Nikon D40 Review

Overview

Nikon D40 Overview

Nikon has always been known as a leader at the high end of the photo industry, but the words "inexpensive" and "Nikon DSLR" have never been close companions. That has all officially changed with the announcement of the new Nikon D40 DSLR. Announced at a price of just $599, bundled with an 18-55mm "kit" lens, it's coming out of the box a full $300 cheaper than the Nikon D50, which was announced little more than a year and a half ago. The camera and lens will only be offered as a kit, the body and lens will not be sold separately in the US market.

If you've been sitting on the sidelines, waiting until you could afford a real Nikon DSLR, your time have come at last: While geared for the entry-level market the D40 packs enough features into its diminutive frame to keep serious enthusiasts interested as well. It's also the smallest and lightest Nikon DSLR to date, so the point & shoot photographer looking to move up to a real SLR, can do so without having to put up with the heft and bulk that the genre usually dictates. And like all consumer SLRs on the market, you can still point & shoot.

Nikon D40 User Report

by Shawn Barnett
Posted: 12/16/2006

With the introduction of the D40, Nikon has outmaneuvered everyone. They've produced a small, light, high quality digital camera that gives the consumer everything they need and more, at a price that's hard to resist.

Wisely, Nikon stopped looking back and built the D40 for the future. Past cameras have been shackled to the idea of maintaining backward compatibility with dozens of previous lenses. The D50 and D80 both include screw-type couplings to connect a body-mounted autofocus motor to lenses built for Nikon's first body-integrated autofocus system, introduced on the N2020 (F501) back in April 1986. The D40 leaves support for this old AF method behind in favor of the original AF concept Nikon introduced with 1983's F3AF, where the focusing motor is built into the lens. Hence the Nikon D40 will only autofocus with newer AF-S type lenses.

Those who still want to use legacy lenses, 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 D40 if you're okay with manual focus. The D40 can still control aperture on lenses marked D and G, and it will illuminate the AF points when focus is achieved. For more complete detail on this relatively complex issue, see the Optics section of this review.

Nikon D40	Nikon D200
What's missing from the D40 is the physical coupling you see on the Nikon D200's mount at right. This makes it compatible with lenses that use Nikon's 20-year-old AF drive mechanism that makes more noise than the current AF-S system used by the D40.

I think it's a safe bet that most Nikon D40 owners won't be looking back either, instead preferring the quieter, more modern AF-S lenses that are currently 21 in number. The benefit of this key shift to both Nikon and D40 owners is a smaller, lighter, less expensive SLR, because it no longer has the extra motor and screw assembly in place.

Manners. Not since the days of cloth focal plane shutters have I heard such a soft shutter sound. Nikon has been getting better and better at this aspect of their SLR cameras, and the D40 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 in my opinion. 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 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 D40's excellent high ISO performance in low light, its f/3.5 maximum aperture wasn't such a limitation. I confess that despite my impression that most D40 users won't miss support for legacy lenses, I find myself wanting to snick a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF lens onto the D40 for those low light indoor photo opportunities where flash would either ruin the mood, or else wake the child. But the Nikon D40 won't work with any of the current close range Nikon prime AF lenses in AF mode.

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

Noticable flare, quite strong when there's significant contrast in the corners.

I did notice a tendency for the Nikon D40 to overexpose the highlights. Digital is a lot like slide film: if you blow the highlights, there's no recovering them. The data just isn't there. I recommend setting the EV to at least -1/3 on bright sunny days to avoid blowing the highlights. There's plenty of latitude in the Nikon D40's wide dynamic range to bring it all back later if you have to; but you probably won't even need to try.

Getting back to the Nikon D40's 18-55mm kit lens, I also found that there was some objectionable lens flare evident 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.

Comfortable grip.

Experience. Gripping the Nikon D40 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 D40 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 D40'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 D40'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.

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 D40 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.

Recessed strap loops.

This design change mimics a change first seen in the EOS 1 film camera, then reappearing in the Digital Rebel, Rebel XT, and XTi; it's the first Nikon we've seen with this kind of ergonomic treatment. It took me a good five minutes to thread the strap onto the Nikon D40, due to the tight area behind the thick steel loop, which is more open on the Canons. But now that it's done, the Nikon D40 hangs straight down from my neck. When I raise the camera to my eye, I can easily control where the straps go, bending them out toward the sides. I had thought that this might be why they usually have the loops on the outside of the body, so the strap falls away easily, but this is working just fine.

Function button.

Controls. The Nikon D40'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.

A good many other essential items are shown on the Nikon D40'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 screens 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 D40, an SLR aimed at consumers.

Easy adjustments.

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 D40's back panel.

I'm overjoyed to see that there's no silly snap-on screen protector in the Nikon D40 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. I just went out for a walk with the Nikon D40 around my neck, and my nylon shirt buttons didn't mar the screen. I suppose harder buttons might, though. To this day, however, I've never even seen a scratched LCD display on an SLR, so just be aware, using the care you should be with your fragile photographic tool, and you should be able to maintain a scratch-free LCD cover glass with little trouble.

