The Nikon D40, announced in November 2006, is an entry-level digital single-lens reflex camera, which in comparison with its predecessor the Nikon D50, has some distinctive features, including a compact, ergonomic design and an excellent performance in complete with an affordable price.
Made of high quality plastic, the Nikon D40 body has undergone significant changes. First of all the body size has decreased, with no detriment to the overall ergonomics. The camera is almost as convenient in the hand, as the Nikon older models, with a wide handle providing secure and comfortable grip. Due to changes in dimensions, the main mode dial has moved to the right side of the top panel, but the layout of other controls on the top panel has not changed.
And the back panel has been substantially updated. A large LCD display with a diagonal of 2.5 inches and 230,000-pixel resolution for a compact digital SLR camera seems huge. The company's engineers have tried to improve the efficiency of the display information by adding intuitive graphic elements to the usual numerical values of aperture and shutter speed. This solution simplifies the control of exposure settings for novice photographers. Furthermore, tips and examples, accompanying many of the menu items, render substantial assistance in learning the digital SLR D40.
In addition to high contrast, bright display with a wide viewing angle, the rear panel contains the setting wheel, and four-way joystick, which are made with the account of the overall body ergonomics and have a substantially larger size than their counterparts in previous models.
The changes are made in the viewfinder as well. Despite the fact that the D40 is positioned as an entry-level digital SLR, the applied pentaprism design provides excellent performance: 0.8x magnification for you to easier see the subject details, high brightness, and the 95-% field coverage. The viewfinder is equipped with an extra information panel which displays the basic shooting settings. In addition to classical parameters the panel displays the focus zone, exposure lock, warning symbol for error indication. The Nikon D40 is equipped with Multi-CAM530, a new sensor of the automatic sharpening system having three autofocus zones. All electronic components have excellent characteristics and provide high quality images.
The Nikon D40 is designed to work with the AF-S and AF-I lens, featuring built-in drives of the autofocus system. It is possible to use the D40 with lens without built-in drive, but in this case focusing is performed manually. The D40 matrix has a resolution of 6.1 megapixels and physical dimensions of 23.6 x15.8 mm. From these data you can conclude, that the photosensitive elements of the matrix are located at a considerable distance one from another, and hence the probability of spurious noises in the frame is reduced.
The camera is equipped with a combined electronic-and-mechanical shutter featuring a wide range of speed from 30 sec. (minimum) up to 1/4000 sec. (maximum), and providing the X-sync speed of 1/500 sec., which enables to make shooting of rapid processes with high quality. It is also worth noting the high speed of continuous shooting -2.5 frames per second.
The Nikon D40 supports the high-speed memory cards such as SD and SDHC types of 4 GB or more. The Nikon lithium-ion EN-EL9 battery ensures uninterrupted operation of the camera for a long time. When shooting indoors, it is possible to use an external power supply, plugged in the battery compartment instead of the battery.
The Nikon D40 with its modest size and low cost offers you all basic functions, and provides a good image quality, runs fast and is fairly easy to use. Therefore the Nikon D40 should be recognized as one of the best cameras for those who buy their first digital SRL camera, but who have not yet fully represent what their demands to a new device are.
