D40 And D3500: My “Bookends”

I have a new to me D40 that I got for an upcoming event, and I now have the first and last models in the entry level DX series.*









I briefly owned a D40, but that was 15 years ago, so I didn’t remember a lot about it. Comparing it to my D3500 and shooting with them side by side is fascinating. Some initial impressions:

1. As good and capable as the D3500 with VR lenses is, it’s not THAT much better than the almost 20 years older D40.

2. For most people shooting stills, a D40 will likely do just as well as a D3500. Wait- what!? I mean most people, not most serious photographers. Most people today will do almost all of their viewing of images on phones and tablets and mostly then on social media. Very few will ever print anything, and if they do it’s likely 4x6. Shots from the D3500 will not look better than D40 shots.



3. The controls and menus on the D40 are better than I remembered them. And although the buttons are in different spots, for some reason it’s easy to switch back and forth between bodies. I actually particularly like the Fn button on the D40, which I have set to control ISO.

4. The price difference is ridiculous. A used D3500 body costs more today than my D3500 2 lens kit did new in 2019. Meanwhile a nice D40 is $50-75, and a 2 lens kit with 18-55 and 55-200 non-VR zooms can be had for $100. Or someone looking to get a camera system that is more capable than their smart phone, I used the 40 is quite a deal.



5. I will try to post some samples later, but already I notice that really still love the ccd sensor. I don’t know why, but it seems easy to take pleasing looking images with the D40.

mmditter said:

I have a new to me D40 that I got for an upcoming event, and I now have the first and last models in the entry level DX series.*





I briefly owned a D40, but that was 15 years ago, so I didn’t remember a lot about it. Comparing it to my D3500 and shooting with them side by side is fascinating. Some initial impressions:

1. As good and capable as the D3500 with VR lenses is, it’s not THAT much better than the almost 20 years older D40.

2. For most people shooting stills, a D40 will likely do just as well as a D3500. Wait- what!? I mean most people, not most serious photographers. Most people today will do almost all of their viewing of images on phones and tablets and mostly then on social media. Very few will ever print anything, and if they do it’s likely 4x6. Shots from the D3500 will not look better than D40 shots.

3. The controls and menus on the D40 are better than I remembered them. And although the buttons are in different spots, for some reason it’s easy to switch back and forth between bodies. I actually particularly like the Fn button on the D40, which I have set to control ISO.

4. The price difference is ridiculous. A used D3500 body costs more today than my D3500 2 lens kit did new in 2019. Meanwhile a nice D40 is $50-75, and a 2 lens kit with 18-55 and 55-200 non-VR zooms can be had for $100. Or someone looking to get a camera system that is more capable than their smart phone, I used the 40 is quite a deal.

5. I will try to post some samples later, but already I notice that really still love the ccd sensor. I don’t know why, but it seems easy to take pleasing looking images with the D40.

Click to expand...

My old Olympus C-8080, with its maximum ISO at 400 is a true CCD camera, and for its time, revolutionary, 8MP it can take some fantastic shots, as long as you keep out of backlighting and other restrictions. And it used CF cards!

--
tordseriksson (at) gmail.....
Owner of a handful of Nikon cameras. And a few lenses. DxO PhotoLab user.
WSSA #456

A camera I no longer have but that wish I did is my old Olympus C-5000. Not very well known, didn’t sell well, but it looked like a smaller silver version of the excellent but pricey C-5060. It had a 5mp sensor, and man did it have shortcomings. Terrible shutter lag. Highest iso was 320, which was not usable. But it had a ccd sensor and sometimes I could create magic with it.

Meanwhile, I’ve been taking a few snaps with the D40.











ISO 200, 55-200 VR, f5.6 and aperture priority. Transferred to smart phone from SD card. You can pretty much point and shoot all day long with the D40 and get usable jpegs right from the camera. Something I couldn’t do with my Olympus E-300 and E-500.