Seems like 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 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 D40 and Olympus E-500 just keep the LCD on. 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 D40's shutter only halfway and keep shooting with the same AF setting, and the LCD does not come back on.

Graphic display.

The D40's status display, which Nikon calls the Shooting Information Display, 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. I'm sure that the type who will notice the display at all will have already spent some time looking down the lens and watching the aperture blades move as they snap the shutter. Still, it's nice to have an option. 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 display of the important data.

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. 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 the manual modes with the Nikon D40 difficult.

Optical viewfinder. Luke, the lab technician, and I both found the diopter control difficult to set. We also noticed that the D40 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 D40 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 D40 wants to pull you aside for a little conference. To have that conference, 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. I guess I could get more lights in here, but I'd rather have an option to turn this feature off. Not a big deal, though, just a rant, and one enthusiasts might want to make note of: this digicam's help feature just might bug you.

AF points. Praise the designers for putting bright LED brackets on all three 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 exist 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 at guessing what I want in focus. On digicams it's not as important, because they usually have a depth of field as long as my truck, but on SLRs point-of-focus becomes more critical.

There is one small problem related to AF points and the Nikon D40's size. Because the area for your thumb 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 D40 focuses on the subject's belt. It may be that this camera is better left 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 D40. 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 D40, 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 D40'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.

As shot @ ISO 1,600	Levels tweaked
I wanted to illustrate how great the high ISO performance is on the Nikon D40. It almost makes a faster lens unnecessary; certainly not critical. Just a minor tweak in Photoshop brought the highlights back into this deliberately underexposed ISO 1,600 shot, with very little noise added to the already low noise shot. All noise reduction was off in this shot, making it more remarkable. I could have done this with D-Lighting, but I think it's a little too aggressive at times. For comparison, here's what the three levels of D-Lighting did to the same shot. It attempts to bring detail out of the shadows and washes the image out. It's okay in some situations, but I prefer Levels here. High: YCSC_0897H.JPG Normal: YCSC_0897N.JPG Low: YCSC_0897L.JPG

Low light. I didn't let the D40's lack of an available fast prime lens stop me from shooting in low light. I took the Nikon D40 and its kit lens into a dark room where my son was napping and fired off several shots. My only light was coming from a 3x4 foot window with the blinds closed. Time was about 1:30 p.m. on a mostly sunny day. First I tried Aperture priority, setting the ISO to 1,600. I got a good shot, but could only get it up to 1/4 second with the f/4.2 aperture available at this zoom level. The shots were a little blurry due to my breathing and heartbeat, and slightly overexposed; probably because of the dark sweatshirt he was wearing. So I switched to Program mode and got the same result. Knowing that we've judged the D40's dynamic range to be quite good, I decided to switch to Manual: 1/13 second at f/4.2. The lighting looked more like it did in the room. The histogram showed little noticeable clipping on the left side, so I figured I'd have enough shadow detail when I processed it in Photoshop. I was pleasantly surprised by the camera's ISO 1,600 output in a real-world, low-light setting. All I did to tweak the image you see above right is bring up the Levels tool, slide the right control point about halfway to the first bit of data, and hit OK. Remember when pushing to ISO 1,600 was strictly for darkroom mavens? None of them got this kind of quality from color.

Comparisons. Though I mentioned at the outset that the Nikon D40 was built for the future, some will disagree that a 6 megapixel camera can be called forward-looking. The market in late 2006 is replete with 10 megapixel SLRs, and a few older models, notably the Canon Rebel XT and Olympus E-500, have 8 megapixel sensors for about the same price. Truthfully, there is a big difference between 6 megapixels and 10. That's not so true when comparing a 6 megapixel to an 8 megapixel. So the $300 to $400 difference between the cost of this camera kit and one of its 10 megapixel competitors certainly accounts for its 6 megapixel sensor. If you can afford 10 megapixels, go for it. But 6 megapixels will get you a very good 13x19 inch print; and since most people will only print 8.5x11 inch images max, that means you can heavily crop your images from the Nikon D40 and still get beautiful images on a Letter size page. And there's nothing coming in the future that will make 6 megapixels obsolete, unless someone significantly improves human vision, or provides us with unlimited wall space to hang huge snapshots everywhere. You're better saving your $300 and investing in a flash or a lens--or both.

But more important than the resolution of the Nikon D40 is its low light performance. The Nikon D40's ISO 1,600 images are better than usable at 8x10, as my example above shows; and I pushed it a bit to get that image. The Nikon D40's dynamic range is excellent, leaving good detail in the shadows, which allowed me to make the image look quite natural with very little increase in noise.

Though our harsh indoor lighting test suggests that the D40 has trouble with incandescent lighting, I have not found that to be true in my real-world shooting. That was not the case with the Pentax K100D. It was my one major disappointment with that camera: both our lab shots and my real-world shooting revealed significant trouble with incandescent light. The comparably-priced Nikon D40 does far better, relatively matching the Canons I'm used to using. I've also not seen evidence of the tendency to bias the white balance toward blue when shooting near window light, as I saw in the Nikon D70. Since we're mentioning the K100D, however, it does have something the D40 does not: body-based image stabilization. It's a tough choice between the two, and they both have very good high ISO performance. For me, I'd have to go with the camera that delivers the best white balance performance in more situations, so I do give the edge to the Nikon D40.

