Nikon D40X Review

Overview

Nikon D40x Overview

by Dave Etchells and
Shawn Barnett
Review Date: 6/29/07

The Nikon D40x has a sensor resolution of 10.2 megapixels, and offers ISO sensitivity ranging from 100 to 1,600, with the ability to extend this to ISO 3,200 using the Hi-1 setting. Even though the sensor resolution has been increased from six megapixels in the original D40 model, the ten megapixel D40x offers a faster burst mode of three frames per second. The D40x retains the same compact size, portability and ease-of-use as its popular sibling, the D40.

The D40x has a 2.5" LCD display with 230,000 pixel resolution and a 170 degree viewing angle, which means your friends can gather 'round behind you and everyone will see the same image quality wherever they're standing. Other D40x features include extensive in-camera image editing, a full array of automatic and manual exposure modes, including some modes tuned for specific situations, like Portrait, Landscape, Child, Sports, Close up and Night portrait. There's an Auto ISO mode that lets the user select the maximum ISO and minimum shutter speed, which leaves you with some control over what Auto can do. Just like the D40, autofocus is only supported when using AF-S or AF-I lenses, which limits you to newer Nikon lenses. The built-in i-TTL flash has a guide number of 12m /39 ft. at ISO 100 in auto modes and 13m / 42 ft. in manual. Maximum flash sync is 1/200 second.

The D40x uses an EN-EL9 lithium-ion rechargeable battery, with a rated 520 shots per charge, and stores images on SD/SDHC memory cards (not included). Connectivity includes USB 2.0 high-speed, A/V out, and the option of an infrared remote.

The Nikon D40x started shipping in April 2007, priced at $729.95 body only, or $799.95 bundled with an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor lens.

Nikon D40x User Report

by Shawn Barnett

Nikon out-flanked the competition last Fall with the introduction of the six-megapixel D40, a small, easy-to-use digital SLR with good quality at an affordable price. They fairly bracketed the competition, namely Canon's Digital Rebel XTi, with the Spring 2007 introduction of the Nikon D40x, a 10-megapixel digital SLR with the same ease of the D40, but with resolution to match the XTi.

This is my favorite kind of review to write, because the D40x is an excellent camera, easy to recommend. The D40x is so similar to the D40 that I'll be re-editing some of my former descriptions from the D40 review, as the form and function are essentially the same (to summarize: terrific in almost every aspect).

What's new. Physically, only the badge on the D40x is different from the D40. Internally, it has a 10 megapixel sensor instead of 6. The new sensor brings a few other changes thanks to its different technology.

First, the flash sync speed goes down to 1/200 from 1/500. This same change occurred between the D70 and D80. In both cases, the reason is that Nikon switched from "gating" the CCD at higher shutter speeds to including a faster shutter mechanism. This change reduces the chance of "blooming" in images where a bright highlight like the Sun in the frame can overload the sensor. For more on this, see the Exposure tab.

Second, the Nikon D40x is capable of a slightly faster 3.0 frames per second in continuous mode, as opposed to the D40's 2.5 frames per second.

Two advantages. Going from 6 to 10 megapixels means more pixels are dedicated to a given element, which is why they appear larger when displayed pixel-for-pixel. The other advantage here is the D40x's lowest setting of ISO 100, whereas the D40 is limited to 200. I should note, however, that the D40 does such an excellent job that it's hard to see a significant difference.

Third, the ISO range now includes 100, instead of just 200-3,200. The main advantage here is that you can achieve slower shutter speeds or wider apertures in bright light than you'd be able to with the D40. Theoretically you might also get better noise control with the new sensor at ISO 100, but the D40's noise performance is so good that I can't see a difference, and can't imagine anyone else would.

Unlike a move from 8 megapixels to 10 megapixels, the jump from 6 to 10 megapixels is indeed a large one. Enlarge both images to 100 percent onscreen, and you can see just how much larger objects are. It turns out this is an excellent way to gauge how much more detail you're getting. Your screen resolves at only one resolution, so if you set both images to match, you can see how much detail you have in each image. I've done it for you to the right. The top image is from the D40, the bottom from the D40x. If you're not going to be doing a lot of cropping or enlarging beyond 11x14, you won't notice much difference between the D40 and D40x except the average file size. I would be happy with either, but our tests do show that the D40x has greater dynamic range than any camera we've tested. More on that later in this report, and on the Imatest page.

Finally, the Nikon D40x's image buffer doesn't go on forever like the D40 can when capturing JPEG images. Instead, depending on the subject, it fills after about seven shots when set to Large/Fine JPEG.

Compatibility. There is one point that owners of older Nikon lenses should know right up front: The D40x was designed to work primarily with AF-S lenses and AF-I teleconverters. The Nikon D40 and D40x are built specifically for entry-level consumers, and abandon compatibility with the majority of Nikon's older AF lenses. This is the key important distinction that everyone, especially enthusiasts, should know about the D40 and D40x. Though you can still mount old lenses and focus manually, most older lenses require a body-based screw-drive mechanism that the D40s lack. I maintain that this was a wise move on Nikon's part to help keep the price low and the camera small, but I have occasionally missed that compatibility, especially when wanting to mount a prime (non-zoom) lens on this pleasantly small SLR. There are currently no short prime Nikkor lenses available in AF-S. (I now carry a small SLR with a 50mm prime attached as my everyday camera; I prefer the low light performance and reduced depth-of-field possible with such an arrangement.)

Those who still want to use legacy lenses in autofocus mode, many of which are still in the Nikon lineup, should opt for the D50, D70, or D80. Note that you can still use older lenses with the Nikon D40x if you're okay with manual focus. The D40x can still control aperture on lenses marked D and G, and it will illuminate the AF points when an area is in focus. For more complete detail on this relatively complex issue, see the Optics section of this review.

Nikon D40x	Nikon D200
What's missing from the D40x is the physical coupling you see on the Nikon D200's mount at right. This makes the D200 compatible with lenses that use Nikon's 20-year-old AF drive mechanism. Compatibility's great, but the old system does make more noise than the AF-S system used by the D40x.

I think it's a safe bet that most Nikon D40x owners will prefer the quieter, more modern AF-S lenses that are currently 23 in number, plus three teleconverters.

Manners. Not since the days of cloth focal plane shutters have I heard such a soft shutter sound as we get with the D40 and D40x. Nikon has been getting better and better at this aspect of their SLR cameras, and the D40 line surpasses them all. It's not critical to have a nice soft shutter sound, but it does much to foster appreciation among users, and even subjects. Harsh clacking and winding is really more distracting than appealing. A softer sound allows the photographer to be part of the background rather than the center of attention. One exception to this rule is when photographing models, when it's helpful for the model to know when to change poses, but that's far from the Nikon D40's intended market.

The Nikon D40's pop-up flash is fairly quiet too, releasing with a single "clack;" more tame than the Canon Rebel XTi's far louder "zing/clunk." It can be released manually via the button on the left of the lens mount, or automatically by the camera when in fully automatic modes.

The Nikon D40's 18-55mm AF-S lens also focuses very quietly, thanks to its Silent Wave Motor. I found it a very useful and reliable lens. Coupled with the D40x's excellent high ISO performance in low light, its f/3.5 maximum aperture wasn't such a limitation.

Noticable flare, quite strong in direct sunlight at the 18-55mm's telephoto setting when there's significant contrast in the corners.

As I noted with the D40's kit lens, the Nikon D40x's 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S kit lens exhibited noticeable lens flare in high contrast objects out toward the corners. I think it's perfectly acceptable in a lens at this price point, but still worthy of note. Also an option for a little more money is a kit that bundles the more versatile Nikkor 18-135mm lens that was first bundled with the Nikon D80. This lens has its own problems in terms of increased chromatic aberration, but it's still an excellent choice for general purpose photography. Not only can you do more in terms of cropping as you capture, it's a better quality optic overall.

Comfortable grip.

Experience. Gripping the Nikon D40x is like settling down in your favorite chair. Not only do you feel right at home, the chair feels at home with you, having formed itself to match your shape. The Nikon D40x already matches. My index finger finds the shutter release perfectly, and the remaining three fingers fit quite well around the grip. Though I wouldn't mind a slightly deeper grip, this is quite good for a camera this small, and a slight recess gives my fingertips a good place to settle, offering tactile feedback that tells me I have sufficient purchase on the camera. My thumb finds its special notch high up on the D40x's back, right between the AE-Lock button and the Command dial. It's just a minor nudge to either of these controls, just like picking up my drink from the side table without taking my eyes off the book as I sit in that comfortable chair. Effortless.

Thumb dial.

Rather than use the good quality knurl around the Mode dial, I found myself most often sliding my thumb up to spin the Nikon D40x's Mode dial to my next setting. It's easier to move it in a counterclockwise direction, and easy enough to go all the way around, so that's my normal mode. The top of the dial isn't flat, but domed, and it has a texture that my thumb finds easy to grip.

Recessed strap loops.

Since I seldom use camera straps, the lashing points on the camera often bother me, jutting out into my hand or swinging around as they often do. But the strap loops on the Nikon D40x are recessed into the camera body on both sides, a welcome change from all past Nikon DSLR designs, which either flop and rattle on the pro end or jab into your hand on the consumer side.

Function button. As I did with the D40, I set the D40x's Function button to ISO, which I change most often.

Controls. The Nikon D40x's control layout is simple and easy to adapt to. I even like the position of the Function button. This is a button you can reprogram to bring up your most frequently adjusted menu item. I currently have it set to ISO. Just press the Function button on the side of the lens with your left thumb and turn the Command dial. The status display lights up the Fn box and you can see the ISO numbers ramp up or down.

Easy adjustments.

A good many other essential items are shown on the Nikon D40x's Status display, and can easily be controlled with only a few more buttons. Just press the Zoom/info button, and select the icons across the bottom or right side of the screen with any of the four arrow buttons on the Multi selector. When you reach the one you want, hit the OK button in the center of the Multi selector and a menu is displayed with photographic examples for the various modes. Make your selection and press the OK button again. You're ready to shoot with your new setting. The example shots are very much like those we've seen on consumer digicams over the past few years, and it is appropriate to see them here on the Nikon D40S, an SLR aimed at consumers.

LCD. The screen is a big, bright 2.5 inch display with a wide viewing angle in all directions to help you show off your pictures. The camera is so small that the screen seems to dominate the Nikon D40x's back panel.

I'm overjoyed to see that there's no silly snap-on screen protector in the Nikon D40x box. They fog up, add two extra surfaces to reflect glare, and just bug me. I'm told the screen cover is good for protecting the screen from shirt button scratches. My usual nylon buttons don't mar anything, but I suppose harder buttons might. To this day, however, I've never even seen a scratched LCD display on an SLR; so just be aware, use the care you should with your fragile photographic tool, and you should be able to maintain a scratch-free LCD cover glass with little trouble.

Most SLR manufacturers have ditched the additional monochrome LCD in favor of using the main color LCD as a status display on their consumer SLRs. About half have also recognized that it helps to have the LCD turn off when you put the camera to your eye. Nikon is not among that half. The Canon Rebel XTi and Sony A100 have IR sensors in place to detect your face against the viewfinder so that the screen shuts off. The Nikon D40x and Olympus E-510 just keep the LCD on until you half-press on the shutter button. It's not a big problem in good light indoors or out, but when it gets dark, it's a nuisance, one that gets worse if you have glasses. The glare just bounces around in that optical mess. If you half press the shutter, however, the Status display goes off. It comes back on about a half second after your release the shutter. You can release the Nikon D40x's shutter only halfway and keep shooting with the same AF setting, and the LCD does not come back on.

Graphic display.

If you like, you can turn off the D40x's status display, which Nikon calls the Shooting Information Display. On by default, it goes off after a few seconds at idle, to save batteries, and comes back on when you press the Info button behind the Shutter release button. You can choose among three displays, and pick different ones when in PASM vs full-auto and Scene modes. The Graphic display is set by default. It shows a wheel in the left corner that represents a shutter speed dial and aperture display. The aperture display "stops down" to approximate what the lens blades will be doing, but it only moves after several turns of the Command dial. The same goes for the shutter speed graphic. It seems like a good idea to educate those who are unfamiliar with how cameras work, though they'll have to be the types to pay close attention. You can also have your own picture there as a backdrop in Wallpaper mode. For the most part, I prefer the Classic display, with its no-nonsense, bold digital display of the important data. It looks essentially like the monochrome Status LCDs you'll find on semi-pro and pro SLRs.

Classic display.

Regardless of the display chosen, the LCD is slow to refresh as you change settings. That includes aperture, shutter speed, and EV (exposure value) settings. This is a problem from the D40 that hasn't been fixed in the D40x. I found myself particularly frustrated with the EV settings, because I frequently overshot my goal, thinking the camera had missed my input. When attempting to set -1/3 EV, for example, the camera wouldn't make the change, so I'd turn the Command dial again. Then the camera would catch up and move it to -2/3. The LED display in the optical viewfinder doesn't have this problem, however, moving instantaneously to reflect your choice. This is an unfortunate bug that makes using EV adjustment and manual modes with the Nikon D40x difficult.