D3500 with same lens and same settings:

mmditter said:

A camera I no longer have but that wish I did is my old Olympus C-5000. Not very well known, didn’t sell well, but it looked like a smaller silver version of the excellent but pricey C-5060. It had a 5mp sensor, and man did it have shortcomings. Terrible shutter lag. Highest iso was 320, which was not usable. But it had a ccd sensor and sometimes I could create magic with it.
Meanwhile, I’ve been taking a few snaps with the D40.





ISO 200, 55-200 VR, f5.6 and aperture priority. Transferred to smart phone from SD card. You can pretty much point and shoot all day long with the D40 and get usable jpegs right from the camera. Something I couldn’t do with my Olympus E-300 and E-500.

Click to expand...

My first digital was the tiny Konica KD-500W, 5MP, which was surprisingly capable, so good that Minolta made a version of their own (after their merger).




Cuillin Hills, and our little tent kist meters from the high water mark.






Another angle, standing below the highwater mark!






Just after the rain.

It was a very capable little camera, that eventually wore out, and the Minolta was not really the same, even though it had a whopping 6MP.

--
tordseriksson (at) gmail.....
Owner of a handful of Nikon cameras. And a few lenses. DxO PhotoLab user.
WSSA #456

mmditter said:

D3500 with same lens and same settings:

Click to expand...

Slightly deeper reds?! Maybe +0.3 EV? Or try some other base setting?! Vivid, maybe?!

--
tordseriksson (at) gmail.....
Owner of a handful of Nikon cameras. And a few lenses. DxO PhotoLab user.
WSSA #456

Tord S Eriksson said:

mmditter said:

D3500 with same lens and same settings:

Click to expand...

Slightly deeper reds?! Maybe +0.3 EV? Or try some other base setting?! Vivid, maybe?!

Click to expand...

Actually, my settings here are not identical. The D40 has N for normal, while the D3500 has S for standard, and N is neutral. So… they both have Vivid so maybe I’ll try it that way.

mmditter said:

Tord S Eriksson said:

mmditter said:

D3500 with same lens and same settings:

Click to expand...

Slightly deeper reds?! Maybe +0.3 EV? Or try some other base setting?! Vivid, maybe?!

Click to expand...

Actually, my settings here are not identical. The D40 has N for normal, while the D3500 has S for standard, and N is neutral. So… they both have Vivid so maybe I’ll try it that way.

Click to expand...

I like it when the look is similar, too! My D7500 and the J5 are very close, but that would be fun to delve deeper into!

--
tordseriksson (at) gmail.....
Owner of a handful of Nikon cameras. And a few lenses. DxO PhotoLab user.
WSSA #456

Same shots as yesterday but this time both are on “Vivid” setting. Same 55-200 lenses, ISO 200, f5.6. Exposure set to -0.3.



First, D40:











D3500:

My biggest takes on this:

1. Looking at these shots on a smart phone or tablet- which is the way most images are viewed these days, no one will see any difference.



2. If you don’t need video, live view or Bluetooth? You can save hundreds by buying a D40 instead of a D3500. And maybe thousands by buying a D40 kit instead of mirrorless.



3. As a still photography tool the only major thing it lacks for me compared to my D3500 is high-ISO capability.

mmditter said:

My biggest takes on this:

1. Looking at these shots on a smart phone or tablet- which is the way most images are viewed these days, no one will see any difference.

2. If you don’t need video, live view or Bluetooth? You can save hundreds by buying a D40 instead of a D3500. And maybe thousands by buying a D40 kit instead of mirrorless.

3. As a still photography tool the only major thing it lacks for me compared to my D3500 is high-ISO capability.

Click to expand...

That's like my D3300 compared to my D7500, where the latter is far better at high ISO, and can go to much higher ISO settings.

unless you're aiming for specific features, I don't see the D3300/3400/3500 to be cameras worth buy nowadays.

They're great, but they still hold a pretty substantial price tag which I think does not reflect the improvements they got over previous generations.

The D3200 has the same 24MP sensor (which is very good) as the D3500, yet only costs about 120€ used on platforms like MPB. A pretty similar thing happens with the D5x00 series... once you get the D5200, there is not that much more camera that you'd be able to get in the D5300/5500/5600 as they all have the same sensor afterwards... and stuff like controls, ergos, button placement, video capabilities, menu system and autofocus all stay kinda consistent across models as well, with only slight improvements at each iteration.