Which is smaller? A side-by-side comparison shot makes the Nikon D40 appear smaller than the Rebel XT and XTi. Their dimensions are actually almost identical. In millimeters: Canon Rebel XTi: 126.5 x 94.2 x 65mm. Nikon D40: 126 x 94 x 64mm. Weight is also only slightly different, with the XTi coming in just 24 grams heavier than the D40. The D40 also does well in comparison to the XTi. Though the XTi's resolution is a significant difference, the D40 still holds its own, serving as a fine family camera, and more.

With the outgoing 8 megapixel Canon Rebel XT kit selling for about the same price as the D40, we get closer to a draw. They are both excellent cameras. They both deliver category-leading images up to ISO 1,600. Of course, the D40 can actually reach to ISO 3,200, so there's an advantage there. The difference between 6 and 8 megapixels is negligible, but some might still see it as an advantage on the XT's side. The Rebel XT autofocuses with Canon's entire EF lens set, including fast primes, so those looking to upgrade to a prime lens or a whole lot of lenses would do well with the XT. Buffer depth is greater on the Nikon D40, recording over 20 large/fine JPEGs, and its continuous mode is capable of 2.5 frames per second, while the Rebel XT can capture 2.8 frames per second with a buffer depth of only 13. That's a close one. The Nikon D40 has image retouching built in, and the lens is a little better, and a whole lot quieter than the XT. I could go back and forth on this for some time, but I'll leave that to you. I can tell you what I think, but ultimately your needs are unique. Check out the other sections of this review, download the test images and print some of them out. Do the same for some of the competing cameras you're considering.

Based on my own testing, I can say with confidence that many of the cameras I've mentioned will serve you well. As much as I liked the Nikon D50, I wouldn't say the same up against the Rebel XT, based solely on image quality.

I can tell you that the Nikon D40 is one of the finest family cameras on the market. I've really enjoyed shooting with it, 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 more bulky. The D40 is a camera for capturing fun and family. Its size and design are better suited for such duty. And you can still slap high quality glass on it and shoot with the pros on occasion if you like. The Nikon D40 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. Nikon has some excellent inexpensive lenses to add to your kit for just such a purpose, like the 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED AF-S DX Nikkor, a surprisingly short, good quality zoom lens available for between $170 and $240 online.

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 also look to the D50, D70s (before they disappear), or D80, because you want to use that fine Nikkor equipment as long as you can. But if you're just getting started in SLR photography and want a light, sweet, competent, and simultaneously friendly digital SLR, the Nikon D40 is a superb choice.

In the Box

The Nikon D40 ships with the following items in the box:

• Nikon D40 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 D40 Conclusion

Nikon really shocked the market with the D40. We've been pleasantly surprised with its excellent performance in low light and its simple grace as a day-to-day shooter. Then we remind ourselves that all this quality comes at less than $600, and we shake ourselves awake. The Nikon D40 is one great camera!

The Nikon D40 is a natural fit in most hands. Its controls are where they should be for easy use, and the D40 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 the Nikon D40 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 D40'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 D40 until we jump into ISO 3,200.

Though the Nikon D40's kit lens is pretty good, and also fast and quiet, we were a little disappointed with the significant flare we see in its images with high contrast elements out toward the corners, even in the middle of its zoom range. Its chromatic aberration was also fairly high at wide angle, but none of these minor problems were significantly different from other comparably priced offerings. The lens performed very well in most circumstances, so it's well worth the price.

The Nikon D40 stands up well against the competition -- even those with higher resolution -- with great image quality at all speeds, and near-perfect utility as a family camera. It's tough to ask for more. The Nikon D40 lives up to our expectations, and even exceeds them. There's no question that the Nikon D40 is a Dave's Pick.

Design

Nikon D40 Design

The Nikon D40 borrows elements from the D50 that preceded it as well as from the more recent D80, but offers a user interface that's somewhat simplified compared to both. It's also very small for a Nikon DSLR, matching the diminutive proportions of the Canon Rebel XTi and Pentax K-100D, both of which have been noted for their small sizes. The comparison shots below show the Nikon D40 with the D50 and Canon XTi.

Nikon D50 vs D40 (Click on images for larger views)

Nikon D40 vs Canon XTi (Click on images for larger views)

The top of the camera has changed a lot from the D50 and D80. Taking advantage of the deleted LCD data readout panel, the function dial has been moved from the left to the right side of the camera. This cuts out a lot of space on the left side of the body, and the right side has been scrunched some as well. The shutter button and on/off rotary control are in their usual location, as is the +/- exposure compensation button. To the left of the +/- button is the new Shooting Info button, which triggers the display of shooting information on the rear-panel LCD. I really wonder why Nikon devoted a top-panel button to this function though, since the i button on the rear panel triggers the same display, as do the Fn and Flash buttons, as well as the +/- button in P, S, or A modes. Thinking about it though, I guess its handy to be able to trigger the info display without having to get your other hand involved. The flash shoe accepts generic flash units, as well as any current models of Nikon's (excellent) speedlights.