Optical viewfinder. Luke, the lab technician, and I both found the diopter control difficult to set. We also noticed that the D40x didn't adjust for our eyesight well enough (which isn't unusual for me). Rather than the wheel Nikon used on the D200 and D80, the D40x has a slider next to the rubber eyepiece. Changing it while looking through the viewfinder is cumbersome, and you frequently slide past your desired setting due to the force necessary to move it in the first place.

The viewfinder display is very good, showing all the important information, including which AF point is selected, and there's a little question mark icon that flashes in low light or any other situations the Nikon D40x thinks you should make an adjustment. To see what's up, just pull the camera from your eye and press the question mark button on the left of the LCD display. Here in my office, it usually says, "Lighting is poor; flash recommended." I think that's a good feature to have in a consumer camera, and the note's not condescending. What I don't like is the incessant flashing of the question mark in the viewfinder and on the back LCD when I'm trying to do something unconventional. It's not a big deal, though, just a rant, and one enthusiasts might want to make note of: the D40x's help feature just might bug you.

AF points. Praise the designers for putting bright LED brackets on all three of the D40x's AF points. Even the excellent Nikon D80 still has the very cool looking, but too often worthless LCD/faint LED combo. I prefer a bright red LED to tell me where the camera is focusing, as exists on the entire Canon SLR lineup. These are big, obvious brackets. And yes, there are only three, but I'm really not as jazzed as I used to be about multiple AF points. I more frequently lock a camera to its center point and work from there. The center point is usually more accurate, and I find that SLRs just aren't as accurate as digicams have been at guessing what I want in focus.

There is one small problem related to AF points and the Nikon D40x's size. As I mentioned, I prefer to lock it to the center AF point, but putting the D40x into Single Area mode is the only way to set this. Unfortunately, you can't exactly lock it to the center point; instead you use the left and right arrows on the Multi-controller to select which AF point you want to use. Because the area for your thumb on the D40x is small, I find I accidentally press the left and right arrows on the Multi controller, changing the default AF point. That's a bit of an unwelcome surprise when you raise the camera to your eye for a quick candid portrait and the D40x focuses on the subject's belt. Most users will do better to leave the D40x in Closest subject or Dynamic area modes.

Solid SD card door.

Doors and latches. The Nikon D40's SD card door opens with a firm slide to the rear, then it swings open under power of a good stiff spring. A rubber bumper softens and quiets its impact. I prefer this design to others that just flop around loose.

Stronger springs hold the battery in place.

Nikon also improved the battery door and its retention spring. The Nikon D70 and D80 had weak, mushy springs on their latches, and could open if you pressed in the just the wrong way on the bottom of the camera. Not so with the D40x. The spring is firm. Once that door is open, the battery seems to slide right out. But it emerges to about 3/8 inch where it stops. This is just enough for you to grab the battery and pull it out the rest of the way. I noticed that the battery of the D70 and D80 were halted in the same way, but it was a thin wire that did the arresting. I wondered how long that would last. On the Nikon D40x, the arresting is done by a wide bit of spring steel. That should last longer.

I've also found the battery life to be quite good, enduring several days of regular shooting. According to CIPA standards, the Nikon D40x's 1,000 mAh EN-EL9 is good for about 470 shots on a single charge, and the manual says it'll recharge from empty in 90 minutes. Still, I recommend a second battery. It's a drag to be without your camera while you wait for the battery to charge; and it usually dies when you need it most. The best news, though, is that most lithium-ion batteries can sit charged for a long time (often a month or so) and still be good when you need them.

Flash. It's a small step down that the D40x doesn't have the D40's 1/500 second flash sync, especially since neither camera supports FP mode. As I mentioned, the reason the D40x doesn't have this speedy x-sync is because they've put in a full-speed shutter mechanism, rather than relying on electronic "gating" of the sensor array.

Put simply, gating a sensor means that you're making the exposure by opening the shutter completely, then turning the sensor on and off at the speed you desire. In the case of the D40, the maximum gate speed is 1/4000 second. But why is the flash sync speed reduced on the D40x? Because to make a flash exposure, the shutter must be completely open while the flash fires, and the fastest speed that allows this is 1/200 second. At 1/250, the second curtain of the focal plane shutter has already started closing before the first one fully opens, so when the flash fires, part of the sensor will be covered by one or other of the shutters. So between 1/250 and 1/4000 second, the shutter never fully opens, and is instead an increasingly narrow slit that travels across the sensor. (There is often a way to overcome this with external flashes, which pulse as the slit travels across the sensor, but the D40x's on-camera flash is not capable of this FP, or Focal Plane mode, nor does it support external units in FP mode.)

The other missing component to the D40x's flash picture, shared by the D40, is its inability to serve as a Commander in the Nikon Advanced Wireless Lighting System. Mount an SB-800, and that limitation can be overcome, but you'd do better to purchase a Nikon D80 if you want to employ the Nikon Advanced Wireless Lighting System, because each SB-800 will run about $320-$400.

High ISO makes backlit indoor shots easy.

Image quality. It's the Nikon D40x's excellent image quality that makes recommending this little digital SLR so easy. See the Exposure and Optics tabs for the detailed breakdown. I'm most impressed that they were able to improve on the D40's already stellar high ISO performance. Hoping to catch my son napping in the afternoon this week like I did when I reviewed the D40 last Fall, I instead found him up and watching a movie with his brother. It was a good moment, so I pressed the Function button to select ISO 1,600, extended the 18-135mm lens to 75mm, and snapped off a few shots handheld. It's no great art, but it's a cute picture of two brothers cooling off on the futon after playing one hot Summer afternoon. This is just the kind of photo most D40x owners want from their new camera: a candid indoor shot without flash. It's a little soft and grainy, but still natural looking. With the 18-55mm kit lens, I'd have had to move closer, which would have distracted them from their gaze. That's why I strongly recommend the 18-135mm kit if you can afford it. Equivalent to a 27 to 202mm lens, the 18-135mm lens is bigger, but it's better, and has just the right reach for almost all family photography. When I reviewed the D80, I've never felt more instantly at home with a camera and lens combination. Shooting at an amusement park, I could go wide for the scenics and then set up for a head and shoulders portrait from just about any vantage.

Saturation. Colors are quite vibrant at the default Normal setting.

Looking at my images after shooting most of the Gallery shots, I was surprised how saturated the colors were. I had to check the camera to verify that I had it set to Normal; I did. Dave and I agree that both the contrast and saturation on the D40x's Normal setting are set too high for our purposes, but that most consumers will be pleased. Their reality will be just a little more punchy and beautiful, and that's what most folks want to see. Those interested in making their own after-capture tweaks to the image will do better entering Custom mode and making their own mix of settings.

55-200mm VR. Sharp edge-to-edge, easy to handhold.

I also had the sweet little Nikkor 55-200mm VR lens with me, which was introduced at PMA 2007 concurrent with the Nikon D40x. Available for between $240 and $300, this lens seems like another great choice for the D40x owner seeking a little extra reach with help from optical image stabilization. It's equivalent to an 82.5-300mm lens on a 35mm camera, yet is both small and light. We haven't tested it on SLRgear.com yet, but the shots I got with it seem pretty sharp corner-to-corner.

At full telephoto indoors or shade, the AF system is slower to acquire focus with the 55-200mm VR, which I expected. The image stabilizer is sometimes jittery starting up, making a little buzzing sound, but it stabilizes quickly. I don't think this is Nikon's best VR system, as it often seems unable to compensate for my movement when set to full tele, but it's still nice to have the extra help.

One other plus with the Nikon D40x that we found when we ran our Imatest "deep analysis," which we usually reserve for SLRs, is its quite superior dynamic range. It actually delivers better highlight and shadow gradation in its JPEG images than all other cameras we've tested, including the remarkable Fujifilm S3 Pro. This latter camera has a sensor that's specially designed to produce a wide dynamic range, blending the results from high-sensitivity and low-sensitivity pixels, so the fact that the D40x beats this purpose-built pro camera is significant. Looking at the images side-by-side, we tended to prefer the D40x's output as well. When it came to analyzing the RAW output from both cameras, the S3 Pro did edge the D40x slightly; but it beat everything else on the chart. What does that mean for you? Well, it means you're more likely to get both the white wedding dress and black tuxedo exposed properly in the same shot; and if you don't, you're more likely to be able to recover some detail from these areas if you need to. Both shadow and highlight detail will be more rich and have more depth, where other cameras will just transition from gray to black in one or two steps.

See the Optics and Exposure tabs for the rest on the D40x. In short, though, the D40x is a camera you can buy with confidence and be sure you'll love the pictures.

Comparisons.

Which is smaller? A side-by-side comparison shot makes the Nikon D40x appear smaller than the Rebel XTi from the front. Their dimensions are actually almost identical. In millimeters: Nikon D40x: 126 x 94 x 64mm, Canon Rebel XTi: 126.5 x 94.2 x 65mm. Weight is also only slightly different, with the XTi coming in just 9 grams heavier than the D40x's 753 grams (26.5 ounces) with lens, cap, battery, and card. In the second image, you can see the D40x's simpler control array, while the XTi is more cluttered with buttons and labels. As a more experienced photographer, I like more buttons, but I think it's too easy for inexperienced photographers to accidentally change a setting on the XTi and ruin a whole day's worth of photos. Note also that the camera and lens combination of the D40x is a little longer than the XTi.

Since I reviewed the D40, the list of competing cameras in this small, family category has increased a bit. Now there's the Olympus E410, which is even smaller than the D40x and XTi. We haven't finished our testing of that little SLR, though, so I can't comment much.

The Canon Digital Rebel XTi has a fit rival in the Nikon D40x, though, that is for sure. Major differences are more technical, and have less to do with image quality. The grip of the Nikon D40x is a little taller and deeper, the lens build is a little better, and the controls are simpler. The D40x's built-in AF-assist lamp is quite a bit better than the XTi's pulse flash alternative, and its tough to beat the D40x's soft shutter sound. But the XTi also has its strengths, including an IR sensor that turns of the LCD Status display when you raise the camera to your eye, better low-light AF performance from its 9-point AF array, and full compatibility with Canon's entire line of EOS lenses dating back to 1989. Its dust removal system is probably a wash, since you'll have to clean both sensors eventually regardless.

In terms of image quality, you'll get great shots from either camera. At their default settings, the Canon Rebel XTi is surprisingly more conservative in terms of saturation and contrast, but that distinction can be found compared to the D80 and D50 as well. The D40x also offers ISO 3,200, one stop more than the XTi will deliver. Below I've cropped from our Still Life shots taken at ISO 1,600 to give a closer look at the two approaches to high ISO images. Both will make great prints and deliver a lot more than any digicam (non-SLR) of comparable resolution, so what you see below does not take away from the overall quality that both cameras capture.

Different approaches. Here at ISO 1,600, the highest that the XTi and D40x have in common, you can see the two different approaches to maintaining a quality image at high ISO settings. On top you have the Canon XTi, and below the Nikon D40x. Different eyes will see each image differently. The XTi takes a more conservative approach, leaving some noise in place in favor of maintaining detail. The D40x did just like its big brother the D80 did, squashing as much noise as possible in favor of cleaner, more decisive colors. You can see the shadow on the right behind the Mas Portell bottle has more random colors, or chroma noise, in the Canon image than in the Nikon sample. Meanwhile, the details in the letters on the Canon image are a little better defined than the D40x, and the left shoulder of the bottle is stippled rather than smooth. In the left image, color and contrast are more pumped in the Nikon image, which tends to reveal the anti-noise processing around the edges of the peppers. Likewise, the orange leaves on the cloth in the background are brighter, but with less tonal range than in the Canon image. Most photographers who post-process their images on a computer would be drawn to the Canon XTi's images, because they have software that can make more of the image than the Nikon D40x's software did. But truthfully, the Nikon D40x image will print a little better, appearing more bold and sharp up to about 11x14.

Appraisal. The Nikon D40x is a gem. Consumers should want one, intermediate photographers should want one, and pros would do well to carry one too. The Nikon D40x is one of the finest family cameras on the market made even better than its predecessor, which is a tall order.

As I said with the D40, I've really enjoyed shooting with the D40x, and would seriously consider it as a second camera to something like a D80, D200, or 30D. Those cameras are great for more serious work, but they're also bigger and heavier. The D40x is a camera for capturing fun and family. It's crafted for such duty. And you can still slap high quality glass on it and shoot with the pros anytime you like. The Nikon D40x is perfect for slipping into a small daypack for a hike or picnic. It doesn't take a lot of space, and it comes out of the bag quickly. It focuses and shoots so quietly, you're less likely to scare the animals you're trying to capture.

Intermediate photographers wanting a camera to start a business on a budget should look to the Nikon D80 or Canon 30D, as these are more suited for professional photography. Those who already own a bagful of Nikon glass should look instead to the D80 or D200, because they'll want to use that fine Nikkor equipment as long as they can. But if you're just getting started in SLR photography and want a light, sweet, competent, and simultaneously friendly digital SLR, the Nikon D40x is a superb choice.

