[4 of 5 customers found this review helpful]

Nikon D40 DSLR w/18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX lens Review

Great move from Point and Shoot

"I've been using an HP P&S for a year and a half and beat it up to the point where it didn't work. It was not a good camera, but it was equipped perfectly for me to learn. Though it offered no manual controls I was able to trick it through using the right scene modes to do what I want after I learned what I wanted. When I couldn't use that anymore I picked up on old Minolta SLR my dad has from the '70s. I learned to about exposure better since it was manual to the point of rewinding film after the roll is exposed. I also learned the importance of lenses. Using that made me confident a dSLR was the way to go, not a superzoom.

When my D40 arrived I was surprised by its weight, or lack thereof. Right out of the box I charged the battery then it worked great. Everything I learned from using a point and shoot, and using a film SLR for a month or two fit perfectly. The kit lens is great. I would like a faster lens, but for the kit lens it handles a lot of the places I shoot fine without a flash. Focusing manually isn't easy, but the AF is great so it is rarely necessary. I've only needed to MF for artistic things I've tried. The colours are great! The camera picks the right white balance most of the time. When it is off it isn't too easy to correct in my experience however. The battery life is awesome. I haven't had it run out on me when I'm out shooting, and I use the burst function often.

A couple of things I would like to point out is first this the light meter on this camera is a bit dangerous. It will overexpose and image if you let it. When I'm out shooting I set the exposure comp. to -.7EV. The pictures are underexposed at this level, but that can be corrected later. One other thing is I bought an old 85mm f/2 lens and the camera won't meter with it. I didn't know this would happen when I was buying it, and it isn't a big deal really. With it I must guess for the exposure, then reference the RGB histogram if it is something important. This is a result of me being misinformed more than anything else. I think this camera only meters with D or G lenses, I'm not quite positive. Also it will only AF with AF-S or AF-I lenses. I'll be perfectly happy if Nikon comes out with one or two fast prime AF-S lenses."

tripod 1/2s f/3.8 20mm ISO1600 Live Van at work

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4pt star filter 1/13s f/3,5 18mm ISO1600 church

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