The back of the camera is where the biggest differences relative to the D50 can be seen. First up is the new shooting display, shown here in its default Graphic mode. We'll talk more about this in the Operation section of this review, but we found the D40's shooting display to be very easy to use and highly functional. It displays the status of a lot of different camera settings, and makes it very easy to change any of them, using the rear-panel buttons and Multi-Selector. The D40 has only four buttons on the left side of the LCD, compared to six on the D50, and the OK button has been moved to the center of the Multi Selector, a more convenient arrangement than having the Enter button on the lower left corner of the body as on the D50. The overall impression is that of a much more friendly-looking user interface that we think will be less intimidating to novice users. The display also has a Classic mode that looks more like other camera status readouts, with larger letters and numbers that will be easier for those with limited eyesight to read.

The LCD display itself deserves some comment. It's huge, bright, and very high resolution, the same 2.5-inch, 230,000 pixel screen used on the D80. Larger LCD screens have become much more common on digital cameras, and it's easy to see why. The screen on the D40 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 tripod socket (metal rather than plastic, kudos for that), and the battery compartment cover. We don't have a comparison image to show you, but the new EN-EL9 battery is a fair bit smaller than the EN-EL3e used in the D80 (3.5mm shorter, 6mm thinner, and a full ounce lighter). This contributes to the small size and light weight of the Nikon D40, which still manages very good battery life (a CIPA rating of 470 shots, the flash used on half of them), despite the smaller battery.

This shot probably belongs in the Flash section of this review, rather than Design, but it's just so dang cute, I couldn't resist including it here. This is the new SB-400 speedlight that is being announced with the D40. It's an optional piece, but carries the very reasonable list price of only $129.95. Besides offering about twice the power of the D40's built-in flash, the SB-400 also has a swivel head on it, so you can bounce it off the ceiling (when held horizontally) for a soft, diffuse lighting effect. Very nice, Nikon's going to sell a lot of these!

Operation

Nikon D40 Operation

As we noted in the Design section, Nikon seems to have really taken pains with the D40 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 D40 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 D40 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 are new on the D40, 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 D40'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 D40 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 D40 Optics

Kit Lens

The Nikon D40 ships in kit form with an updated version of the Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G lens that came in kits with the D50. 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. The 18-55 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 of 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.

Nikkor 18-55mm vs 18-55mm II (Click on image for larger view)

Lens Compatibility

The Nikon D40 marks a bit of a departure for Nikon in the optics department, in that it 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-I or AF-S designation in their name, and are the only types of lenses the D40 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 D40.

The lack of an onboard focus motor is a key feature distinguishing the D40 from the D80. If you need to use older lenses (or a lot of Nikons 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 D40. 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.

The lack of an AF motor does give me pause when thinking about photo students though. Students will be drawn to the D40 because of its low price, but I hesitate to recommend a camera for them that wouldn't work with a full range of prime lenses, or that would lock them out of buying and using older, inexpensive lenses purchased on eBay. Bottom line though, I think the D40 would still make a really excellent camera for a photo student. It's very flexible, and all you lose with D- or G-series primes is the autofocus. (And many would say that the discipline of having to slow down and focus manually could be equally as important as learning to shoot with primes in the first place.)

Autofocus System

While the D40 carried over a lot of the capabilities of the D80, its 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 D40 has only three, arranged horizontally across the frame. With the more limited AF array, the D40'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, and then for the shot itself.

Focus Options

The Nikon D40 offers pretty well all the focus options of its predecessor, 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 D40 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 D40 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 on the Nikon D40. 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). 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 pressed 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 D40, 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 DSLRs, the D40'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 D40 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!

(Other than a few backlinks on their site, we receive no promotional consideration from Copper Hill. 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 18-55mm kit lens when stopped down.

The Nikon D40 comes bundled with a Nikkor 18-55mm 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. Wide open, some softness appears in the corners, but the lens performs quite well when stopped down one or two f-stops.

Macro
A small macro area with great detail and high resolution. Flash performs well up close.

The Nikon D40's 18-55mm kit lens performed well in macro mode, capturing a minimum area of 2.76 x 1.84 inches (70 x 47 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 reasonably even results, with only minimal falloff in the corners of the frame.

Distortion
Moderate barrel distortion at wide angle with the kit lens.

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 D40's 18-55mm kit lens produced about 0.83% barrel distortion at wide angle. Though this is about average among the cameras we've tested, we still find it a little high to our eyes. At the telephoto end, the lens produced about one pixel of barrel distortion, or 0.04%, which is quite low.

Barrel distortion at 18mm is 0.83%

Barrel distortion at 55mm is less than 0.04%

Chromatic aberration
Fairly bright at wide angle, almost none at telephoto.

Chromatic aberration is low at both wide angle and telephoto settings with the 18-55mm kit lens. At wide angle, there's about 3-4 pixels of bright coloration on either side of the target lines. However, at telephoto, the pixels aren't nearly as bright. (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 of the frame with the kit lens.