In the Box

The Nikon D40x kit ships with the following items in the box:

• Nikon D40x body
• Lens AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II
• Body cap
• Front lens cap
• Camera strap
• Eyepiece cap
• Rubber eyecup
• USB cable
• Quick charger (MH-23)
• AC power cord
• Li-ion battery (EN-EL9)
• Accessory shoe cover
• Lens cap
• PictureProject CD ROM
• Quick start guide
• Instruction manual
• Warranty and registration card

Recommended Accessories

• Large capacity SD memory card. These days, a 1GB or 2GB card is inexpensive enough
• Camera case for protection
• Accessory lenses
• Accessory flash: SB-400, SB-600, SB-800

Nikon D40x Conclusion

Nikon really shocked the market with the D40. Just four months later they did it again with the Nikon D40x. Its jump to 10 megapixels brought more than just resolution enhancements, it brought a new shutter, slightly greater speed, and, surprisingly, better low light performance than the already impressive D40 offered. That's tough to do when you're raising resolution.

The Nikon D40x is a natural fit in most hands. Its controls are where they should be for easy use, and the D40x is a well-behaved guest at parties with its pleasantly soft shutter sound. A big, bright LCD is great for reviewing photos from a wide variety of angles; though we do wish they'd put some kind of eye detection method to prevent glare while you're looking through the viewfinder.

Existing Nikon owners should be careful to note that like the D40, the Nikon D40x can only autofocus with AF-S lenses. Those who want to attach a short, fast prime (non-zoom) lens for indoor low-light shooting should also note that Nikon doesn't currently make any such lenses in AF-S. The good news, however, is that the Nikon D40x's low light performance at ISO 1,600 is startling, even without noise reduction turned on. It's so good that we don't really feel like we're pushing the D40x until we jump into ISO 3,200.

Though the Nikon D40x's kit lens is pretty good, and also fast and quiet, we were a still disappointed that the significant flare we saw in the D40 persist out toward the corners, even in the middle of its zoom range. Chromatic aberration was also fairly high at wide angle, but none of these minor problems were differed significantly from other comparably priced kit lenses. The lens performed very well in most circumstances, so it's worth the price. But the beauty of the SLR is that you can change the lens, or in this case you can even buy a more versatile lens kit for just a little more, with the 18-135mm kit.

No matter how you look at it, the Nikon D40x stands up well against the competition, with great image quality at all speeds, and near-perfect utility as a family camera. Its very fun to use, polite, attractive, and well-built; just the kind of companion you want to have along on your next family outing. The Nikon D40x doesn't really obsolete the D40, which we continue to recommend strongly and list as a Dave's Pick, but it's a little better in just a few key areas, which is high praise indeed. Own either and you'll know why we've made the Nikon D40x a Dave's Pick.

Design

Nikon D40x Design

The Nikon D40x is quite light, with the body, lens, battery, and SD card weighing in at only 753 grams, just 10 grams more than the Nikon D40. Despite its light weight, it never felt tinny or insubstantial, conveying instead a sense of solidity and pleasant heft.

The front of the camera shows the usual assortment of controls. The lens release is on the left side of the lens flange (on the right in the shot above), and the bright incandescent AF-assist lamp is nestled between the top of the grip and lens flange on the other side of the body. The small dark spot on the grip is the window for the optional infrared remote controller.

The left side off the camera has the Fn, or Function button, which by default controls the D40x's self-timer function. Above it is the flash release button, which also doubles as the flash exposure compensation control (the Exposure compensation control must be pressed while turning the Command dial to change the compensation amount). A small plastic and rubber door toward the rear of the camera hides the video-out and USB jacks. A lug for the neckstrap is located on the top corner of the body.

The right side of the D40x is fairly plain, with only a neckstrap lug and a spring loaded door for the SD memory card compartment. There is also a tiny access door for the cord used by the AC adapter dummy battery.

The top of the camera has the shutter button and on/off rotary control in their usual location, as is the exposure compensation button. To the left of that is the Shooting Info button, which triggers the display of shooting information on the rear-panel LCD. The flash shoe accepts generic flash units, as well as any current models of Nikon's Speedlights.

The back of the camera is the same as the D40x. Four buttons run down the left of the LCD: the Playback button, the Menu button, the Zoom out/Thumbnail/Help button, and the Zoom in/Setting/Reset button. Above the LCD are the optical viewfinder and flash hot shoe. To the right of the viewfinder is the diopter correction control. Right of that is the AE-Lock/AF-Lock/Protect button, and finally the Command dial. Right of the LCD is the Multi-controller with an OK button in the center. Beneath this is the Delete button.

The LCD display is huge, bright, and very high resolution, the same 2.5-inch, 230,000 pixel screen used on the D40. Larger LCD screens have become more common on digital cameras, and it's easy to see why. The screen on the D40x is great for viewing photos, and its size and resolution make the menu screens both attractive and easy to read as well.

As usual, there's not a lot to look at on the bottom of the camera, just a metal tripod socket and the battery compartment cover.

Operation

Nikon D40x Operation

As we noted in the Design section, Nikon seems to have really taken pains with the D40x to make its user interface as clean, uncluttered, and approachable as possible. To achieve this, they eliminated two buttons on the back panel that were present on the D50, and consolidated the top-panel data readout functions into a very attractive and logically laid-out display on the large, rear-panel LCD screen. They also put the mode dial closer at hand when you're holding the grip, and added a new scene mode for available-light (non-flash) photography. Experienced shooters may miss the terse convenience of a top-panel data readout, but we think most D40x users will appreciate the size and clarity of the new shooting display on the main LCD screen.

Since we're talking about the rear-panel Shooting display, let's take a look at it:

Nikon D40x Shooting Mode Display
The "Graphic" display is visually appealing, and shows you roughly what the lens aperture is doing	The "Classic" format is a bit less artistic, but uses larger fonts for better readability.

There are two main display modes, the new Graphic display that helps the user visualize what's happening with shutter speed and lens aperture, and the more conventional looking Classic format, which displays the same basic settings information, but uses larger fonts and icons. I personally liked the Graphic format a lot, but can see a time coming when my eyes will prefer the larger type of the Classic display. Interestingly, you can choose different display formats for different camera operating modes: An option on the Setup menu lets you choose different formats for the Digital Vari-Program (Scene) modes than for the PASM (programmed, aperture-priority, shutter-priority, or manual) exposure modes. Potentially a nice feature, by which you could set the camera up with the Graphic display option for a novice user, but have it automatically operate in Classic mode when the more advanced user was shooting using one of the PASM modes.

There's a third Shooting Mode display option that had me scratching my head a bit. A Wallpaper option lets you pick an image from the memory card, and use it as a "wallpaper" design behind the shooting menu elements. Playing with a few different images, I found that most made the displayed information almost impossible to read. The shot at right shows one that was a bit more successful, with a pattern in the upper left corner, but little subject along down the right and bottom edges of the screen, where most of the information is displayed.

The rear-panel display carries quite a bit of information about current camera settings, more than we're accustomed to seeing on a DSLR. Here's a look at the information that's presented:

There's a lot of information shown there, but a logical layout and large/sharp LCD screen makes it easy to tell what you're looking at. The column of data down the right-hand side of the screen represents settings you can adjust directly from this screen.

Changing Shooting Mode Options
The right-hand column of the Shooting display acts as an option menu for various camera settings.	The "image assisted" menus on the D40x are designed to make it easier to know when to use different options.

As shown above, pressing the i button on the back of the camera activates the right-hand option column, letting you scroll through them with the Multi-selector keys. The shot on the left above shows the White Balance option selected, and the shot on the right shows one of the screens that appear when you're changing the White Balance setting. As part of the D40x's designed-in user-friendliness, most options on the shooting menu include "assist" images, to help you understand the types of shots or conditions that each setting is most appropriate for.

For those interested in seeing all the nitty gritty details, we've prepared a page showing all the options on the D40x Shooting Menu. (Note, there's a ton of screen shots on it, so the page could take a while to download if you're on a dialup connection.)

Optics

Nikon D40x Optics

Kit Lens

The Nikon D40x ships in kit form with the same updated version of the Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G lens that comes in D40 kits. We haven't tested a sample of the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S DX II on SLRgear.com yet, but don't expect it to be radically different from the earlier model that shipped with the D50. The 18-55mm on the D50 was a fairly typical kit lens, with so-so optical performance wide open, but capable of very good sharpness if you stopped it down one or two f-stops. Kit lenses work well enough for most consumers, and serve their purpose, getting you started without breaking the bank; but a big part of the attraction with SLRs is that you can easily trade up to a better lens when your finances improve, and extend your reach to wider angle, telephoto, or macro photography just by adding to your lens collection.

As noted in the User Report, we did find that bright objects in sunlight still show a little more lens flare than we're accustomed to seeing, especially toward the telephoto setting, but it won't be very noticeable unless you routinely enlarge above 8x10.

Lens Compatibility

Like the Nikon D40, the D40x drops support for the older autofocus lenses whose focus mechanisms were driven from the camera. These lenses have what looks like a little screwdriver slot on their mounting flange that couples with a protruding, screwdriver-looking shaft on the camera body. A motor in the camera body thus drives the lens mechanics to adjust focus.

More recent Nikkor lenses have motors built into the lens body, which tend to be both faster and quieter than the old-style drive system. These newer lenses carry an AF-S or AF-I designation in their name, and are the only types of lenses the D40x can autofocus with. CPU-equipped lenses lacking built-in focus motors can be used in manual focus mode, and type G or D lens types will also support full 3D color matrix metering for more accurate exposures, particularly when flash is being used. (You can tell CPU-equipped lenses by the set of five electrical contacts arrayed on the side of the lens flange.) The table below (courtesy Nikon Inc.) tells the full story of lens compatibility for the D40x.

The lack of an onboard focus motor is a key feature distinguishing the D40 and D40x from the D80. If you need to use older lenses (or a lot of Nikon's current line of prime (non-zoom)) lenses with your DSLR, you need the D80 or D200. This is a factor that could turn away current Nikon shooters, but it makes sense for an entry-level camera like the D40x. Dropping the AF motor greatly helps with size and weight issues, and probably battery drain as well. Newcomers to the SLR world are likely to be perfectly content sticking with AF-S lenses, and all of Nikon's digital-specific DX lenses are AF-S models, providing a pretty wide range of options.

Autofocus System

While the D40 and D40x carried over a lot of the capabilities of the D80, their autofocus system is one area where cost-cutting has had a noticeable impact. The previous D50 had a 5-area AF system, and the D80 has 11 active AF points, but the D40x has only three, arranged horizontally across the frame. With the more limited AF array, the D40x's ability to track moving subjects will be less than that of the D50 or D80, but the 3-point AF array isn't unreasonable to find in its price bracket.

This is one area where the interests of novice and more experienced shooters may actually converge. Both would benefit from the D80's more sophisticated AF system, and the argument could be made that novices actually need a better AF system than advanced amateurs, as they'll be less accustomed to paying attention to what the camera is focusing on. That said, it's not too difficult to check that one of the 3 AF areas is covering your subject, and it's a relatively small step up to learn to aim the camera and lock focus.

Focus Options

The Nikon D40x offers pretty well all the focus options of the D50, the main difference being that options for setting the focus mode are presented on the LCD screen, as opposed to a little single/continuous/manual focus switch on the camera body itself. Many Nikkor lenses also have an Auto/Manual focusing switch on their barrels. If the switch on the lens barrel is set to "M," focusing will be under manual control, regardless of the setting of the switch on the camera body. Most AF-S lenses with the built-in Silent Wave focus motor let you manually focus the lens at any time, regardless of the camera's focus setting, so there's less need for a body-mounted focus-mode switch: The menu selection should do fine for most users.

To select between the three types of AF, you just navigate to the Focus Mode option on the camera's shooting display (or to the identical Focus Mode option in the Custom Settings Menu system) and choose between AF-A (Auto Servo), AF-S (Single Servo), and AF-C (Continuous Servo). Manual focus is the fourth option. Single Servo simply means that the camera sets focus only once, when the Shutter button is first pressed halfway, and is best for still objects. Continuous Servo means that the camera continuously adjusts the focus, as long as the Shutter button is halfway pressed, and is best for moving subjects. The Auto setting (added to Nikon's D-series SLR line with the earlier D50) lets the camera select the servo mode, depending on the movement of the subject.

The Nikon D40x is similar to the D50 in how it behaves in out-of-focus conditions. Some SLRs will let you fire the shutter in Continuous Servo mode if the lens hasn't achieved focus, but not in Single Servo mode. The D40x never fires the shutter if the lens isn't focused. (Unless of course, you have the camera or lens set to manual focus operation.) This more restrictive shooting could be an inconvenience to more experienced shooters, but will almost certainly be a benefit to novices, as the camera itself will guard against capturing out-of-focus images.

Focus can be confined to one of the three specific focus points in both Single Area mode, and in Dynamic Area which offers focus tracking. Single Area AF simply means that the camera sets focus based on the specific area you've designated. Dynamic AF employs all three of the autofocus areas. When Dynamic Area focusing is enabled, the camera first focuses on the subject in the chosen focus area. After the camera has initially "locked on" to the subject, if it moves to a different AF area, the camera will shift its focus to "follow" the subject. This is great for irregularly moving subjects. (Sports and kids come to mind.) In both Dynamic and Single Area AF modes, you can change the primary focus area using the right or left directions on the Multi-Selector pad. Closest Subject Priority is a third option, selected via either the AF-Area mode option on the shooting screen or by a custom settings menu item. Closest Subject Priority means that the camera will focus on the closest object that falls under one of the three focus points.

