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Nikon D40 vs. Pentax K10D ... FIGHT!

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Richard Murdey

Richard Murdey

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I was looking at the dSLRs at Map Camera (Tokyo) and for the price the D40 sells for used (27,500 yen) I discovered that I could buy a used K10D (28,000 yen)!

Much as I like my D40, I was intrigued to know what grass on the other side of the fence was like... and decided to do a metaphorical trade... i.e. I kept my D40 but bought the K10 :-)

But if Mephistopheles came up and offered to do the deal, what would you do? Would you switch your D40 for a K10 from the big P?
 
Part of the fun in photography (for me) is trying new equipment. I have olympus, pentax, panasonic and nikon SLR cameras and each of them bring a new capability.

K10D - Weatherproof, excellent build quality, great Shake-Reduction, excellent pentax primes. You can also adjust focus for a single lens. However it has a sucky but accurate indoor AF performance, flash metering, Noisy above 800 ISO and questionable JPG processing engine. Pentax colors are also more pleasing to me than Nikon colors.

I would try it definitely for variety if nothing else.
 
Personal opinion so if you do not agree that is OK.

For reasons you might not find important: I agree with Vetran35th's post some but not all of them are listed below.

1. Company = Nikon
2. Company history = Nikon
3. Body Selection [rather than replacing them every couple years] = Nikon
4. Lens selection = Nikon
5. flash quality and selection = Nikon
6. Accessory selection = Nikon
7. This may seem nasty but long term dependablilty has to go with = Nikon

Even if the Pentax beats the D40 All future considerations appear go to Nikon except maybe initial cost. And true we do not know the future and theere is no such thing as a sure thing to me Nikon seems a better bet to me.

--
Ray
RJNedimyer
 
Sorry #3 was susposed to read:

3. Body Selection [rather than replacing lenses every couple yearswhen you purchase a new body] = Nikon
RJNedimyer said:
Personal opinion so if you do not agree that is OK.

For reasons you might not find important: I agree with Vetran35th's post some but not all of them are listed below.

1. Company = Nikon
2. Company history = Nikon
3. Body Selection [rather than replacing them every couple years] = Nikon
4. Lens selection = Nikon
5. flash quality and selection = Nikon
6. Accessory selection = Nikon
7. This may seem nasty but long term dependablilty has to go with = Nikon

Even if the Pentax beats the D40 All future considerations appear go to Nikon except maybe initial cost. And true we do not know the future and theere is no such thing as a sure thing to me Nikon seems a better bet to me.

--
Ray
RJNedimyer
Click to expand...
--
Ray
RJNedimyer
 
petiteface said:
K10D - Weatherproof, excellent build quality, great Shake-Reduction, excellent pentax primes. You can also adjust focus for a single lens. However it has a sucky but accurate indoor AF performance, flash metering, Noisy above 800 ISO and questionable JPG processing engine. Pentax colors are also more pleasing to me than Nikon colors.
Click to expand...
That's a reasonably accurate summary, though it misses the biggie: D40 has a 0.8x pentamirror, the K10D has a 0.95x pentaprism. The numbers don't really give a good feel for how much a big deal this is in practice. The front control wheel and the top LCD are the two other main reasons to pick the K10D in my opinion, as a body --neglecting the lens situation for the moment, I'll get to that in another post.

The biggest downside is the loss of 1 step sensitivity, i.e. noise at ISO800 is broadly similar to ISO1600 on the D40.

The JPEG engine got picked on in the reviews, but it just seems to me that this is because the default "natural" is the setting explicitly for post processing. The "bright" setting seems to give pretty decent output out of the box, and although I use RAW most of the time I plan to do some direct comparisons of in-camera JPEGs to examine this point.
 
RJNedimyer said:
3. 3. Body Selection [rather than replacing lenses every couple years when you purchase a new body] = Nikon
Click to expand...
D40: no autofocus on AF, no metering on Ai and earlier...

K10D: stop down metering on all K-mount, open aperture metering from SMC-A, autofocus on all FA and DA lenses....

http://www.mosphotos.com/PentaxLensCompatibility.html
RJNedimyer said:
4. Lens selection = Nikon
Click to expand...
This is where I happen to think you are dead wrong. In terms of fully functioning lenses available for the D40 and K10D, the K10D has a great selection of "enthusiast" lenses (the "limited" range) at reasonable prices pitched to a market that Nikon does not bother to cater to. Nikon has very good, very expensive professional zooms and poor consumer grade zooms but very little in the middle.

