DSLRUsers.com

Really each to his own..... but if your interested......

Our friend kens latest review.... "interesting" reading as usual.

Have a look

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/d200-d80-d70-d50-d40-5d-xti.htm

I dumped my 2 month old D80 for the very reason in his article - heading for the D200 very shortly.

im not so sure i agree with the d70 comment... superior kit lens, can use many more accessories with it (over the d40) flash commander, awesome battery etc etc... still kinda cheap...

...plus i just bought one

wider wrote:im not so sure i agree with the d70 comment... superior kit lens, can use many more accessories with it (over the d40) flash commander, awesome battery etc etc... still kinda cheap...

...plus i just bought one

IMHO. I agree with you. The D70(s) has much more propensity for out of the box keepers. With the D80, by the time I screwed around getting the exposure correct my subject had walked off. The D40's meter is the same as the D80. Plus you need gold ring lenses for the D40 otherwise its manual focus.

Hi
I went today and looked at a d70s and had a quick look at a d40 a couple of weeks ago.After reading this review I am lost once again
Any other thoughts on this, d200 is not even near my budget

Andrew

IMHO

Depends on what you shoot and how you shoot.

If you are a point and shooter and rely on the camera to make most of the exposure decisions then IMHO the D80 and D40 are not for you as they have a wandering overexposure variance with matrix metering. BUT, However, Maybe the out of the camera shots are your style.

If you are a tweaker and have the time and patience to nail every shot by checking the LCD and Histogram and retaking images until you get exactly what you want then the D80 and D40 will suit you admirably. The other advantage of this is also it will teach you proper photographic technique.

Bear in mind that the D40 will only use AFS lens for autofocussing, so if you have a pile of other Nikon glass that is not cpu AFS driven than these lenses are reduced to manual focus.

There are other senior members of this forum that can give other opinions.
.

Hi
I currently own a finepix s9500 which I now use only in manual, I use manual exposure and shutter speed just about all of the time and only turn off the manual focus if I have to focus quickly and then use auto.

I do not have any other gear so I don't have to worry about matching lenses.
I do not use the histogram only because I don't know how to

But I will alway take a few shots at other settings after checking the results in my viewfinder, ( I don't chimp much as I get a few sec's of image to preview)

Thanks

If you use mostly use manual and adjust exposure settings yourself the D40 will be fine for you.

As fine as the D70(s) are, I think with dSLR technology, newer is necessarily better. I would suggest checking out the D40 to see if it meets your needs. But having said that, it's not the camera it's the photographer, and I would suggest Andrew (Gunn Parker) you could probably achieve the same results with your current S9500 as you would with an SLR camera.

Andrew, you have a good P&S camera - if you just want to try DSLR then perhaps a good start would be a second hand D70/s. These are still good cameras and go for a reasonable price so you could save here.
Get some good glass - something that suits your stye of photography and go from there. If you get good glass and are not happy with the camera then you could update later.
Cheers, Mick

I’ve bought the D50 and I will be using it for some time. I have no need to replace it at the moment.
Which camera would I choose out of those you mentioned? I’d choose two: the D40 and the D200.
Why? The D40 as walk around camera and the D200 for everything else. The author is spot saying the D80 is somewhere in between the D40 and the D200. He is not favouring the D80; I think he overlooked one reason why people would buy the D80.
Not everyone can afford to buy and keep two cameras. So, the D80 is a compromise between the two. PS: My walk around camera at the moment is Olympus XA. It’s not a DSLR, it’s film rangefinder with electronic shutter, exposure compensation, aperture priority, flash and the most important features for me - it comes with sharp Zuiko 35mm F/2.8 lens and it's compact.

Ahh Yes.

The XA what a fantastic little camera that was (is).

A used 20D.

IMO the d70s is a good middle of the road camera - price is middle of the road, performance is middle of the road (compared to d80/d200 etc) weight is middle of the road.... the kit lens of a d70 is better than a d50, d40, 400d and some others i forget.

2nd hand one with low shutter count would be a very nice buy

5D

Oscar wrote:if you just want to try DSLR then perhaps a good start would be a second hand D70/s. These are still good cameras and go for a reasonable price so you could save here.
Get some good glass - something that suits your stye of photography and go from there. If you get good glass and are not happy with the camera then you could update later.
Cheers, Mick

This might be a good way to go I think. I had a look at a d40 yesterday and if I went for one of those I would have about $400.00 left out of my budget to look at a lens with more reach. Can anyone suggest a suitable one?
Thanks
Andrew

What are you going to be using the lens to shoot? What length do you think you will need? What budget do you have for the lens?

I heard a few good seconfd hand 80-200s have sold through the forum and there may even be one still available - or one may come up soon.

Cheers, Mick

from the camera you currently use the d40 wont be much of a step up... just a replacement with removable lens. depends what type of shooting you plan on doing i guess.