There are two methods by which you can lock focus with the Nikon D40x. The first is via the Shutter button, placing your subject in the selected focus area, halfway pressing and holding the Shutter button, then realigning the composition and firing the shutter. Alternatively, when using Single Servo AF, you can press the AF-L/AE-L button to lock focus (and exposure, unless the button is set for focus-only in the Custom Settings menu) after having initially established it by half-pressing the shutter button. Keeping this button pressed will maintain the focus and/or exposure lock, even if the Shutter button is released. This lets you recompose the photograph without having to keep your finger on the Shutter button, but rather on the AE-L/AF-L button instead. (Reducing the chance that you'll accidentally trip the shutter when you don't intend to.)

There are several options available for the AE-L/AF-L button, which can be set via the Custom Settings Menu. You can program it to lock either focus or exposure separately, or both together (the default). You can also change its operation so a single press locks and holds the exposure setting. (No need to keep the button held down.) Finally, you can set the AE/AF lock button so it alone controls the autofocus system, meaning the autofocus won't actuate when the Shutter button is half-pressed, only when the AE/AF lock button is pressed instead.

If you're a novice user considering purchasing a Nikon D40x, and all this focus/exposure lock mumbo-jumbo sounds confusing, don't let it worry you; the camera's default operation is very straightforward, but the availability of features like these is really liberating for more advanced users.

AF Assist

Like past Nikon SLRs, the D40x's AF-assist light is a bright incandescent bulb that emits from the body near the handgrip. We thought to call particular attention to it, because some competing cameras (notably the Canon Digital Rebel series) use the flash as an AF-assist light. This would be fine, but they also require that the flash be used in the exposure, so there's no way to have AF assist for available-light shots. The D40x doesn't have this limitation.

Sensor Cleaning!

Everyone understands that lenses sometimes get dust on them and need to be cleaned, and there are a lot of lens-cleaning cloths, solutions and other accessories on the market that work well. BUT, what do you do when your sensor gets dusty? Dust specks on the sensor tend to show up when shooting at very small apertures, appearing as dark blobs on your images. They're distracting at best, a terrible nuisance at worst, if you end up having to retouch every image to rid of them.

Most of us are naturally leery about the idea of poking around inside the delicate innards of our DSLRs to wrestle with recalcitrant dust specks. Gently blowing the sensor surface (actually, the surface of the anti-aliasing filter) with compressed air gets rid of some dust, but there's invariably a lot that just stays stuck, no matter what. So what do you do?

If you've got dust specks on your sensor (and sooner or later you will), you're going to need to clean it. There are a lot of products out there intended to address this need, but a distressing number of them work poorly (if at all), and many are grossly overpriced. Advertising hype is rampant, with bogus pseudo-scientific jargon and absurd product claims run rampant. And prices - Did I mention prices? How about $100 for a simple synthetic-bristle brush?

So how do you know what product to use?

We don't pretend to have used everything currently on the market, but can tell you about one solution that worked very well for us. The "Copper Hill" cleaning method is straightforward and safe, and in our routine usage here at Imaging Resource, highly effective. Better yet, the products sold by Copper Hill Imaging are very reasonably priced. Best of all, Nicholas R (proprietor of Copper Hill) has put together an amazingly detailed tutorial on sensor cleaning, free for all.

Sensor cleaning is one of the last things people think about when buying a d-SLR, but it's vital to capturing the best possible images. Take our advice and order a cleaning kit from Copper Hill right along with your d-SLR, so you'll have it close at hand when you need it: You'll be glad you did!

(While they've advertised on our sister site SLRgear.com from time to time, we receive no promotional consideration from Copper Hill for this note. We just think their sensor cleaning products are among the best on the market, and like their way of doing business. - We think you will too. Check them out.)

Lens

Zoom
Good performance from the Nikon D40x's 18-55mm kit lens.

The Nikon D40x is available bundled with the Nikon AF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 DX II kit lens. which covers the basic zoom range most commonly used. Results were quite good in these shots, where the programmed exposure stopped the lens down to f/8.0, in the sweet-spot of most SLR lenses. Corner-to-corner sharpness is quite good, although some chromatic aberration is visible. Wide open, some softness appears in the corners, but the lens performs well when stopped down one or two f-stops. If you look in the trees on the far right side in the 55mm shot, you can also see evidence of the lens flare mentioned in the User Report.

Macro
A small macro area with good detail. Flash performs well up close.

As with zoom performance, the Nikon D40x's macro performance will depend entirely on the lens in use. However, with the 18-55mm kit lens set to 55mm, the D40x captured a small (for a non-macro lens) minimum area measuring 2.73 x 1.83 inches (69 x 46 millimeters). Detail and resolution were both quite good, though there was a fair amount of softening in the corners, most likely the result of spherical aberration in the lens. (Most cameras have some softening in the corners in macro mode.) The flash produced fairly even results, with only minimal falloff in the corners of the frame.

Distortion
Average barrel distortion at wide angle, but almost none at telephoto.

Barrel distortion at 18mm is 0.8%

Barrel at 55mm is less than 0.1%

This is the tendency for the lens to bend straight lines outward (like a barrel -- usually at wide angle) or inward (like a pincushion -- usually at telephoto). The Nikon D40x's 18-55mm kit lens produced about 0.8% barrel distortion at wide angle, which is about average among the cameras we've tested, and is noticeable in some images. At the telephoto end, the lens produced less than 0.1% barrel distortion, which is much less than average and imperceptible in images.

Chromatic aberration
Noticeable to very low distortion with the 18-55mm kit lens.

Chromatic aberration in the corners with the Nikon D40x's kit lens is pretty evident (we'd call it on the high side of "moderate," or "noticeable") at the 18mm setting. It's less distinguished by its width and more by its brightness, showing about 7-8 pixels of fringing in the extreme corners. At 55mm, the distortion is very low, but the flare is more evident, especially in the top right corner. (This distortion is visible as a very slight colored fringe around the objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target.)

Corner Sharpness
Some softening in the corners with the 18-55mm kit lens.

The Nikon D40x's 18-55mm kit lens produced soft corners in a few shots. At wide angle, corners were a bit soft, compared to the center of the frame. Sharpness improves fairly rapidly as you look toward the center of the frame, the worst of it going away by the time you're 10% of the way to the center, and essentially all of it at 20% toward the center. At telephoto, corners showed less blurring, and the center was still fairly sharp. Not a bad performance for a kit lens.

The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Nikon D40X Photo Gallery .

Exposure

Nikon D40x Exposure

The Nikon D40x gives you all the exposure options you'd expect in a high-end prosumer SLR, matching more or less identically the capabilities of the D50 in this area. Available exposure modes include Full Auto, Program AE, Manual, Aperture Priority, and Shutter Priority modes with shutter speeds from 1/4,000 to 30 seconds available in 1/3 EV steps, as well as a Bulb setting for longer exposures.

The D40x's x-sync speed for flash use is 1/200 second, down from the D40's 1/500 flash sync speed. What's up? It turns out that the D40, like the D70, D70S, and D50 before it, had a relatively slow mechanical shutter, but "gated" the CCD for its shortest shutter speeds. This means that the CCD itself is actually exposed to incoming light for a longer period of time (perhaps 1/100 - 1/200 second), but the camera manipulates the chip's control voltages to only allow light collection for a much shorter period of time. This makes it easy to produce very brief exposures without the expense of a really high-speed mechanical shutter, and as a consequence also permits very high x-sync speeds. The downside is that large light overloads can cause streaking or smearing in its images. See our discussion of "Shutter Control vs CCD Gating" in our D80 review for more detail on this topic.

The good news is that the D40x won't have that problem, unlike the D40; but the x-sync speed is slower as a result.

A very nice touch that's common to other Nikon DSLRs is that, while in Program AE mode, you can rotate the Command dial to select different combinations of aperture and shutter speed settings than those normally chosen by the autoexposure system. (That is, if the automatic program would have chosen 1/125 second and f/5.6, you could instead direct the camera to use 1/60 at f/8 or 1/30 at f/11, to get greater depth of field.) This is a very handy option for those times when you need some measure of increased control, but still want the camera to do most of the work for you.

An interesting feature when using Manual exposure mode is the electronic analog exposure display visible in the optical viewfinder data readout. This shows the amount the camera thinks an image will be over- or underexposed, based on the settings you have selected, and helps you find the best exposure for the subject.

ISO Range
ISO sensitivity ranges from 100 to 3,200, adjustable through the Shooting display, or via the Shooting menu itself. Scrolling past the 1,600 setting offers a HI-1 setting, which is one full EV step above 1,600, equating to a value of 3200.

White Balance Options
(Note: Since the camera is aimed at a less sophisticated group of users, Nikon doesn't specify the Kelvin temperature settings corresponding to the various white balance presets in the D40x's manual. The numbers we reference below are taken from the D80: It seems like a pretty safe assumption that they'll hold true for the D40x as well.)

White balance modes on the Nikon D40x include Auto (usable from 3,500K to 8,000K), Incandescent (set to about 3,000K), Fluorescent (4,200K), Direct Sunlight (5,200K), Flash (5,400K), Cloudy (6,000K), Shade (8,000K), and Preset (which allows you to manually adjust the white value by using a white card or object as a reference point). All white balance settings are adjustable from -3 to +3 units on an arbitrary scale by use of the Multi-Selector arrows when you're in the White Balance menu screens (with the exception of the Preset option, which is not adjustable). While we called it arbitrary, in all but Fluorescent white balance mode, each step on the fine-tuning scale corresponds to 10 mired of color shift. The fluorescent setting provides a wider range of variation to accommodate the wide range of colors available in fluorescent lighting. You can also bracket white balance exposures (see the Autobracketing discussion below). Higher values correspond to a decrease in the camera's white point, in degrees Kelvin (meaning the images become "cooler" in appearance). This is a very nice feature, as we often wish we could use one of a camera's standard white-balance settings, but tweak it to be just a bit warmer or cooler than the default. To be sure, some experimentation would be required to familiarize yourself with the impact of these "tweaked" white balance settings, but having them available is a big plus. The table below shows approximate white point temperatures in degrees Kelvin for the various adjustments in each of the major white balance settings.

Nikon D40x Metering Options

The D40x has three metering options: 3D Color Matrix II, Center-Weighted, and Spot. The 3D Color Matrix II setting integrates exposure information from a large number of areas across the frame (useful when brightly colored or very dark subjects occupy a significant portion of the frame) with distance information from the microchip in D- and G-series lenses. The result is much more accurate metering response than more conventional center-weighted metering would provide. Like the D80, the D40x uses a 420-segment RGB metering sensor for its 3D Color Matrix II metering (vs the 1,005-segment one in the D200 and D2Xs), but does still use the same 30,000-image database for judging exposure. Center-Weighted metering measures light from the entire frame but places the greatest emphasis on a circular area 8mm in diameter, corresponding to a bit less than 7% of the total frame area. Spot metering takes a reading from a 3.5mm circle centered on the active focus area only. The D40x's spot metering sensor measures from a circle covering 2.5% of the frame.

The D40x's Exposure Compensation adjustment increases or reduces the overall exposure from -5 to +5 exposure equivalents (EV) in one-third step increments, in all exposure modes. An Auto Bracketing feature captures multiple shots with different exposure or white balance values determined by either the photographer in Manual mode or by the camera in all other modes. (See below for details.).

When reviewing images on the LCD monitor, you can call up a histogram and a highlight function to give you a complete readout on the exposure. This is a useful tool to examine your exposure in the camera instead of waiting to download images and then deciding to reshoot. One change from the D80 though is that the D40x only shows a luminance (brightness) histogram, not separate red, green, and blue histograms.

Nikon D40x Continuous Shooting & Self-Timer Modes

The Nikon D40x offers a single continuous shooting mode, accessed via the Drive Mode option on the Shooting display and Shooting menu screens. Only a single drive mode is offered (vs the separate low and high-speed modes on the D200), with a frame rate of 2.5 frames/second. This matches the performance of the original D50. The D40x also sports the obligatory self-timer mode, with delay options of 2, 5, 10, and 20 seconds.

No Automatic Exposure Bracketing?

Bracketing is the practice of taking shots above or below the indicated exposure for a given subject, a way to make sure that you get at least one properly-exposed image of difficult subjects. Most digital cameras these days offer some sort of automatic exposure bracketing, and all prior Nikon DSLRs did as well. We were thus rather surprised to find no option for bracketing on the D40x. In our own shooting, we find ourselves using the auto-bracketing feature quite frequently. While it does give you three times as many shots to deal with on the computer later, it's a great hedge against lost detail due to blown exposures on tricky subjects. We recognize that Nikon was aiming for dead-simple usage on the D40x, but auto exposure bracketing is a feature we think even relatively novice shooters could use and benefit from.