My first DSLR was a D70. It was the entry level model at the time and I bought it for the convenience of digital to photograph the family. I would continue to use my F100 for "serious" photography. Needless to say, the F100 was retired once the D300 was released.

Every now and again, I use it and I think it takes perfectly acceptable photographs.

MJ_Photo38 said:

unless you're aiming for specific features, I don't see the D3300/3400/3500 to be cameras worth buy nowadays.

They're great, but they still hold a pretty substantial price tag which I think does not reflect the improvements they got over previous generations

Click to expand...

Yes, the new ones have video, live view, Bluetooth and ISO usable up to ridiculous levels. But the improvements for still photos for the average person just did not change all that much from D40 to D3500.

Nice as a D3500 is, and I love mine, is it worth 10x the price of a D40?*



*For me, yes, but not because it has a 24 mp sensor.

Tord S Eriksson said:

Just after the rain.

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I really like the "3D-pop" effect on this one, Tord.

--
Ryan

Yes, that’s for sure. Nice!

I say that having owned four (!) D40s and one D3300

I pretty much jumped off the deep end when I got my first D40 as I was just learning the whole DSLR thing, didn't know squat, I'm downtown practicing when

I go into a hotel with cool stuff to practice on and...there's this event going on and there aren't any "real photographers" there so I bluff my way up to the lady running the event and ask if they need a photographer?

Of course they do. Not gonna say what the event was, just going to say that I learned that shooting indoors with the "primitive" D40 at max ISO 1600 was a lesson in what it could do, which truthfully wasn't confidence inspiring indoors

Anyway, I was shooting with my D40 on a day when I'd left a D5000 back home. The event ran into a second day and I took the D5000 that second day for basically outdoor shooting (after I'd seen how painful the D40 was for indoor shooting). I gave them my shots because I was just a beginner and...whatever

Fast forward to when I started shooting with the Nikon 24mp sensor (D3300, D7200) and, say what you will about CCD vs CMOS, I prefer the CMOS output. YMMV

That high ISO is probably the biggest difference from the D40 to the D3500. Still, with the 55-200 VR I could shoot indoors pretty well. But the D3500 is way way in another league.

ryanschwartz80 said:

Tord S Eriksson said:

Just after the rain.

Click to expand...

I really like the "3D-pop" effect on this one, Tord.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Ryan! Considering the tiny size of the camera it is pretty impressive!

--
tordseriksson (at) gmail.....
Owner of a handful of Nikon cameras. And a few lenses. DxO PhotoLab user.
WSSA #456

mmditter said:

MJ_Photo38 said:

unless you're aiming for specific features, I don't see the D3300/3400/3500 to be cameras worth buy nowadays.

They're great, but they still hold a pretty substantial price tag which I think does not reflect the improvements they got over previous generations

Click to expand...

Yes, the new ones have video, live view, Bluetooth and ISO usable up to ridiculous levels. But the improvements for still photos for the average person just did not change all that much from D40 to D3500.
Nice as a D3500 is, and I love mine, is it worth 10x the price of a D40?*

*For me, yes, but not because it has a 24 mp sensor.

Click to expand...

My point was, the D3200 is not 10 times the price of the D40, yet gives you basically the same thing when it comes to image quality and all that compared to the D3500.

Looking at MPB prices right now, a Nikon D40 stands at around 65€ for a body in decent condition.

A D3500, is around 300€. It's not 10 times but it's close to a 5 times price difference.

The D3200 is more about 120€ used. If you really want the Expeed 4 processor there is in the D3500, the D3300 is around 130€, but I would argue the difference between Expeed 3 and 4 isn't enough to really justify it (biggest difference I could see is one is limited to 1080p30 when the other has 1080p60 video...)

(I don't see the point of the D3400 existing... it's worse than the D3300 except for the presence of Bluetooth connectivity)