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D60 or D40

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afewgoodshots

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I'm new to the SLR world. I take a lot of pictures at family gathering, or my bike ride or scenes. I miss a lot of shots due to lag, I have to tell someone to hold on a minute while my P & S get ready for the next shot, so I'm looking into a DSLR. I would like to take some action shots for basketball seasson as well. I'm considering the D40 or D60, if I were to get the D40 I would go with a good lense instead of the basic that comes with it and if I were to go with the D60, I would have the 18-55 VR lense. My understanding is that the D60 is a really a D40 with a few more bells and whistles?
 
afewgoodshots said:
My understanding is that the D60 is a really a D40 with a few more bells and whistles?
Click to expand...
You will find many who agree with this statement, myself included. So, I purchased a D40 from Cameta on EBay for $300. This is a factory demo but Cameta (highly respected round here) guarantees mint condition and my D40 was never used. Score! :-)

By spending only $300 on the wonderful D40, I had enough to buy the Nikon 18-200 to go with it. Sigma also sells a nice 18-200 for quite a bit less than Nikon.

Good luck with your decision.

Jeri

--
Don't worry about making a mistake - - as long as you learn from it.
 
Do yourself a favor....take some time to figure out what lens is required to shoot the various things that you are interested in. Then those lenses (and their cost) will let you make an intelligent decision about what camera you need or can afford.

For example, indoor basketball with the kit lens is likely to prove impossible unless you are shooting in gyms with TV quality lighting. There are normally two ways to shoot indoor action in the average high school gym:
  • Bright, prime lenses (50mm f1.4, 50mm 1.8, 85mm 1.4 being the most common) and high ISO setting
  • External flash
None of the Nikon primes I named will autofocus with either the D40 or the D60....so if this is the route you wanted to take, the D80 would be the minimum camera you should consider. (Or possibly Canon)

If you go with external flash, then the D40 would be a better choice than the D60 or D80 because it has a higher flash sync speed. (The D80 can sync at higher shutter speeds that the D60, but at a greatly reduced ranges.)

Unless you can afford to buy "everything", there is no perfect system. You have to piece a system together that does what you want....not necessarily what anyone else uses.
 
For basket ball you will probably need fast primes to freeze action, which leave you with no AF with most lenses mounted on a D40 or D60. Here a used D50 would be a much better choice.

If you still are chosing between the D40 and D60 I'd have to say that the D60 does not even have that many bells and whistles over the D40. It has a little faster burst rate (not enough to really make a real world difference IMO) and it has a higher pixel count.

IMO the D60 offers very little more than the D40, since the 6Mpix of the D40 is enough for 20x30" prints. If you want something more than the D40 you should look at the D80 (or a used D50 or D70) and not the D60.

If you buy the D40, by all means get a better lens than the kit lens. Not that the kit lens is bad in any way, really, but you need a faster aperture for what you are doing. A normal zoom like the Sigma 18-50/2.8 or Tamron 17-50/2.8 (both are available in versions with AF motor in it to be able to AF on the D40, AFAIK) might do the trick, but then, they are still a little more than one stop slower than the 50/1.8 or 85/1.8 and might not.
afewgoodshots said:
--
I'm new to the SLR world. I take a lot of pictures at family
gathering, or my bike ride or scenes. I miss a lot of shots due to
lag, I have to tell someone to hold on a minute while my P & S get
ready for the next shot, so I'm looking into a DSLR. I would like to
take some action shots for basketball seasson as well. I'm
considering the D40 or D60, if I were to get the D40 I would go with
a good lense instead of the basic that comes with it and if I were to
go with the D60, I would have the 18-55 VR lense. My understanding is
that the D60 is a really a D40 with a few more bells and whistles?
Click to expand...
 
If money is no subject, choose the D60. It is better in many ways. But there are a lot of discussions about this in this forum, and you'll notice that it is very difficult to convince a lot of people about this.
 
Haven't used the D40 but my D60 gets excellent pictures all the time. Has some extra feature that you may or may not need and personally I find them useful. Has not been out long but has good feedback from users. If you buy the D60 get the 2 kit combo, it will suffice you for awhile. I am very happy with my D60 chose it over the D40 when I was in the same position as you.Jerry
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Nikon D60 18-55vr & 55-200vr
SB400
Casio Z750
 
I originally bought the D40 and then tested it against the D60 while I could still return the D40 for a full credit. Below are 2 of crops of test shots taken with both cameras.

D60



D40



I opted for the D60 mainly because of the glowing review here at DPreview but in retrospect I should have stayed with the D40.