Nikon D40x "Image Optimization" Options

The Nikon D40x also offers the by-now-familiar Optimize Image menu, accessed through the Shooting menu, which lets you choose various presets for Normal, Softer, Vivid, and More vivid colors, special color and sharpness settings for portraits, plus an option for snapping black-and-white images.

The custom option lets you adjust sharpening, contrast (tone compensation), color mode (normal or vivid modes in sRGB color space, or Adobe RGB for people working in color-managed computer environments), color saturation, and overall color hue. All of these go quite a bit beyond the capabilities you'd normally expect to find in an entry-level DSLR.

One area where the D40x is more limited than the D80 is in its black-and-white shooting mode. The D80 lets you apply color filters when shooting in black and white mode, mimicking the effect of color contrast-enhancing filters on a black-and-white film camera. The D40x offers only a single color-to-monochrome rendering.

The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Nikon D40X Photo Gallery .

Not sure which camera to buy? Let your eyes be the ultimate judge! Visit our Comparometer(tm) to compare images from the Nikon D40X with those from other cameras you may be considering. The proof is in the pictures, so let your own eyes decide which you like best!

Performance

Nikon D40x Performance

Imaging

Nikon D40x Imaging Characteristics

Imaging and file quality are of paramount importance for any digital camera. We found that the D40x held up the proud Nikon tradition very well in this area, delivering excellent image quality for an entry-level SLR. As with the D80, the D40x's images look great straight from the camera, the amount of sharpening that's applied leaving only slight artifacts, but delivering good-looking prints as large as 13 x 19 inches.

Nikon has also worked wonders with their noise suppression, producing really impressive results at ISO 1,600, with surprisingly usable images at ISO 3,200 as well. Read on for all the details!

Color

Saturation & Hue Accuracy
Vibrant color with moderate oversaturation of strong reds and blues.

In the diagram above, the squares show the original color, and the circles show the color that the camera captured. More saturated colors are located towards the periphery of the graph. Hue changes as you travel around the center. Thus, hue-accurate, highly saturated colors appear as lines radiating from the center. Click for a larger image.

Saturation. The Nikon D40x produces images with fairly vibrant color, oversaturating strong red and blue tones. The oversaturation is a little higher that what we're used to seeing from a DSLR, but far from the most we've seen from consumer models. Relative to its little brother the D40, the D40x shows just slightly higher saturation across the board, and in particular avoids the D40's slight undersaturation of some greens and yellows. Most consumer digital cameras produce color that's more highly saturated (more intense) than found in the original subjects. This is simply because most people like their color a bit brighter than life.

Skin tones. Caucasian skin tones from the D40x lean toward the bright side, a bit more pinkish than in real life. Some users would call this "a healthy glow", others may find it a little ruddy. We found them acceptable, but generally prefer the somewhat more natural tones of the D40 over those of the D40x. Where color saturation is most critical is on Caucasian skin tones, as it's very easy for these "memory colors" to be seen as too bright, too pink, etc.

Hue. The Nikon D40x did push blue toward cyan a little (which produces better-looking skies), and oranges towards yellow, but again, the overall results are pretty good. Hue is "what color" the color is.

Sensor

Exposure and White Balance

Indoors, incandescent lighting
Auto White Balance does not compensate for tungsten lighting very well at all. Good color with the Incandescent white balance setting, though just slightly warm. Manual white balance is quite accurate. An average amount of exposure compensation was required.

Color balance indoors under incandescent lighting was pretty warm with the Auto white balance setting, though the Incandescent and Manual and options both produced more accurate results. In the end, the Incandescent setting was still just slightly too warm for our tastes, but some users may prefer this, as being more representative of the original lighting. The Nikon D40x required an average amount of positive exposure compensation here, at +1.0 EV. Despite the (very) slight warm cast, overall color with the Manual white balance setting looks quite good, though the blue flowers appear very purple. (Many digital cameras have trouble here.) Our test lighting for this shot is a mixture of 60 and 100 watt household incandescent bulbs, a pretty yellow light source, but a very common one in typical home settings here in the U.S.

Outdoors, daylight
Bright colors overall, though a tendency toward a warm cast and high contrast under harsh lighting. About average exposure accuracy.

Outdoors, the Nikon D40x tended toward a warmer color balance, though overall color was generally pretty good. The D40x performed better than average in terms of exposure, requiring less than the typical amount of positive compensation we're accustomed to seeing among consumer digital cameras. (And the far-field shot of the house came out a little overexposed at the D40x's default exposure setting.) The D40x's default contrast is a little high, producing washed-out highlights and dark shadows under the deliberately harsh lighting of our "Sunlit" portrait test shown above left. The camera's contrast setting does tame the highlights and shadows slightly.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Resolution
Very high resolution, 1,600 ~ 1,650 lines of strong detail.

Our laboratory resolution chart revealed sharp, distinct line patterns down to about 1,650 lines per picture height horizontally, and to about 1,600 vertically, with extinction past 2,000. Use these numbers to compare with other cameras of similar resolution, or use them to see just what higher resolution can mean in terms of potential detail. Our interpretation of this standard is somewhat conservative. We watch for artifacts and color fringing then move back to the nearest pure part of the scale. In our opinion, detail with artifacts shouldn't be considered detail. You may see other numbers quoted elsewhere, but across the site, our reviews judge this parameter by the same conservative standard.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Sharpness & Detail
Reasonably sharp images overall, though slight edge-enhancement artifacts on high-contrast subjects. Some noise suppression also visible in the shadows.

Sharpness. The Nikon D40x captures fairly sharp images overall, though some minor edge enhancement artifacts are visible on high-contrast subjects such as the crop above left. (Edge enhancement creates the illusion of sharpness by enhancing colors and tones right at the edge of a rapid transition in color or tone.)

Noise suppression. The crop above right shows some moderate noise suppression in the darkest areas of Marti's hair, though quite a few individual strands are visible in the lighter shadows. The camera's overall response here is better than average. Noise-suppression systems in digital cameras tend to flatten-out detail in areas of subtle contrast. The effects can often be seen in shots of human hair, where the individual strands are lost and an almost "watercolor" look appears.

ISO & Noise Performance
Low noise at the normal sensitivity settings, and fairly clean images at the higher settings.

Noise levels are quite low at the Nikon D40x's lower sensitivity settings. At ISO 800, noise is still low, but we start to see some loss in fine detail due to the camera's noise reduction. Noise levels increase at the 1,600 and 3,200 settings by quite a bit, with stronger blurring, "grain" and increased chroma noise, though results are still quite good for a 10 megapixel sensor at such high sensitivity settings. (We suspect most consumers would be pleased by 5x7 inch prints from the D40X's ISO 3200 files, and even 8x10s would look fine in a frame on a wall or table.)

Extremes: Sunlit and low light tests
High resolution with strong overall detail, but high contrast with strong highlights. Excellent low-light performance, great exposure to the lowest limits of our test, and the autofocus worked that low, even without the AF-assist light.

Sunlight. The Nikon D40x produced high contrast with slightly washed-out highlights and deep shadows under the harsh lighting of the test above. However, shadow detail is pretty good, despite some noise suppression and bright-pixel image noise. It's a bit of a toss-up here between the results at +0.3 and +0.7 EV. Some areas look a little hot at +0.7 EV, although many consumer-level users would doubtless prefer the brighter skin tones of that version. Skin tones in the image shot at +0.3 EV are a little dark, but the highlights are much better, with only the strongest of them being blown out. We'll "call" this as best at +0.3 EV, but recognize that some readers might prefer the versions a third-stop on either side of it. (In "real life" though, be sure to use fill flash in situations like the one shown above; it's better to shoot in the shade when possible.) The camera's contrast adjustment does help tame the high contrast here.

Note: Because digital cameras are more like slide film than negative film (in that they tend to have a more limited tonal range), we test them in the harshest situations to see how they handle scenes with bright highlights and dark shadows, as well as what kind of sensitivity they have in low light. The shot above is designed to mimic the very harsh, contrasty effect of direct noonday sunlight, a very tough challenge for most digital cameras. (You can read details of this test here.)

	1 fc 11 lux	1/2 fc 5.5 lux	1/4 fc 2.7 lux	1/8 fc 1.3 lux	1/16 fc 0.67 lux	1/16fc No NR
ISO 100	2.5 sec f3.0	5 sec f3.0	10 sec f3.0	20 sec f3.0	30 sec f3.0	30 sec f3.0
ISO 200	1.3 sec f3.0	2.5 sec f3.0	5 sec f3.0	10 sec f3.0	20 sec f3.0	20 sec f3.0
ISO 400	0.6 sec f3.0	1.3 sec f3.0	2.5 sec f3.0	5 sec f3.0	10 sec f3.0	10 sec f3.0
ISO 800	0.3 sec f3.0	0.6 sec f3.0	1.3 sec f3.0	2.5 sec f3.0	5 sec f3.0	5 sec f3.0
ISO 1600	1/6 sec f3.0	0.3 sec f3.0	0.6 sec f3.0	1.3 sec f3.0	2.5 sec f3.0	2.5 sec f3.0
ISO 3200	1/13 sec f3.0	1/6 sec f3.0	0.3 sec f3.0	0.6 sec f3.0	1.3 sec f3.0	1.3 sec f3.0

Low light. The Nikon D40x captured bright images down to the 1/16 foot-candle light level (about 1/16 as bright as average city street lighting at night), at all ISO settings. The camera's autofocus system was also able to focus on the subject down to below the 1/16 foot-candle light level unassisted, which works out well for its exposure system. Do keep in mind though, that the very long shutter times necessary here absolutely demand the use of a tripod or other camera support to get sharp photos. (A useful trick is to just prop the camera on a convenient surface, and use its self-timer to release the shutter. This avoids any jiggling from your finger pressing the shutter button, and can work quite well when you don't have a tripod handy.)

Note: This low light test is conducted with a stationary subject, and the camera mounted on a sturdy tripod. Most digital cameras will fail miserably when faced with a moving subject in dim lighting. (For example, a child's ballet recital or a holiday pageant in a gymnasium.) For such applications, you may have better luck with a digital SLR camera, but even there, you'll likely need to set the focus manually. For information and reviews on digital SLRs, refer to our SLR review index page.

Output Quality

Print Quality
Excellent print quality, great color, great 13x19 inch prints. ISO 1,600 images are soft but quite usable at 8x10, while ISO 3,200 shots are decent at 8x10 and very good at 5x7.

We were very pleasantly surprise by the original Nikon D40, and found ourselves very pleased by the results from the D40x as well. The D40x's additional resolution made for very nice-looking 13x19 inch prints, quite crisp and sharp looking. At high ISO, image noise levels are held in check surprisingly well up to the maximum of ISO 3,200 (!). We almost never say that, but it was true of the D40, and is true of the D40x as well. (The D40's larger pixels give it slightly less grain in areas of relatively flat tint, but the two cameras are very close to each other in high-ISO noise performance.) ISO 800 shots under daylight-balanced lighting look quite good at 11x14 and, those shot under incandescent lighting look great at 8x10, where images from most cameras will start to fall apart (the very warm color balance of incandescent lighting forces the camera's already-noisy blue channel to work harder, producing higher noise.)

Though they were somewhat noisy, even images from our severe incandescent-lit Indoor Portrait test produced usable prints up to 8x10 at ISO 1,600, working with those shot with Manual white balance. At ISO 3,200, the images showed yellow blotches in the skin and hair that showed up even at very small sizes. Still, a very impressive performance from a camera designed to be easy enough for novices to use.

Note: Testing hundreds of digital cameras, we've found that you can only tell just so much about a camera's image quality by viewing its images on-screen. Ultimately, there's no substitute for printing a lot of images and examining them closely. For this reason, we now routinely print sample images from the cameras we test on our Canon i9900 studio printer, and on the Canon iP5200 here in the office. (See the Canon i9900 review for details on that model.)

Viewfinder

Nikon D40x Viewfinder

Like most DSLRs, the Nikon D40x's viewfinder is an optical through-the-lens type, with the LCD monitor being used for image playback and menu access only. (That is, there's no live image preview available.) The D40x's viewfinder provides a magnification of 0.8x. This makes for a good size image, making it a bit easier to see subject details. The D40x's dioptric correction adjustment (for eyeglass wearers) also has a range from -1.7 to +0.5 diopter. It has an eyepoint height of 18mm. The D40x's viewfinder is a pentamirror design, rather than the more costly, but brighter pentaprism.

The viewfinder is actually one of the bigger distinguishing features between the D40x and D80: The D80 uses a pentaprism design, has a magnification factor of 0.94x, an eyepoint of 19.5mm, and a diopter adjustment range of -2.0 to +1.0. While the D40x's viewfinder is every bit as capable as those on many competing DSLRs, the D80 clearly wins on size, brightness, comfort, and flexibility.

The Nikon D40x's viewfinder readouts do a good job of communicating camera status and exposure settings, a slightly trimmed-down list of information from that found on the D80 and makes for a simple and relatively uncluttered display. One clear difference relative to both the D50 and D80 though: The D40x has no liquid-crystal overlay in the main viewfinder window. Instead, the active AF area lights up via a far more obvious red LED brackets.

