a larger variety of lens. So if money is not the real deciding factor and your not just looking for a supped up point and shoot I would spend a lil more and get something that goes the full 9 yards. Or even maybe a D80 -Joe
 
Allan Brown said:
Others say the 100 ISO is better. Well my 4 year old P&S has 80 ISO.
Does it give better photos than the D40? No. Also, for the very few
occasions where 100 ISO may be slightly better, you are more likely
to want the advantage at the high ISO range where the D40 is better.
I.E. the D40 is better at the high end than the D40x is at the low
end.

Allan
Click to expand...
Who's making this stuff up? It's a myth that the high ISO of the D40 is better than the 40X. This is straight from Imaging Resource:

"It's the Nikon D40x's excellent image quality that makes recommending this little digital SLR so easy. See the Exposure and Optics tabs for the detailed breakdown. I'm most impressed that they were able to improve on the D40's already stellar high ISO performance. "
--

 
I'm sorry stevef1961, but I can't see/understand how that Imaging Resource quote has anything to do with the "ISO myth" you are referring to. In any case I appreciate the link reference. Their reviews of the D40 and D40x are excellent. Very detailed and very easy to read.

I did see the following in their D40x review regarding ISO:

"Theoretically you might also get better noise control with the new sensor at ISO 100, but the D40's noise performance is so good that I can't see a difference, and can't imagine anyone else would."

Regarding the extra mega-pixels (for those trying to decide like me):

"If you're not going to be doing a lot of cropping or enlarging beyond 11x14, you won't notice much difference between the D40 and D40x except the average file size."

I don't quite follow the "dynamic range" stuff:

"...our tests do show that the D40x has greater dynamic range than any camera we've tested."

and...

"One other plus with the Nikon D40x that we found when we ran our Imatest "deep analysis," which we usually reserve for SLRs, is its quite superior dynamic range.... What does that mean for you? Well, it means you're more likely to get both the white wedding dress and black tuxedo exposed properly in the same shot; and if you don't, you're more likely to be able to recover some detail from these areas if you need to. Both shadow and highlight detail will be more rich and have more depth, where other cameras will just transition from gray to black in one or two steps."

They leave it up to the reader to decide if the "other cameras" include the D40. I don't see a reference to the Imatest deep analysis on the D40 review. They mention this in the same section as the mega-pixels. Is the dynamic range related to pixels?

Geez! Now you've got me going way off topic!! Sorry.
 
I bought the D40X and had it converted to an infrared-only camera. It has gotten one excellent review after another. If I were buying a Nikon for general photography, I would have gone with the D80 for the extra money. But for an infrared-only camera, the D40X was tough to beat. You will appreciate the 10 MP images if you need to cro photos and the D40X's image quality is as good as it gets. Go for the D40X and don't look back.
--
Best Regards,
Bob

'Get busy living, or get busy dying'
Andy Dufresne - Shawshank Redemption

Pittsburgh, PA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/innerdemon/
 
Which ever you go for, do have a close look at the 17-135mm lens befor you buy it. I popped my own card in a D80 with 17-135mm , took some shots in the shop doorway then examined them at home. Purple and green fringing with that lens was so prominent even my wife commented on it. I took some full res crop prints back to my friendly shop, and all he could say was "but the Nikon lens doesn't do that"!. But it does. The same test with the Nikon 17-70 was much better, but I eventually bought a Sigma 17-70mm lens, which I found to be ina a totally different league. The moral is simply that the lens you use may influence your satisfaction just as much as, or even more than the camera body you choose.
--
Ken from the UK
 
I had to do the same choice and finally, with the high and very good comments found on this forum, i bought a D40x with the 18-135 lens (many thanks to all responding on this forum)

After i took my first photos, i can say that it is very easy to get nice pictures without skills.

The original 18-135 lens from the kit looks perfect for me and very high quality. My be I go to buy a 70-300 VR in the futur.

About missing VR on the 18-135, this isn't a problem except when you need to use low speed.

Why 10M pixels ? I think it is a must because you'll have more possibility to crop and zoom into the photo with good quality.

Today, I can say that I made the right choice with the D40x + 18-135 lens kit.
 
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