The Nikon D40's 18-55mm kit lens produced slightly soft corners in a few shots, mainly at the full wide angle setting and wide open (as shown above). At telephoto, corners showed slight blurring, but overall results were pretty good. (In the wide angle shot above, you can also see the D40's tendency to over-sharpen images at its default settings. Note the white halos around the black target elements in the center crop.)

The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Nikon D40 Photo Gallery .

Exposure

Nikon D40 Exposure

The Nikon D40 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 D40's x-sync speed for flash use is a very high 1/500 second, which makes it possible to take photos under fairly bright conditions that look as if the flash were the only light source. This exceptional x-sync speed might seem strange compared to the 1/200 second x-sync speed of the D80, a more expensive camera. What's up? It turns out that the D40, like the D70, D70S, and D50 before it, has a relatively slow mechanical shutter, but "gates" the CCD for its shortest shutter speeds. This mean 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. Most users will never notice the effect of light overloads with the D40, as it generally takes something on the order having the sun itself in the frame to cause streaking with a gated CCD. We mention it, though, so you'll know what it is if or when you see it.

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. We personally use this capability more than Aperture- or Shutter-priority metering in our own shooting.

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 200 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. ISO values are adjustable in one-EV increments (that is, changing by a factor of two between steps) across the full range, there's no option for the 1/3 EV steps offered by the D80. A High ISO / Long Exposure Noise Reduction mode in the settings menu lets you choose whether or not to increase the amount of anti-noise processing when shooting at the higher sensitivity settings (800 and above), or when you're shooting at shutter speeds of one second or longer.

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 D40'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 D40 as well.)

White balance modes on the Nikon D40 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 D40 Metering Options

The D40 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 D40 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 D40's spot metering sensor measures from a circle covering 2.5% of the frame.

The D40'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 D40 only shows a luminance (brightness) histogram, not separate red, green, and blue histograms.

Nikon D40 Continuous Shooting & Self-Timer Modes

The Nikon D40 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 D40 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 D40. 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 D40, but auto exposure bracketing is a feature we think even relatively novice shooters could use and benefit from.

Nikon D40 "Image Optimization" Options

The Nikon D40 also offers the by-now-familiar Optimize Image menu, accessed through the Shooting menu, which lets you choose various presets for 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 D40 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 D40 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 D40 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 D40 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 D40 Performance

Imaging

Nikon D40 Imaging Characteristics

Imaging and file quality are of paramount importance for any digital camera. We found that the D40 held up the proud Nikon tradition very well in this area, delivering surprising image quality for an entry-level SLR, and output images that belied its modest 6-megapixel resolution. As with the D80, the D40'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 (we suspect that the D40's sensor is unusually "quiet" to begin with), producing really impressive results at ISO 1,600, with surprisingly usable images at ISO 3,200 as well. Read on for all the details!

Resolution & Detail

Resolution
Moderately high resolution, 1,300 lines of strong detail.

Our laboratory resolution chart revealed sharp, distinct line patterns down to about 1,300 lines per picture height, with extinction at around 1,850 horizontally, and about 1,700 vertically. (1,250 lines horizontally might be a more conservative call though, as there are a lot of aliasing artifacts to be found at 1,300 line in the crop below left.) 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. Beware that while you might be able to make out what look like distinct lines at numbers higher than those we've mentioned here, the camera is just doing its best to continue interpreting the lines. So the lines you see at 1,550 and higher are really only artifacts generated by the camera's imaging system.

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

Sharpness & Detail
Slightly over-aggressive edge enhancement on high-contrast subjects and minor detail loss to noise suppression in the shadows, but good detail overall.

The Nikon D40 captures sharp images, but does produce some slight edge enhancement artifacts 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 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. The crop above right shows some minor detail loss to noise suppression in the deeper shadows, but there's really less than average overall.

Color

Saturation & Hue Accuracy
Good overall color, slight oversaturation of strong reds and blues, slight undersaturation of yellows and greens.

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.

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. The Nikon D40 does oversaturate the strong red and blue tones a little, but by relatively modest amounts. (The red oversaturation is a little high, but by no means the most we've seen in a consumer DSLR. The D40 also undersaturates some yellows and greens slightly, but the rendering of these colors didn't strike us as flat or dull-looking. Overall, we'd rate the D40's color as very good. Where oversaturation is most problematic is on Caucasian skin tones, as it's very easy for these "memory colors" to be seen as too bright, too pink, too yellow, etc. Here, the D40 did render skin tones with a slight pink cast, but results were still quite pleasing. (Here again, consumers tend to prefer Caucasian skin tones that are just a bit pinker than in real life, the slight pinkish cast being interpreted as a "healthy glow." We think most users would find the D40's skin tones very pleasing.)

The other important part of color rendition is hue accuracy. Hue is "what color" the color is. The Nikon D40 did push blue toward cyan a little (which produces better-looking skies), and dark blue toward violet, but again, the overall results are pretty good.