Viewfinder

Accuracy
A reasonably accurate optical viewfinder.

The Nikon D40x's optical viewfinder proved reasonably accurate, showing about 96% accuracy at both wide angle, and telephoto zoom settings. This is slightly above average for digital SLRs.

Nikon D40x LCD Display

As is the case with most digital SLRs, the LCD panel on the D40x can't be used as a viewfinder. It does, however, provide a great deal of information about your pictures after you've shot them. A variety of playback options are offered, including image-only, four flavors of overlaid information, a 4- or 9-image thumbnail display, and a zoomed playback mode with variable information. The screenshots below show several of the information displays that are available.

Playback Information Screens
The default playback-mode information screen. Folder & file names, date/time, image sequence number, and image size/quality.	The first of two more detailed information overlays.
The second detailed information overlay screen.	Luminance histogram overlay.

Its playback screens were one of the things we liked most on the D80 (and the D200 before it), so we were very happy to see a lot of that functionality carried over to the D40x as well.

Of the various screens, one of the more interesting options on the Nikon D40x is the histogram screen. Histogram displays are common on professional digital cameras (and many amateur models now as well), regarded as almost mandatory by many pros for evaluating exposure levels. A histogram is simply a graph of how many pixels there are in the image at each brightness level. The brightness is the horizontal axis, running from black at the left to white at the right. The height of the graph shows the relative number of pixels having each brightness level. This sort of display is very handy for determining under- or overexposure. Ideally, the histogram would stretch across the entire width of the display, using the full range of brightness values available. An underexposed image will have a histogram with all the data lumped on the left-hand side, with nothing reaching all the way to the right. Likewise, an overexposed image will have all the data lumped on the right hand side.

On the D40x, a luminance (brightness) graph is the only option for the histogram display in playback mode, the RGB+L histogram display option from the D80 having been dropped. We here at IR like being able to see what's going on in the individual color channels, but for the novice user the D40x is aimed at, the individual red, green, and blue histogram displays might have been more confusing than useful. An RGB histogram can however be accessed in the Retouch Filter Effects menu.

A histogram display is very helpful in telling whether you've got the exposure right, but to my mind isn't adequate by itself. With digital cameras, it's very important not to blow-out the highlights in a picture (they're similar to color positive film in that respect), since once you hit the maximum brightness, the image just saturates, and any highlight detail will be lost. A histogram display does a pretty good job of telling you how the image as a whole is doing, but what if there are just a few critical areas that you're worried about for the highlights? If only a small percentage of the total frame is involved, it won't account for many pixels. That means any peak at the "white" end of the histogram graph would be pretty small, and easy to miss (or just plain invisible). What to do? The folks at Nikon recognized this problem some time ago, and so have provided another special display mode on the D40x (as on most of their dSLRs) that they simply call "highlights," accessible via the Playback settings menu, under "Display Mode." This mode blinks any highlights that are saturated in any of the color channels. It does this by taking the nearly-white areas on the LCD and toggling them between white and black. The shot above right shows the blown highlights blinking on an otherwise uninteresting shot of an overexposed brick wall.

The D40x also offers the D80's excellent options for display magnification. You have the normal thumbnail or normal-sized displays available, but can also enlarge the display up to 19x (for maximum-resolution images) to examine critical focus and framing. Pressing the Magnify button enables zoomed playback, and each subsequent press of it zooms in a step closer. Pressing the "unmagnify"/Thumbnail button zooms you out. Any time you're zoomed in, you can scroll around the magnified image by using the Multi-controller. A particularly nice feature is that you can use the Command Dial to scroll between images on the memory card, at the same zoom level, and with the same relative position in each. This is especially helpful when you want to check the same detail in multiple versions of the same shot.

Flash

Nikon D40x Flash

Flash photography has been a particular strength of Nikon SLRs for some time now, and the D40x follows suit, with its implementation of Nikon's 3D Color Matrix II metering for flash exposures. This advanced exposure metering system takes advantage of subject-distance information relayed by the lens to compute more accurate flash exposures than more conventional systems based on reflected light alone.

Flash capability is also an area where the Nikon D40 and D40x shed some substantial capability relative to the D80, though, in that its built-in flash can't serve as a Commander in Nikon's Wireless Lighting System. You can still use the D40x with a Nikon SB-800 flash to control multiple remote flash units, but the built-in flash doesn't have that ability on its own.

The flash modes available vary depending on the setting of the mode dial, with some of the more automated/programmed modes restricting your choices. The full list of flash modes includes Auto, Auto+Red-Eye Reduction, Auto+Slow Sync+Red-Eye Reduction, Slow Sync, Slow Sync+Red-Eye Reduction, and Rear Curtain+Slow Sync. Red-Eye Reduction mode fires the (very bright) AF-assist light before the main flash exposure, to reduce the Red-Eye Effect in shots of people. Red-Eye Reduction with Slow Sync works in a similar fashion, but combines the flash with a slower shutter speed for night portraits. (This reduces the harsh effect of nighttime flash shots, allowing more of the ambient illumination into the picture.) Slow Sync mode works with shutter speeds as slow as 30 seconds to preserve color in night shots. Finally, Rear-Curtain Sync fires the flash at the end of the exposure, producing light trails that appear to follow (rather than precede) moving subjects. A Manual flash exposure mode is available via Custom Settings Menu option 14.

Flash exposure can be set over a range of -3 to +1 EV by holding the Flash and Exposure Compensation buttons down simultaneously, while rotating the Command Dial. (Flash exposure can also be adjusted via the Shooting Display and Multi-Controller arrow keys, which some users may find more straightforward.)

As noted elsewhere in this review, the Nikon D40x has a 1/200 second maximum x-sync speed.

Another note relative to the x-sync speed on the D40x: Its built-in flash is not FP-capable. Basically, this means that the on-board flash can't sync at shutter speeds greater than 1/200 second. There also doesn't appear to be any support for external flash units that are FP-capable.

Besides the main flash modes listed above, the D40x's onboard speedlight can also be used in manual mode, in which you can set its power output to fixed levels of full, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, and 1/32 power. The D40x's internal flash is fairly powerful, with a guide number of 17 meters or 55 feet at ISO 200 in auto mode, extending slightly to 18 meters (59 feet) in manual mode. The greater range in manual mode is because it doesn't have to expend energy on the metering pre-flash. (Novices should note that 55 feet is the guide number, not the range. Divide the guide number by your lens' aperture setting to produce the actual range in feet.)

3D Color Matrix II Flash Metering
As noted above, the "3D" aspect of the Nikon metering system is that it uses subject distance information from the lens (only available with G or D-type lenses) to guide its exposure decisions. This is particularly key with flash exposures, because flash illumination falls off quite strongly as the subject gets further from the camera. The "Color Matrix" part of the name refers to the use of a 420-segment RGB sensor for exposure determination, which significantly improves the accuracy with which the camera can determine various scene types, for lookup in its 30,000-image exposure database. We at IR are huge fans of Nikon's flash technology, it's really a case of technology working perfectly in the service of creativity. The camera just quietly does its job, so you can focus on composition, color, interacting with your subjects, etc. It doesn't remove the creative decisions of how you want to light your subject, it simply removes the technical legerdemain from the equation. It won't by any means turn a duffer into a pro photographer, but it'll certainly take an average shooter a long way in that direction.

The D40x with Nikon's Creative Lighting System
Nikon has long been a leader in flash technology, but in late 2003, they significantly upped the ante with their Creative Lighting System. This system of flashes and supporting camera bodies lets the photographer control up to three separate groups of remote flash units, with an essentially unlimited number of individual strobes in each group. The exposure and operating mode of each group of flashes can be controlled independently, and exposure is metered through the lens (TTL) for all units.

While the D40x built-in flash can't act as a controller for remote strobes, it's perfectly compatible with the system if you slip an SB-800 into its hot-shoe. The control and creative freedom Nikon's Wireless Lighting system offers is truly amazing: See our Nikon Creative Lighting System review for more info.

Flash

Coverage and Range
Good flash performance, with good coverage and intensity. Less positive exposure compensation required than average.

Coverage. Flash coverage was slightly uneven at wide angle, with falloff in the corners of the frame. However, at telephoto, coverage is much more even. Indoors, under incandescent background lighting, the Nikon D40x's flash performed quite well, requiring less than average positive exposure compensation. There's a noticeable orange color cast to the background from the incandescent light source, but overall color is pretty good. With the camera's slow-sync flash mode, results are also quite bright at +0.7 EV, though the longer shutter time results in a much stronger orange cast.

Flash Range: Wide Angle
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100

Flash Range: Telephoto
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 100

ISO 100 Range. The Nikon D40x's flash was bright and powerful, with excellent intensity all the way to about 14 feet at ISO 100 at 18mm. At 55mm, flash intensity started out a bit dim at 6 feet (possibly from a specular reflection from the target), but then increased and didn't fall until about 9 feet at 55mm.

Manufacturer-Specified Flash Range
Wide Angle	Telephoto
11.1 feet ISO 100	7.0 feet ISO 100

Manufacturer-Specified Flash Test. The Nikon D40x's guide number is 12 meters in auto mode at ISO 100, which translates to about 11 feet at f/3.5 and 7 feet at f/5.6. In the shots above, the D40x seems to perform at least as well as Nikon says it will, producing good exposures at the rated distances with its ISO set to 100. At telephoto, the exposure was slightly lower than the wide angle shot, but within acceptable limits.

Note: Our standard test method for flash range uses a fixed setting of ISO 100, to provide a fair basis of comparison between cameras. With the above test, we're also looking at whether their stated specification rings true.

Imatest Results

Nikon D40x Imatest Results

We routinely Norman Koren's excellent "Imatest" analysis program for quantitative, thoroughly objective analysis of digicam test images. I highly recommend it to our technically-oriented readers, as it's far and away the best, most comprehensive analysis program I've found to date.

My comments below are just brief observations of what we see in the Imatest results. A full discussion of all the data Imatest produces is really beyond the scope of this review: Visit the Imatest web site for a full discussion of what the program measures, how it performs its computations, and how to interpret its output.

Here's some of the results produced by Imatest for the Nikon D40x:

The Nikon D40x showed pretty good color accuracy, and its average saturation is a bit higher than that of its little brother, the D40. The color error maps of the two cameras are strikingly similar, the main difference being slightly higher color saturation overall, but particularly in the yellows and greens, where the D40 was a little weak. Hue accuracy is very good to excellent, with most of the hue shift occurring in the cyans and blues. Average saturation was 120% (oversaturated by 20%, mostly in the reds and blues, but with little bit in the deep greens as well), average "delta-E" color error was 6.62 after correction for saturation, almost dead-on the D40's value of 6.57. All in all, a very good color response for an SLR, just a little off the best we've seen.

This image shows how the Nikon D40x actually rendered the colors of the MacBeth chart, compared to a numerically ideal treatment. In each color swatch, the outer perimeter shows the color as actually captured by the camera, the inner square shows the color after correcting for the luminance of the photographed chart (as determined by a second-order curve fit to the values of the gray swatches), and the small rectangle inside the inner square shows what the color should actually be, based on perfect rendering in the sRGB color space. This image shows the excellent hue accuracy, as well as a gamma curve that results in an overexposure of highly saturated swatches.

There's a lot in this particular graph, a lot more than we have room to go into here. (This set of plots has also changed a little in the latest version of Imatest. Some of the plots that were shown here previously are now shown in other Imatest output. Since we largely focus on the Noise Spectrum plot, we'll only show the graphic above, which includes that plot.) Bottom line, the Nikon D40x's noise levels are low at low ISO, with a frequency spectrum that has a bit more energy on the higher frequency (right-hand) side of the curve than do some cameras. In comparing these graphs with those from other competing cameras, I've found that the Noise Spectrum graph at lower right is the most important. Cameras that manage to shift their noise spectrum to higher frequencies have much finer-grained noise structures, making their noise less visually objectionable. In the graph above, this would show up as a noise spectrum curve that remained higher on the right side, representing higher noise frequencies. The champion at this was the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, which produced remarkably fine-grained image noise, even at very high ISOs. The D40x's noise spectrum a bit more conventional, with more weight on the left side of the noise spectrum plot than the 1Ds managed, but still with a good noise structure overall.

Here's the same set of noise data at ISO 1,600. Here, the Noise Spectrum graph is shifted a bit more toward the left-hand, lower-frequency side than it was at ISO 100 (note how narrow the spike is at zero frequency), coarsening the "grain" of the image noise patterns somewhat. In the D40x though, while the frequency distribution of the noise shifts more to the lower range, its overall noise amplitude remains pretty low.

This chart compares the Nikon D40x's noise performance over a range of ISOs against that of other cameras. While I continue to show noise plots of this sort because readers ask for them, I each time point out that the noise magnitude is only a small part of the story, the grain pattern being much more important. In the case of the D40x (as was also the case with the D40), we were consistently impressed when we subjected its images to the real-world test of printing them out at 8x10 inches on the Canon i9900 printer in our studio. Its ISO 1,600 shots were surprisingly clean and attractive looking. There was definitely some noise present, but our assessment was that 95% of the D40x's customer base would find the results entirely acceptable. (Even ISO 3,200 shots printed surprisingly well.)