So IMHO the d40 with better glass is a good choice.
--
Leo P
 
Sorry they are close but the D60 Looks better to me
Leo Patrick said:
I originally bought the D40 and then tested it against the D60 while
I could still return the D40 for a full credit. Below are 2 of crops
of test shots taken with both cameras.

D60



D40



I opted for the D60 mainly because of the glowing review here at
DPreview but in retrospect I should have stayed with the D40.

So IMHO the d40 with better glass is a good choice.
--
Leo P
Click to expand...
 
Being that the D60 comes with the VR version of the 18-55 kit lens, it seems to be your all-around best (cost-effective) option for basketball.

If you could afford and wait for the D90, it'll have a lens with VR and better reach, with (hopefully) slightly less high ISO noise and compatibility with fast primes.

But the D90 won't be available for a while and will probably be twice as expensive as the D60, so just get the D60, learn it, enjoy it, and don't look back!

(ps- I own the D40 and like it very much, but I wouldn't like to shoot a basketball game with it, given the lenses I own).

--
Great are the works of the LORD; They are studied by all who delight in them.

-Psalm 111:2
 
QUINCYCAT said:
Being that the D60 comes with the VR version of the 18-55 kit lens,
it seems to be your all-around best (cost-effective) option for
basketball.
Click to expand...
VR won't help in the slightest for shooting basketball. For sports you need fast shutter speeds and hence fast glass, to freeze motion. Camera shake is not part of the equation.
 
Fine details are sharper and there is less chromatic aberration in the D40 image (look at the fine branches of the trees against the sky). Perhaps variations in kit lens quality?

 
The D40 is:

Quieter
Cheaper
Better resolution (notice I said "better," not "higher")

The D60 is:

Faster (barely)
Higher resolution
Self-cleaning (although this really isn't a problem for most people)

If the D40 means you can buy better glass then this is a no-brainer. There is nothing about the D60 that is so much better that it outweighs the benefit of a better lens.

I shoot a D300 and a D40. D40 + sigma 30/1.4 is a great around-the-house combo. D40 + 17-55 is great for most any non-sports indoor event.
 
Begea said:
If money is no subject, choose the D60. It is better in many ways.
But there are a lot of discussions about this in this forum, and
you'll notice that it is very difficult to convince a lot of people
about this.
Click to expand...
Perhaps because it's profoundly not true.

If you have very little money go for the D40 and better glass and never 2nd guess yourself, if you have a little more cash then go for the D80 a real bargain at the moment.

Remember the megapixel difference between D40 and D60 is marginal at best, but there is no substitute for better glass.

Do yourself a big favor and skip the underwhelming D60 and to quote Mr. T

"pity the fools" who bought into the megapixel myth and chose to pay more for less in the D60 over the clearly superior D40.
 
In an effort to help the OP make a decision I post a couple more comparisons below. I am pleased with my D60 but I said that I should have stayed with the D40 because I don't see a great deal of difference in image quality between the 2 cameras and if budget is an issue, I think the money saved would be better spent on better glass.

I also should state that I am thinking of upgrading to the D90 if the reviews convince me to do so and I would have been money ahead by staying with the D40. Enough said-here are the comparison shots. I don't recall which lenses were used.

First the d40



Same shot with D60



Another with D40



And the same with D60

 
Well, money is no problem for me, but I don't want a d80. I've got a D60 (now combined with the 16-85) and a D40 (now with the 70-300). Both camera's are not heavy, and easy to carry around. I tested both these camera's with both lenses, and I prefer the D60. And I don't choose that one because of the megapixels but because several other extra's. For example like active d-lighting, which is very good. Also, I like the colours more and the anti-dust functions works good. Also the matrix metering does a better job on the D60. I don't use primes, I don't care for bracketing (just check your histogram, and Im not in a hurry when I take photographs) or faster fps rate, so I don't need the D80. The functions I need most are behind the several knobs on the camera so I can change my settings very fast this way. Just be creative.

The D40 is very good, but the D60 is better..., and not because it has more MP's.
 
You will see that the D40 owners are very defensive about buying the cheap option while those who own, rather than have tried, both tend towards the D60. I find the benifits of the, in my case D40x over a D40 can only be seen with a steady hand, fast shutter and a VR lens.

I would suggest you look at a D60 with a Sigma 30mm F1.4, With the extra pixils you should be able to do some cropping and you get a very fast lens for indoor use, A good flash will also help if it's allowed.

Remenber that with SLR lens AND camera can be changed, often the camera is the lower cost bit. If you are going the SLR route then the make you get is important as you will want to stick with it so you upgrade bits as you need to!
--



Richard H
 
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