Seconde Caméra: D40
Seconde Caméra: D40
Image by Djof
Despite its age, I still love my Olympus E-500. Since I shoot mostly landscapes and buildings, I wanted a wide lens for an upcoming trip. Basicly my choices were the 700$ Olympus 11-22mm (22-44mm equiv) or the 1800$ Olympus 7-14mm (14-28mm equiv). The former isn’t that wide, and the later, despite having perfect image quality and distortion control, is way too expensive for mortals.
I decided to get a Nikon D40 together with the Sigma 10-20mm HSM (15-30mm equiv), which came to a total of 900$. The combo doesn’t weight much more than the 7-14mm alone either. The downside of the 10-20mm is its fairly pronouced distortion at 10mm, but that can be corrected in software. Also, since Olympus is the underdog when it comes to digital SLR, I feel like I’ve sellout. Hehe.
I took both my E-500 and D40 on the trip, used my E-500 for telephoto, and the D40 for wide angle. Here’s what I think about the D40:
Update 2009-05: With the new 35mm AF-S f/1.8G Nikon introduced last month, there is finally a fast aperture lens that can focus on the D40, D60, etc… It’s a good lens, and only very slightly larger than the 50mm f/1.8D. I like it a lot and it’s my default lens I leave on the camera.
Good:
- Small and light (But the Oly E-400 series is smaller)
- Good high ISO performance (Thanks to the low megapixels and 1.5x sensor)
- Lowest (cleanest) ISO is 200, so long exposures are cut in half compared to my E-500
- Doesn’t seem to need a dark frame for long exposures like the E-500, so overall long exposure time is cut by four!
- Quiet shutter
- Small RAW files (6Mb compared to 14Mb for the E-500)
- AF-confirm with cheap and light 50mm f/1.8D AF lens (Which I don’t get when using my OM 50mm f/1.8 on my E-500 as when I took the picture above.)
- Shorter effective depth of field with 50mm f/1.8
- Seem to hold its value on the used market
Bad:
- The D40 lacks physical buttons for common operation like ISO and white balance. Other buttons are useless. It doesn’t make any sense. Nikon should offer better customization.
- The one button that’s customizable is very awkwardly located, and ergonomy in general is abysmal
- Every controls seems backward. Positive EV compensation goes toward left on the scale?!
- Poor menu UI compared to Olympus.
- No anti-dust system. The camera already had some dust when I got it new!
- Poor night condition metering compared to E-500, and it gets worst when spotlights are in the frame.
- Longest possible exposure without using bulb is 30 seconds, why not 60?
- No color histogram
- No bracketing
- Only 6 megapixels
- I like 4:3 ratio pictures better than 3:2
- Manual focus only with 50mm f/1.8D AF
- More expensive than I would have expected a low megapixel, 1.5 years old, cut-down camera to be.
Just now, Olympus has announced a lightweight consumer-level 9-18mm (18-36mm equiv) lens for next September. I might be tempted to sell the D40 and go Oly only once again. I will miss the small size of the D40 though, so maybe there’s a E-400/410/420 in my future.
Taken with my E-500 and OM 50mm f/1.8 at f5.6.
Tomorow: Pictures!
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12 Comments
The E-500 at ISO 100 makes some beautiful images though.
Tiens donc Étienne, beau jouet !
Muzzz: I know! If I ever change to another Oly camera, I might try to import a E-400, to stay with the same sensor technology as the E-500.
HomMusique: Je me défenderais en disant que c’est plutôt un outils, mais vous avez probablement raison!
Nice, anxious to see some photos from the trip
Just got my OM 50mm today, wooo!! Oops, except I forgot to order an OM-to-4/3 adapter… hahaha 
Heh, you say "Small RAW files (6Mb compared to 14Mb for the E-500)" – that’s because it’s a lower resolution sensor! hehe… interesting it ends up being 6mb as it’s a 6mp sensor… I wouldn’t be complaining about large RAW size tho – larger file means more data provided by the sensor!
Kind of depends, though, I guess..
The Nikon RAW files are compressed also, so there’s a gain there too. In the end, it’s still pretty convenient that the RAW files are half as big as for the E-500.
Nooo! You got a D40 =( A friend of mine recently got one and sent it back. The lens problem is the biggest. I truly believe there is no better starter and all round value lens than the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D AF. And I find Sigma lenses pretty clunky.
Why didn’t you opt for the D50?
Nikon brought that problem on themselves, they should have deprecated the in-body focus motor years ago like Canon did. For me, it’s not that much of a problem with the 50mm f/1.8D thanks to the focus confirmation. Of course it’d be nice if there was an AF-I or AF-S version.
As for the Sigma, it’s one of the EX lenses. It’s well built, the rings are tight but smooth, it focuses fast with HSM, and overall I had a very pleasing experience with it since the beginning of May. The price is pretty killer too, considering what it does.
I wanted to give a real try to Nikon, so I prefered a newer camera. I also choose the D40 because of its size and larger LCD. Overall I like the D40 a lot, it’s just that I was spoiled by Olympus ergonomy and features.
Nikon put out the d40 intended for beginners, entery level people like myself.
Many beginners do not know much about slr cameras or to know where to have those important buttons to be placed on the body of the camera. I mean come on, if people are going to be critical about this camera because of it’s lack of fuctionality then stick with your high end costly models to enjoy your bells and whistles that come with it. As for the Sigma 10/20…got one and love it. I have it on my d40x 80 percent of the time.
K_E_B, other manifacturers manage to make beginner-friendly cameras without stripping advanced features, like I said, Olympus does it well, and for cheaper than Nikon. And again for the buttons, it’s possible to have them well located on the camera so they’re easy to reach, and assigned to functions which are actually useful.
Months later, the D40 still anoys me by how counter intuitive it is, and how hard it is to operate compared to my E-500. The Sigma 10-20mm is great, but I probably will go back to Oly with their 8-16.
does the sigma 10-20mm fit good on the d40
Fits very well brian*.
And for those looking for a fast AF-S prime, the new 35mm f/1.8G is a perfect match. It’s only slightly larger than the 50mm f/1.8D.
I also had a E-500 and a D40,decided to sell the e-500 cause I had trouble finding lenes for it in South Africa.Really like all the external controls on the 500.
Decided to stick with the nikon system for now.
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