Sensor

Exposure and White Balance

Indoors, incandescent lighting
Excellent color with the Manual white balance setting, though a hint red. Auto white balance very yellow, incandescent on the edge of acceptable. About average positive exposure compensation required.

Color balance indoors under incandescent lighting was too warm with the Auto white balance setting, and the Incandescent setting also produced warm color, though not as strong of a cast. (Some users may find the results from the Incandescent setting acceptable, it was just a bit too warm for our tastes.) Despite a slight reddish tint, the Manual option produced very good-looking results overall. The Nikon D40 required about average positive exposure compensation here, at +1.0 EV, though some users might prefer the more controlled highlights of the +0.7 EV exposure. Overall color is quite good, despite the slight red tint that mainly effects the skin tones, though the blue flowers in the bouquet have a very strong purple tint. (A common occurrence with this shot.) 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 high contrast under harsh lighting. Slightly better than average exposure accuracy.

Outdoors, the Nikon D40 tended to lose highlight detail under harsh lighting. However, results are still pretty good overall, and the camera typically required less positive exposure compensation than we're accustomed to seeing on those of our shots that require it. Color is good and pretty bright, though just slightly warm and reddish.

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

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

The Nikon D40 produced low noise at its lower ISO settings, and even at ISO 800, image noise was quite acceptable. At ISOs 1,600 and 3,200, noise is higher, but the fine grain pattern and relatively low color (chroma) component of the noise helps minimize its effects. Pretty amazing, even ISO 3,200 shots look surprisingly good when printed. Excellent performance overall.

Extremes: Sunlit and low light tests
High resolution with good overall detail, but slightly high contrast under harsh lighting. Excellent low-light performance, capable of capturing bright, clean images under average city street lighting and in near darkness.

Sunlight:
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.)

The Nikon D40 produced slightly high contrast under the harsh lighting of the test above, even with its contrast level dialed down a bit in the Image Optimization menu. That said though, the lowest contrast setting lets the camera pretty well at holding onto detail in strong highlights. Some loss of detail due to noise suppression is visible in the shadows, though the remaining detail is still better than average there. The camera required less positive exposure compensation than average for this shot at +0.7 EV, which is good. (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.) Overall color is good with the Auto white balance setting, if slightly reddish, with slightly pink skin tones. Very good results overall.

	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 200	0.8 sec f3.0	2 sec f3.0	4 sec f3.0	8 sec f3.0	15 sec f3.0	15 sec f3.0
ISO 400	0.4 sec f3.0	1 sec f3.0	2 sec f3.0	4 sec f3.0	8 sec f3.0	8 sec f3.0
ISO 800	1/5 sec f3.0	0.5 sec f3.0	1 sec f3.0	2 sec f3.0	4 sec f3.0	4 sec f3.0
ISO 1600	1/10 sec f3.0	1/4 sec f3.0	0.5 sec f3.0	1 sec f3.0	2 sec f3.0	2 sec f3.0
ISO 1 3200	1/20 sec f3.0	1/8 sec f3.0	1/4 sec f3.0	0.5 sec f3.0	1 sec f3.0	1 sec f3.0

Low light:
The Nikon D40 captured bright images down to the darkest light level we test at (about 1/16 as bright as average city street lighting at night). The color looked good with the Auto white balance setting, and the camera's autofocus system was able to focus on the subject down to just above the 1/16 foot-candle light level, even without using the AF assist light. 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.

Output Quality

Print Quality
Excellent print quality, great color, good 13x19 inch prints, tack-sharp 8x10s. ISO 1,600 images are amazingly clean, and even ISO 3,200 shots make surprisingly good 8x10s.

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.)

The Nikon D40's image quality belies its compact size and 6-megapixel imager. Prints as large as 13x19 inches are slightly soft when you squint at them from a few inches away, but look just great at normal viewing distances. Colors are bright and accurate, yet entirely believable.

The biggest challenge for print quality comes at high ISO settings, where image noise rears its head. This turned out to be an area where the Nikon D40 really shone, easily outdistancing any other camera we've seen in its price range to date, amazing us with its bright, clean images even at the most extreme ISO settings. At ISO 1,600, while there was some noise visible in 8x10 inch prints, it was really minimal, to the point that we think the vast majority of users would be happy to frame such prints and put them on their tables or walls. Even ISO 3,200 shots were surprisingly clean, so much so that we'd be inclined to use that setting for a lot of our own photos, intended for output as 8x10 inch prints. The D40's exceptional high-ISO performance demonstrates the advantage that cameras with lower megapixel ratings (and therefore larger individual pixels) can have over those that push for multiple megapixels at any cost. Even if you already own a "higher end" camera with more resolution, you might want to pick up a D40 as a handy little available-light shooter.

Bottom line, the Nikon D40 delivers really impressive print quality, particularly considering its price and size.