It's actually lens envy that got me leaning towards Pentax in the first place... check out the Limited lenses and see if you don't get a little green, just a little bit...

http://www.pentaximaging.com/camera-lenses/#DALimited20090216135719
RJNedimyer said:
7. This may seem nasty but long term dependablilty has to go with = Nikon
Click to expand...
I strongly suspect the D40 will die before the K10d but surely both are perfectly reliable and rugged little tools.
 
RJNedimyer said:
Personal opinion so if you do not agree that is OK.

For reasons you might not find important: I agree with Vetran35th's post some but not all of them are listed below.

1. Company = Nikon
Click to expand...
Boring.
RJNedimyer said:
2. Company history = Nikon
Click to expand...
LOL, so who made the first AF camera. who made the first pentaprism camera.
RJNedimyer said:
3. Body Selection [rather than replacing them every couple years] = Nikon
Click to expand...
Wow that great D40 body really is the nuts compared to the weather sealed Pentax.

Don't forget that you could upgrade to the mega different and in no way similar to each other D40x or D60. oh wait. most low end Nikons are just slight alterations re-badged.
RJNedimyer said:
4. Lens selection = Nikon
Click to expand...
does that include the Nikon Tax and incompatibility?
RJNedimyer said:
5. flash quality and selection = Nikon
Click to expand...
well. no argument. But I do use Metz flashes that are up to par.
RJNedimyer said:
6. Accessory selection = Nikon
Click to expand...
what accessories do you own?
RJNedimyer said:
7. This may seem nasty but long term dependablilty has to go with = Nikon
Click to expand...
Hmmmm I wouldn't depend on your spelling of the word.
RJNedimyer said:
Even if the Pentax beats the D40 All future considerations appear go to Nikon except maybe initial cost. And true we do not know the future and theere is no such thing as a sure thing to me Nikon seems a better bet to me.
Click to expand...
I think you are confusing the pro grade Nikon with the consumer POC/POS that is Nikon. whats the point of getting a low grade D40 for its price with the prospect of buying into the high end stuff now? When you could have a fully featured body now?

You seem to think that all those accessories and high end lenses work well with the D40. Wow are they unbalanced!!!.

Most people who are looking at the D40 are not really interested in the 400mm lenses or the SB-900.
Its people like you that keep a great product like the K10D down.

Sure the K10D is full of flaws, and I would urge the OP to go for the K20D if he had the option. But its also a great camera in many respects a photographers camera...... not a low grade gadget.
 
If Mephistopheles came up to me I would splash him with holy water and then convert to Catholicism.

If I had a D40 and only one or two cheap lenses, sure why not? If I was as invested in Nikon as I am now, not a chance. I figure if you plan on growing in photography it is best to pick a manufacturer and stick with it, unless you want to add much expense and reduce the flexibility of what you carry.
Richard Murdey said:
I was looking at the dSLRs at Map Camera (Tokyo) and for the price the D40 sells for used (27,500 yen) I discovered that I could buy a used K10D (28,000 yen)!

Much as I like my D40, I was intrigued to know what grass on the other side of the fence was like... and decided to do a metaphorical trade... i.e. I kept my D40 but bought the K10 :-)

But if Mephistopheles came up and offered to do the deal, what would you do? Would you switch your D40 for a K10 from the big P?
Click to expand...
 
If the deal was good enough I'd buy it... BUT there is no chance I'd trade my Nikon bodies for it. Brand loyalty doesn't make any sense to me. I'll buy the tools I need regardless of the MFG. Right now I'm drooling over the EP1.

--
Some of my stuff here...
http://www.modelmayhem.com/11581
 
steelski said:
RJNedimyer said:
Personal opinion so if you do not agree that is OK.

For reasons you might not find important: I agree with Vetran35th's post some but not all of them are listed below.

1. Company = Nikon
Click to expand...
Boring.
steelski said:
2. Company history = Nikon
Click to expand...
LOL, so who made the first AF camera. who made the first pentaprism camera.
Click to expand...
I'd call this a tie...what's important is that both are likely to stick to their bayonets.
steelski said:
steelski said:
3. Body Selection [rather than replacing them every couple years] = Nikon
Click to expand...
Wow that great D40 body really is the nuts compared to the weather sealed Pentax.
Click to expand...
Affordable weather sealed system would be sweet.
steelski said:
steelski said:
4. Lens selection = Nikon
Click to expand...
does that include the Nikon Tax and incompatibility?
Click to expand...
I'd say Nikon has quite well priced line-up of lenses for D40 users: 18-55, 18-105, 18-200, 55-200, 70-300, 35/1.8, 50/1.4...affordable Nikkor WA would be nice and it's a shame Tokina 11-16 doesn't come with BIM (yet).