Dynamic Range Analysis

A key parameter in a digital camera is its Dynamic Range, the range of brightness that can be faithfully recorded. At the upper end of the tonal scale, dynamic range is dictated by the point at which the RGB data "saturates" at values of 255, 255, 255. At the lower end of the tonal scale, dynamic range is determined by the point at which there ceases to be any useful difference between adjacent tonal steps. Note the use of the qualifier "useful" in there: While it's tempting to evaluate dynamic range as the maximum number of tonal steps that can be discerned at all, that measure of dynamic range has very little relevance to real-world photography. What we care about as photographers is how much detail we can pull out of the shadows before image noise becomes too objectionable. This, of course, is a very subjective matter, and will vary with the application and even the subject matter in question. (Noise will be much more visible in subjects with large areas of flat tints and subtle shading than it would in subjects with strong, highly contrasting surface texture.)

What makes most sense then, is to specify useful dynamic range in terms of the point at which image noise reaches some agreed-upon threshold. To this end, Imatest computes a number of different dynamic range measurements, based on a variety of image noise thresholds. The noise thresholds are specified in terms of f-stops of equivalent luminance variation in the final image file, and dynamic range is computed for noise thresholds of 1.0 (low image quality), 0.5 (medium image quality), 0.25 (medium-high image quality) and 0.1 (high image quality). For most photographers and most applications, the noise thresholds of 0.5 and 0.25 f-stops are probably the most relevant to the production of acceptable-quality finished images, but many noise-sensitive shooters will insist on the 0.1 f-stop limit for their most critical work.

The image below shows the test results from Imatest for an in-camera JPEG file from the Nikon D40x with a nominally-exposed density step target (Stouffer 4110), with the D40x's contrast setting at its default position.

These are really excellent numbers for an in-camera JPEG, but the dynamic range number at "high" quality itself (8.04) isn't necessarily the most important thing to look at here. A dynamic range of 8.04 f-stops at high image quality is actually the best we've measured to date, out of all the DSLRs we've tested (including that from the Fuji S3 Pro), but equally important is the shape of the tone curve.

More significant than the absolute dynamic range is the fact that the curve tails off nicely at both the highlight and shadow ends, providing a smooth transition from quarter-tones to both highlight and shadow, making for smooth-looking images even after considerable tone-curve adjustment on the computer.

Processing the D40x's RAW (NEF) files through Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) version 4.1, we had somewhat confounding results. ACR 4.1's automatic settings increased the visual dynamic range a moderate amount, but for some reason, Imatest was only able to find a limited number of the tonal steps in the images. With a little manual tweaking though, we obtained very good results, and Imatest recognized a large number of density steps. The results of the manual tweaking are reflected in the table below.

Dynamic Range, the bottom line:

The net result was that the D40x performed slightly better than the Fujifilm S3 Pro (our previous dynamic-range champ) for JPEG images straight from the camera, and came close to the S3's performance for NEFs processed through ACR.

All in all, a very impressive dynamic range performance!

To get some perspective, here's a summary of the Nikon D40x's dynamic range performance, and how it compares to other digital SLRs that we also have Imatest dynamic range data for. (Results are arranged in order of decreasing dynamic range at the "High" quality level.):

The results shown in the table are interesting. One of the first things that struck me when I initially looked at test data for a wide range of d-SLRs, was that here again, purely analytical measurements don't necessarily correlate all that well with actual photographic experience. There's no question that the Fuji S3 Pro deserves its place atop the list, as its unique "SR" technology does indeed deliver a very obvious improvement in tonal range in the highlight portion of the tonal scale. I was surprised to see the analytical results place the Olympus EVOLT as highly as they did, given that our sense of that camera's images was that they were in fact noisier than those of many other d-SLRs that we looked at. In the other direction, I was quite surprised to see the Nikon D2x place as low on the listings as it did, given that we found that camera's shadow detail to be little short of amazing.

One thing that's going on here though, is that we tested each camera at its lowest ISO setting, which should produce best-case noise levels. This is in fact what many photographers will be most interested in, but it does perhaps place some of the Nikons (like the D40) at a disadvantage, as their lowest ISO setting is 200, as compared to the ISO 100 settings available on most other models.

Regardless of the positions of the other cameras though, the Nikon D40x does appear to offer some of the best dynamic range we've seen to date, particularly remarkable given its status as an "high-end entry-level" (if that makes sense) consumer camera. While it doesn't show in the tests above, the D40x's dynamic range seems to be well-balanced between the highlight and shadow ends of the tonal scale. Where the D40 tends to lose highlight detail rather rapidly, the D40x does a great job of holding onto highlight detail without also making the upper midtones too dark. At the same time though, it does an excellent job of holding onto clean subject detail in the shadows. Just a great performance all around!

As I always say though, at the end of the day, I think you have to take the figures here with a grain of salt, and look at actual images with your own eyes to see what you make of each camera's tonal range and noise levels. We'll continue performing these dynamic range tests on the digital SLRs that we review, but (just as with the laboratory resolution target results), we suggest that you not rely on them exclusively for making your purchase decisions.

Resolution Chart Test Results

The chart above shows consolidated results from spatial frequency response measurements in both the horizontal and vertical axes. The "MTF 50" numbers tend to correlate best with visual perceptions of sharpness, so those are what I focus on here. The uncorrected resolution figures are 1,812 line widths per picture height in the horizontal direction (corresponding to the vertically-oriented edge), and 1,807 lines along the vertical axis (corresponding to the horizontally-oriented edge), both very good values. Correcting to a "standardized" sharpening with a one-pixel radius brought the vertical resolution close to the horizontal, resulting in an average of 2,322 LW/PH. This is a great performance for a 10-megapixel camera.

To see what's going on, refer to the plots below, which show the actual edge profiles for both horizontal and vertical edges, in both their original and corrected forms. Here, you can see that (for whatever reason), the edges (first plots below) have a very subtle in-camera sharpening applied, resulting in very clean edges with almost no overshoot. As discussed in the main part of this review, the D40x's unadjusted JPEG images make great-looking prints as large as 13 x19 inches. For the ultimate in sharpness though, dial down the camera's internal sharpening and process the resulting images after the fact in Photoshop or other image-processing application to bring out the maximum detail without introducing sharpening artifacts.

Menus

Nikon D40x Modes and Menus

The mode dial on the right side of the D40x's top panel provides access to its various exposure modes, the same arrangement of Auto, three semi-auto, and one Manual as found on all Nikon DSLRs, but with a total of seven Scene modes (which Nikon calls "Vari-Programs"), just like the D40. Here's a list of what's available:

• Auto: The camera sets everything. Used for snapshots or users who just don't want to be bothered with the details. The AF-assist light will come on if needed, and the camera selects the AF point covering the closest subject.
• Program: Puts the camera in charge of aperture and shutter speed, though all remaining camera settings are available. You can vary the combination of aperture and shutter speed the camera has selected by rotating the Command Dial.
• Shutter Priority: The user controls shutter speed, from 1/4,000 to 30 seconds, while the camera sets the aperture value.
• Aperture Priority: The opposite of Shutter Priority mode, this mode lets the user control the aperture, while the camera sets the shutter speed.
• Manual: Gives the user complete control over the exposure (both shutter and aperture settings), and provides access to the camera's Bulb shutter setting for exposures longer than 30 seconds.
• Night Portrait: Uses slow shutter speed with flash, balancing the two so that night portraits look natural even with flash. Closest-subject AF is used. Use a tripod to avoid blurring.
• Close up: Reds and greens are pumped up, camera selects center focus point, but other points can be chosen with the Multi-Selector. The built-in flash will pop up and fire if the lighting is too dim, use of a tripod is recommended.
• Sports: Uses higher shutter speeds, camera switches to continuous focus while the shutter button is held down halfway, tracking the subject in the center focus area. If the subject leaves the central AF area, the camera will follow it and judge focus from the other focus areas. The beginning AF area can be chosen with the Multi-selector. Both flash and AF illuminator are turned off and will not fire.
• Child: This mode boosts sharpness and saturation for clothing and background details, but renders skin tones soft and natural-looking. The built-in flash will pop up and fire if the lighting is too dim.
• Portrait: Adjusts the lens aperture to soften background details to help the main subject stand out more clearly. Sharpness and color saturation are moderated somewhat, to give softer, more natural-looking skin tones. The built-in flash will pop up and fire if the lighting is too dim.
• Landscape: Boosts color saturation, contrast, and sharpening for city and forest landscape shots. Closest-focus AF is used, and the flash and AF-assist light are turned off in this mode.
• Auto (Flash Off): This is a new mode with the D40, but appears to be similar to the previous Night Landscape mode. The flash is disabled, and the camera will vary the ISO up to a maximum of 1,600, to capture images using available light. The AF-assist light will come on if needed, and the camera selects the AF point with the closest subject. This mode is great for museums and other places where flash isn't permitted, more natural-looking indoor shots, etc. (Do note though, that you may need to use a tripod, as the shutter speeds are likely to be on the slow side, even at ISO 1,600.)
  
  

Nikon D40x Menus

The menu system on the Nikon D40x follows that of the D40, including the D40's Retouch menu.

The D40x's menu system makes good use of the large, high-resolution LCD screen, with fonts that are larger and smoother than those on the D50 and D70S, with much-improved graphics. The net result is much better readability and a more sophisticated appearance. There are five main menus: Playback, Shooting, Custom Settings, Set Up, and Retouch. The Retouch menu was first introduced on the D80, and offers much more extensive options for in-camera image manipulation than we've seen from other manufacturers. Navigation takes place via the Multi Selector pad, assisted at times by the OK button. The menus themselves are chosen via a "tabbed" interface, with icons on the left of the screen corresponding to the five menus.

The Nikon D40x carries forward the extensive help system that's been a hallmark of recent Nikon models, but expands it even beyond what we saw on the D80, covering essentially all of the menu items. Whenever a menu item is selected that has a help screen associated with it, a square icon with a question mark on it appears in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. When you press the Thumbnail View / Zoom Out / Help button, the LCD screen will display help information for that current menu selection. Most help screens are just a single page, but a few extend onto multiple pages. The explanations are very informative (much better than average, we'd say), but there is still room for improvement on some of the more arcane/involved settings.

In the section below, we're taking a different approach than we have previously in presenting the D40x's menu structure. Rather than list and verbally describe each option, we'll present the top-level menu screens in the main text without comment, and provide links to pages showing the entire D40x menu structure, page by page, including Nikon's informative help screens.

Nikon D40x Playback Menu

Nikon D40x full Playback menu layout
(note, large download for dialup users)

Nikon D40x Shooting Menu

Nikon D40x full Shooting menu layout
(note, large download for dialup users)

Nikon D40x Custom Settings Menu

Nikon D40x full Custom Settings menu layout
(note, large download for dialup users)

Nikon D40x Setup Menu

Nikon D40x full Setup menu layout
(note, large download for dialup users)

Nikon D40x "Retouch" Menu

The various options on the Retouch menu are shown below, see the Operation > Image Retouching page of this review for a bit more detail:

Nikon D40x full Retouch menu layout
(note, large download for dialup users)

Controls

Nikon D40x Controls

Control Enumeration, Command Dial

The D40x has a considerably simplified external interface relative to other Nikon SLRs. It has fewer buttons. Many of the functions that had been controlled through the combination of a button and one or two Command Dials have now been moved to the Shooting display, where they're accessed via the Multi-selector rocker pad and OK button. With fewer buttons and only a single Command Dial, the D40x's interface is easier to learn, but won't be quite as fast and fluid as that of the D80 and D200 for experienced shooters. Overall, we think the simplified operational design was a good choice for the D40x's intended entry-level market: The majority of adjustments novice or intermediate users will regularly want to make are all grouped on the Shooting display screen, and can all be controlled by a single control cluster.

Here's a look at the external controls on the Nikon D40X:

Control Enumeration, Top Panel Controls

Power Dial: Surrounding the Shutter button on the top right of the Nikon D40x, this dial turns the camera on and off.

Shutter Button: In the center of the Power dial, on the top of the Nikon D40x, this button sets focus (when in autofocus mode) when halfway pressed and fires the shutter when fully pressed. You can choose whether the Shutter button also locks exposure, via an option on the Custom Settings menu.

When an image is displayed on the LCD monitor, halfway pressing the Shutter button dismisses the display and immediately switches the camera to shooting mode. (A partial expression of Nikon's "shooting priority" philosophy.)

Exposure Compensation / Aperture Setting Button: Behind and to the right of the Shutter button on the top of the Nikon D40x, pressing this button while turning the Command Dial sets the Exposure Compensation from -5 to +5 exposure equivalents (EV) in one-third step increments. In Manual exposure mode, pressing this button and rotating the Command Dial sets the lens aperture.

Shooting Information Button / Reset Button: Pressing this button in any capture mode calls up or dismisses the Shooting Information display on the camera's rear panel. Pressing and holding down this button and the Quality / i / Reset button simultaneously for two seconds resets the camera to its default settings.