Viewfinder

Nikon D40 Viewfinder

Like most DSLRs, the Nikon D40'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 D40's viewfinder is quite similar to that of the earlier D50, although there are some modest improvements in a couple of areas. For one, the D50's viewfinder provides a slightly higher magnification, 0.8x vs the 0.75x of the D50. This makes for a bit larger display, making it a bit easier to see subject details. The D40's dioptric correction adjustment (for eyeglass wearers) also has a slightly broader range, from -1.7 to +0.5 diopter, vs the -1.6 to +0.5 range of the adjustment on the D50. It has an eyepoint height of 18mm, which is the same as on the D50. Like the D50, the D40'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 D40 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 D40'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 D40'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 largely matches that of the D50, and makes for a simple and relatively uncluttered display. One clear difference relative to both the D50 and D80 though: The D40 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

Coverage
Very good accuracy with the optical viewfinder.

The Nikon D40's optical viewfinder proved pretty accurate, showing about 98% frame accuracy at wide angle, and about 97% at telephoto. That said, results were shifted vertically just a little in the final image.

Nikon D40 LCD Display

As is the case with virtually all digital SLRs, the LCD panel on the D40 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
This is the "instant review" display shown in shooting mode just after an image has been captured. It shows image sequence number, shots-remaining on the card, size/quality, and battery condition.	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.

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 D40 as well.

Of the various screens, one of the more interesting options on the Nikon D40 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 D40, a luminance (brightness) graph is the only option for the histogram display; 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 D40 is aimed at, the individual red, green, and blue histogram displays might have been more confusing than useful.

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 D40 (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 D40 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 D40 Flash

Flash photography has been a particular strength of Nikon SLRs for some time now, and the D40 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 D40 sheds 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 D40 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 D40 sports a very fast 1/500 second flash x-sync speed (the maximum speed a normal strobe unit can be used with it).

Another note relative to the x-sync speed on the D40: Its built-in flash is not FP-capable. Basically, this means that the on-board flash can't sync at shutter speeds greater than 1/500 second. There also doesn't appear to be any support for external flash units that are FP-capable (eg, that can be used at higher than x-sync speeds), so the D40's maximum flash sync shutter speed seems to be 1/500, regardless of what sort of flash system you're using with it.

Besides the main flash modes listed above, the D40'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 D40'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.)

To our eyes, the most natural partner for the D40 from Nikon's flash lineup is the new SB-400 model that was announced at the same time as the D40. Shown above, it's a very slim, trim flash unit with roughly double the range of the D40's built-in strobe.

The photo above shows another nice capability that the SB-400 offers over the D40's built-in flash: Its head rotates up to 90 degrees, so you can bounce the flash off the ceiling for a soft wash of light, rather than the harsh look of on-camera flash.

All in all, the SB-400 looks like a dandy little flash unit (the word "cute" keeps coming to mind) to accompany the D40, and at a list price of only $129, any prospective D40 owner should strongly consider buying one right along with the camera.

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 D40 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 D40 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
Very slight underexposures at the default exposure setting; the camera required less than average exposure compensation for flash shots. Pretty good range and coverage.

Flash coverage was slightly uneven at wide angle, though fairly consistent at telephoto. Indoors, under incandescent background lighting, the Nikon D40's bright flash underexposed our subject only slightly at its default setting, requiring a small +0.3 EV exposure compensation adjustment, much less than average. The camera's Slow-Sync flash mode required about the same amount of positive compensation, though the longer shutter speed resulted in a stronger orange cast from the background lighting.

Flash Range: Wide Angle
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 200

Flash Range: Telephoto
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200	1/60 sec f5.6 ISO 200

The Nikon D40's flash was bright and powerful, with good intensity all the way to 14 feet at ISO 200.

Manufacturer-Specified Flash Range
Wide Angle	Telephoto
15.7 feet ISO 200	9.8 feet ISO 200

Our standard test method for flash range uses a fixed setting of ISO 100, to provide a fair basis of comparison between cameras. We've now also begun shooting two shots using the manufacturer-specified camera settings, at the range the company claims for the camera, to assess the validity of the specific claims. In the shots above, the D40 seems to perform every bit as well as Nikon says it will, producing good exposures at the rated distances with its ISO set to Auto. Very good performance.

Imatest Results

Nikon D40 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 D40:

The Nikon D40 showed pretty good color accuracy, not quite as good as the D80, but still very good among the cameras we tested. It got a little carried away with strong reds and blues (a fairly common response with this target, the MacBeth ColorChecker), and was slightly undersaturated on the strong yellow and yellow-green swatches Hue accuracy is very good to excellent, with most of the hue shift occurring in the cyans and blues. Average saturation was 113.4% (oversaturated by 13.4%, mostly in the reds and blues as well), average "delta-E" color error was 6.57 after correction for saturation. 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 D40 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. Bottom line, the Nikon D40'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 D40'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, coarsening the "grain" of the image noise patterns somewhat. In the D40, 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 D40'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 D40, we were consistently impressed when we subjected the D40's images to the real-world test of printing them out at 8x10 inches on the Canon i9900 printer in our studio. Time after time, ISO 1,600 shots printed up clean and beautiful looking. There was definitely some noise present, but our assessment was that 95% of the D40'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 D40 with a nominally-exposed density step target (Stouffer 4110), with the D40's contrast setting at its default position.