One could also say that there's a Pentax tax that comes with Pentax branded Tamrons...I admit that Pentax has some sweet primes but some of them are quite overpriced. Pentax would also be nice platform for some 3rd party lenses which lack stabilization (for example 100-300/4, 70-200/2.8).
 
jsheridan1 said:
steelski said:
RJNedimyer said:
Personal opinion so if you do not agree that is OK.

For reasons you might not find important: I agree with Vetran35th's post some but not all of them are listed below.

1. Company = Nikon
Click to expand...
Boring.
jsheridan1 said:
2. Company history = Nikon
Click to expand...
LOL, so who made the first AF camera. who made the first pentaprism camera.
Click to expand...
I'd call this a tie...what's important is that both are likely to stick to their bayonets.
Click to expand...
Basically. yes. I was not implying that Pentax has more history, just that totally ignoring the brand is not optional in the world of SLR.
jsheridan1 said:
jsheridan1 said:
jsheridan1 said:
3. Body Selection [rather than replacing them every couple years] = Nikon
Click to expand...
Wow that great D40 body really is the nuts compared to the weather sealed Pentax.
Click to expand...
Affordable weather sealed system would be sweet.
jsheridan1 said:
jsheridan1 said:
4. Lens selection = Nikon
Click to expand...
does that include the Nikon Tax and incompatibility?
Click to expand...
I'd say Nikon has quite well priced line-up of lenses for D40 users: 18-55, 18-105, 18-200, 55-200, 70-300, 35/1.8, 50/1.4...affordable Nikkor WA would be nice and it's a shame Tokina 11-16 doesn't come with BIM (yet).

One could also say that there's a Pentax tax that comes with Pentax branded Tamrons...I admit that Pentax has some sweet primes but some of them are quite overpriced. Pentax would also be nice platform for some 3rd party lenses which lack stabilization (for example 100-300/4, 70-200/2.8).
Click to expand...
Exactly. Whatever the requirements to a D40 user, I doubt that either company has a significant gap in their offering.
 
Richard,

I'm looking very much forward to seeing your opinions on handling the K10D!

I have never used this camera, but according to the review on this site, it's quite a different camera than D40 - the weight, build etc. seems to place it rather in the D80 range or so?

Claus
 
nikopol said:
Richard,

I'm looking very much forward to seeing your opinions on handling the K10D!

I have never used this camera, but according to the review on this site, it's quite a different camera than D40 - the weight, build etc. seems to place it rather in the D80 range or so?

Claus
Click to expand...
Yes, it was released as a competitor to the D80 and was designed to outclass it in specifications and build quality. It succeeds on those points, but of course a camera can be well-built and fully featured and still be a dog to use...

I could have paid about $100 more and got a used D80 with much the same functionality. I wanted to use my Pentax lenses though, and try out a new ecosystem. Plus paying 25% more for a camera that was a year older and had fewer features was galling. Nikon tax or no Nikon tax.

My opinion on handling the K10D? It's exactly the right size, but a bit clunky and unintuitive nonetheless. That's as fair as I can put it I think.
 
I bought two lenses used from Map Camera yesterday: the DA 21/3.2 Limited and the DA 70/2.4 Limited. Tiny, metal, precision, AF ... oh so very nice and very un-Nikon! My other lenses are Super-Takumar 35/3.5, 50/2, 105/2.8 and 135/3.5. as well as having Asanuma 28/2.8 and 300/5.5 for local color. So I'm pretty much kitted out for lenses, at least for non-macro normal stuff.

Here's what I'm really digging about the K10D so far:

Metering on vintage lenses. Yes it is stop-down, but with the green button "Tv" mode (sets shutter speed automatically on button press) it is relatively convenient.

RAW. Never bothered with it with my D40, I'm having quite a lot of fun with the included Pentax Photo Laboratory software. I don't do much post-processing, but I like the ability to "retake" the shot with a different WB or contrast setting after I get home.

Size. It's nice to be able to get all four fingers around the hand grip again.

Here are the few downsides:

The LCD graphics are prehistoric compared to the D40.

Generally the controls are more fiddly and less intuitive. Just some things that make you go "ugh" like deleting a photo: D40 : double press trash, K10 : press trash, press up arrow, press OK... or the tiny little locks for the memory card and battery doors...

The ergonomics are good, but still kinda lumpy. By no means worst in class, just left wishing it was a bit better...
 
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