Mode Dial : The Mode Dial has settings for Manual, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Program, Auto, Flash off, and six scene modes. The scene modes are Portrait, Landscape, Child, Sports, Close-up, and Night Portrait.

Control Enumeration, Left Side Controls

The left side of the protrusion surrounding the lens mounting flange carries two controls, plus the lens-mount lock button.

Flash Button: Pressed with the flash down, this button releases the flash head to pop up. With the flash head up, pressing and holding it while rotating the Command Dial changes the flash sync mode. The flash modes available vary depending on the setting of the mode dial, with some of the more automated/programmed modes restricting your choices. The full list of flash modes includes Auto, Auto+Red-Eye Reduction, Auto+Slow Sync+Red-Eye Reduction, Slow Sync, Slow Sync+Red-Eye Reduction, Red-Eye Reduction, and Rear Curtain Sync. A Manual flash exposure mode is available via Custom Settings Menu option 14.

Flash exposure can be set holding the Flash and Exposure Compensation buttons down simultaneously, while rotating the Command Dial. It sounds difficult, but it's not. Flash exposure can also be adjusted via the Custom Setting Menu and Multi-Controller arrow keys, which some users may find more straightforward.

Function / Self-Timer Button:
This button can be configured to perform any of five different functions, selected via Custom Function menu option 11. By default, this button selects the self-timer mode, but it can also be used to select the shooting mode (single or continuous), image quality and size, ISO sensitivity, or white balance.

Control Enumeration, Rear Panel Controls

Most of the camera's remaining controls are found on the rear panel.

Playback Button: Just off the top left corner of the LCD monitor, this button displays the most recently captured image, putting the camera into Playback mode. Once an image is displayed, the left/right arrow keys of the Multi-Selector dial or the Command Dial navigate through the other images saved on the memory card. This button also dismisses the image display. (The camera also drops out of playback mode immediately if you touch the shutter button.)

Menu Button: Below the Playback button, this button displays or dismisses the LCD menu system.

Zoom Out / Thumbnail View / Help Button: Just below the Menu button, this button either zooms out from one image or shows either a four or nine-image index view of images in the current folder on the memory card. The chosen display mode remains selected indefinitely, even if the camera is turned off. To return to normal viewing from the thumbnail display, press the Magnify button. When a thumbnail view is activated, you can scroll a cursor through the thumbnail images very rapidly with the rocker pad.

Magnify / i / Reset Button: In the bottom left corner of the rear panel, this button zooms in on images displayed in playback mode. Pressing the button repeatedly increases the magnification level, up to a limit of 25x at the largest image size. (Zoom magnification is limited to 19x or 13x on smaller images, basically always taking you in to the same pixel scale on the LCD display.) The OK button in the center of the Multi-Selector cancels zoomed display.

In Record mode, pressing the i button calls up the Shooting information display. Once the Shooting display is visible, pressing the i button again activates it for selection and change of camera settings shown there, indicated by a highlighting of the currently-selected option. You can scroll up and down through the available options by using the up/down arrows on the Multi-Selector. Pressing the OK button opens the selected setting for modification. Pressing the i button again exits the setting option without making changes.

In any mode, pressing and holding down this button together with the Shooting information / Reset button on the camera's top panel resets all camera settings to factory defaults.

Delete Button: In the lower right hand corner, underneath the Multi Selector, this button deletes individual images in playback mode, with a confirmation screen to give you the opportunity to change your mind.

Multi Selector: Just to the right of the LCD monitor on the Nikon D40x's back panel, this rocker pad with its center OK button is the primary user interface for changing camera settings. In Shooting mode, the left and right arrows change the selected AF point among the three arrayed horizontally across the focusing screen.

When the Shooting Info display is active and the i button has been pressed, the Multi Selector keys let you select and change common camera settings.

In Playback mode, the rocker pad's right and left arrows scroll through captured images while the up and down arrow directions cycle through various information displays for each image. When you zoom in on an image in playback mode, the rocker pad lets you scroll around the magnified image, while the OK button returns you to a non-zoomed view. When not zoomed in, the OK button calls up the Retouch menu to modify the current image.

In any settings menu, the arrow directions on this control are used to navigate through the LCD menu system.

Command Dial: The Command Dial is located on the back of the Nikon D40x, in the upper right hand corner, directly under your right thumb. The Command Dial allows you to to control shutter and aperture settings, Flash modes and flash exposure compensation. You can also set Custom Setting 11 to allow you to use the Command dial while pressing the Fn button to quickly adjust one of the following items: Shooting mode, Image Quality/size, ISO Sensitivity, or White Balance. In Playback mode, the Command Dial lets you rapidly scroll through previously-captured images.

AE/AF Lock/Protect Button: Located to the right of the viewfinder eyepiece, this button locks the exposure and/or focus when pressed. The settings remain locked as long as you hold the button down, regardless of any action of the Shutter button. Several options for this control can be set via Custom Settings menu option 12. You can program it to lock either focus or exposure separately, or both together (the default). You can also change its operation so a single press locks and holds the exposure setting. (No need to keep the button pressed down.) It can also be used to initiate autofocus, instead of the shutter button. (In other words, the AF-ON option for this button disables focusing via the shutter button, making the AE/AF Lock button the only way to trigger AF.)

In playback mode, this key locks the current image to prevent accidental deletion. (Note, though, that locked images will still be erased if the memory card is formatted.)

Diopter Adjustment Dial: Adjacent to the top right side of the viewfinder eyepiece, this dial adjusts the optical viewfinder to accommodate eyeglass wearers. (Range is -1.7 to +0.5 diopters.)

Control Enumeration, Front Controls

There's only a single control on the front of the camera body:

Lens Release Button: Right next to the lens mount, at about the 3 o'clock position (viewed from the front), this button releases the lens from its mount when pressed, so you can rotate and remove it.

Retouch

Image Retouching?

(This section is copied from our review of the Nikon D80. The retouch menu on the D40x is identical, and the options work the same way.)

Most digital cameras these days let you do at least some level of image manipulation in the camera, even if it's only to make small copies of images for emailing. With the D40x though, Nikon has gone a long step further, letting the user perform quite a few useful images modifications, without having to resort to the computer. We're not sure we'd call the end result "retouching" ourselves, but the net result does seem to be a significant uptick in capability relative to the D40x's competition. For a complete list options, see the D40x "Retouch" Menu table elsewhere in this review. Here, we'll take a brief look at a couple of the more interesting/useful capabilities.

Before discussing the effects in more detail, it bears noting that all the examples below that all the "Retouch" options on the Nikon D40x's menu are non-destructive, in that they always store their results in new image files on the D40x's memory card, never overwriting the original images. The importance of not losing your original images is obvious, but a nice psychological effect is that it's very freeing, knowing that nothing you do will harm your original images. - So experiment away!

D-Lighting
Nikon's D-Lighting option has been around in their Coolpix line of cameras for quite some time now, but it's worth mentioning again, as it's one of the more photographically useful of the in-camera image-modification tricks we've seen. It selectively (and seemingly, quite intelligently) lightens dark areas of the subject. The effect is that of relatively gentle fill illumination, and the camera gives you three options for applying it, varying the strength of the effect.

D-Lighting Examples (Click on any image to see full-size version)
D-Lighting Off (as-shot)
"Moderate" D-Lighting	"Normal" D-Lighting	"Enhanced" D-Lighting

The shots above show a fairly representative backlighting situation, were the subject's back was to the sun, silhouetted against the sky. Which level of D-Lighting you like best will depend somewhat on personal preferences, but I like the "Normal" version the best myself. - The "Enhanced" setting looks slightly artificial to me, and Marti's skin tones are a little ruddy-looking. (D-Lighting tends to preserve color saturation, which can be quite high in shadowed areas of an image. When those areas are brightened up, they can sometimes seem a little overly-saturated.

As you can see, D-Lighting's effects are subtle, but it generally does a good job of doing just what you'd want. This backlit shot of Marti is a good example of a common shooting situation, where D-Lighting's effect can be the difference between a nice shot and one that pretty well misses the mark. Just as important as fixing exposure problems when needed is the principle of doing no harm when less of a fix is called for. In other shots I took, where less correction was called for, D-Lighting was quite restrained, making just the sort of subtle adjustment I would have if I'd been doing the work myself in Photoshop.

Of course, there's no free lunch, so a natural consequence of D-Lighting's boosting of shadow areas is that it will of necessity be boosting image noise along with the image detail you want it to brighten up. Looking at a number of shots with D-Lighting applied to them though, I have to say that this will be a moot point for the vast majority of users. Unless you're shooting at a very high ISO setting (which some users of course will be), the increased noise in the shadow areas is really negligible: You can see it if you zoom in pixel-for-pixel on a computer screen, but in any reasonable-sized print, it'll be essentially invisible.

Bottom line, D-Lighting isn't a panacea, but it can make a very worthwhile contribution to your photography, with a minimum of fuss or muss.

Image Overlay
We wouldn't see ourselves using this effect a whole lot (we'd be more inclined to go to Photoshop for this sort of thing), but the Nikon folks showed us some pretty cool photos created with it, so it's sure to appeal to a lot of creatively-minded but computer-challenged users out there. The concept is very simple: Just overlay two images and combine them into a single new one. Its very well executed, with a very simple interface and a nice blending of the two images when it's done. (You can adjust the relative strength of each image by using the Multi-Selector pad to change the "x" numbers beneath each image.) The screen shots below show an outline of the process.)

Nikon D40x Image Overlay feature

Filter Effects
This is another (mostly) very subtle option, but the samples below will give you a good idea of what's possible. It's easily the most powerful in-camera image-editing function we've seen to date. Options are Skylight, Warm, and Color Balance.

Skylight
As with film, the Skylight filter applies a very subtle warming effect to the image, and removes a bit of "haze" from it in the process. The effect is pretty subtle, it might be more evident in an image with more visible haze in it than the example below. Still, this example gives you an idea of what the D40x's Skylight filter looks like:

D40x Skylight Filter (Click on any image to see full-size version)
As-Shot	"Skylight" filter

Warm Filter
Warm filter produces a more pronounced (but still subtle) warming effect, ideal for restoring skin tones shot in the shade under clear blue skies, or for giving any scene a warmer, more inviting cast. In the example below, I deliberately left the D40x's white balance set to "Daylight" for this shot taken in the shade, under a clear blue sky. The original has a pretty pronounced blue cast, the warmed version looks surprisingly close to correct.

D40x Warm Filter (Click on any image to see full-size version)
As-Shot	"Warming" filter

Color Balance
The real fun comes with the Color Balance (Custom on the D80) option though: You basically have the ability to shift the image color in any hue direction you want, with control over both direction and amount of shift, via a nifty 2-D control.

The screen shot at right shows you the main adjustment screen for the Color Balance filter option. You're shown a small thumbnail of the image being manipulated with the results of the current color filter applied to it, separate Red, Green, and Blue histograms, and the 2-D color control we just mentioned. Nikon's done something very clever here, in that they've provided a full 360-degree range of hue variation, rather than restricting the control to just offering differential adjustments of red and blue versus green, or of changes along yellow-blue and cyan-red axes. Here, all the hues are arranged radially, and the distance you move the cursor dot away from the center of the image, the more the hue will shift in the direction you've selected. In the shot at right, we've begun with a very strongly blue-tinted image (shot from a computer screen, it should really have had a different white balance to begin with). The RGB histograms very clearly show the heavy blue cast, with the green being a little high as well.

In the shot at right, we've moved the color-control cursor to the far upper right-hand corner, basically asking for a maximum yellow shift. You can see that the thumbnail image is now much closer to being a neutral color, and the blue histogram has come down a lot, to be much more in line with the red and the green. There's obviously still a slightly cyan tint to the image as a whole, but it's much improved overall. This wasn't the best choice for an example of this function, as it's meant to to provide fine-grained control over more subtle color problems. It does give you a pretty good idea of what's possible though - The range of the Color Balance filter extends quite a bit beyond what's possible with the Skylight or Warm filters, not to mention that it can adjust the color in any direction, not just make it warmer.

Nikon says that the color LCDs are all tested and calibrated at the factory, to give consistent color and tonal reproduction. Even with a well-controlled camera LCD, it's still a little dicey relying on what you see on the back of the camera to make critical color judgements (the background lighting could easily throw you off, if nothing else), but we don't think this is really meant to be the final word in color correction. If you really care about color, you'll do your work on a computer, with a color-managed monitor, in a carefully-lit environment. For quick changes, to warm up or cool down an image prior to outputting directly on a PictBridge-compatible printer though, this looks like just the ticket.

As you can see in the first screen shot above, other options on the Retouch menu include red-eye correction, trimming (cropping) images to smaller pixel dimensions, and making small images for use in emails.

There's a clear trend afoot to let users do more with their images directly on the camera, without computer intervention. We can't say how far this will ultimately go, but for the moment, Nikon has taken this further than just about anyone else, particularly in the SLR space.

Comparison

Nikon D40x Feature Comparison

The chart below compares the D40x with other current Nikon cameras. We've used color tints in the cells to highlight differences between the D40, D40x and the D80. A red cell means that the the camera involved has lesser specs than the other two, a green cell that it has better, a yellow cell that its specification is in between the two others.