These are very good numbers for an in-camera JPEG, but the dynamic range number at "high" quality itself (7.28) isn't the most important thing to look at here. A dynamic range of 7.28 f-stops at high image quality is within a hair of the best DSLRs we've tested (apart 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.

We normally process the dynamic range test files through Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), but as of this writing in early December, 2006, Adobe hadn't yet released support for the Nikon D40. We'll try to come back and update these results once a version of ACR is available that supports the D40.

Dynamic Range, the bottom line:

While we don't have the results of a RAW conversion available to judge by at this point, the JPEG images straight from the D40 show really excellent dynamic range. Previously, the champion for dynamic range from Camera JPEGs (leaving out the Fujifilm S3 Pro, with its dual-pixel sensor technology) was the Nikon D50, with the Canon EOS-20D coming in close behind, exceeding the D50 at some noise thresholds, falling behind very slightly at others. Looking at the table below, the D40 appears to run neck and neck with its predecessor, with about 7.3 f-stops of dynamic range at the highest quality level (restricting images noise to 0.1 f-stop), and 8.9 stops with a noise threshold of 1/4 stop.

To get some perspective, here's a summary of the Nikon D40'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 D40 does appear to offer surprisingly good dynamic range, particularly for an entry-level consumer camera. While it doesn't show in the tests above, the bulk of the D40's dynamic range comes in the shadows: With its default contrast setting, we found it was disconcertingly easy to lose highlight detail, but a lot of detail could be found far into the shadows. (For critical shots, expose for the highlights, and pull the shadows up post-capture on the computer.)

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 1,570 line widths per picture height in the horizontal direction (corresponding to the vertically-oriented edge), and 1,207 lines along the vertical axis (corresponding to the horizontally-oriented edge). Correcting to a "standardized" sharpening with a one-pixel radius brought the vertical resolution close to the horizontal, resulting in an average of 1,615 LW/PH. This is a good performance for a 6-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 vertical edges (first plots below) have a very subtle in-camera sharpening applied, resulting in very clean edges with almost no overshoot. In contrast, the horizontal edges show more evidence of sharpening, with the unaltered JPEG showing moderate overshoot. (This results in slight halos around vertical edges.) As discussed in the main part of this review, the D40's unadjusted JPEG images make good-looking (if very slightly soft) 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 D40 Modes and Menus

The mode dial on the right side of the D40'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"), adding one to those found on the D50 and D80, and substituting a few others. Here's a list of what's available:

• Program: Puts the camera in charge of aperture and shutter speed, though all remaining camera settings are available. (And 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.
• Auto: The camera sets everything. Used for snapshots or users who just don't want to be bothered with the details of how the camera will do its work. The AF-assist light will come on if needed, and the camera selects the AF point covering the closest subject.
• 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 1600, 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 1600.)
• 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.
• Child: This one 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
  
  

Nikon D40 Menus

The menu system on the Nikon D40 follows that of the D80 pretty closely, including the D80's unique Retouch menu.

The D40'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, and 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 D40 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. (Memory is so cheap these days, we don't know why Nikon doesn't take this excellent idea even further, and include yet more information on some of the help screens. Particularly on a camera aimed more at the mass market, the incremental effort and expense to offer more complete explanations of more infrequently-used camera functions seems small relative to the time it could save for D40 owners, helping avoid trips back to the manual to ferret out the information. That said though, the help that's there on the D40 is pretty good.)

In the section below, we're taking a different approach than we have previously in presenting the D40'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 D40 menu structure, page by page, including Nikon's informative help screens. (We're interested in what our readers think of this approach: Drop us an to let us know what you think of it.)

Nikon D40 Playback Menu

Nikon D40 full Playback menu layout
(note, large download for dialup users)

Nikon D40 Shooting Menu:

Nikon D40 full Shooting menu layout
(note, large download for dialup users)

Nikon D40 Custom Settings Menu

Nikon D40 full Custom Settings menu layout
(note, large download for dialup users)

Nikon D40 Setup Menu

Nikon D40 full Setup menu layout
(note, large download for dialup users)

Nikon D40 "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 D40 full Retouch menu layout
(note, large download for dialup users)

Controls

Nikon D40 Controls

Control Enumeration, Command Dial

Here's our usual "walk around the camera," describing the functions served by the various controls. The D40 has a considerably simplified external interface relative to other Nikon DSLRs, in that it has fewer buttons. Many of the functions that previously 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-s0-elector rocker pad and OK button. With fewer buttons and only a single Command Dial, the D40'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 D40'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 D40:

Control Enumeration, Top Panel Controls

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

Shutter Button: In the center of the Power dial, on the top of the camera, this button sets focus (when in autofocus mode) when halfway pressed and fires the shutter when fully pressed. You can choose whether or not 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 camera, 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 resets the camera to its default settings.

Mode Dial : The Mode Dial duplicates that on the D50 and D80, but adds a new "Flash Cancel" mode for available-light photography and restores the "Child" mode that was on the D50 but not the D80. The Night Landscape mode of the D50 is also dropped. The Mode Dial offers a range of programmed and automatic exposure options, as well as a choice of seven Scene modes. See the Modes & Menus subtab of this review for details on all the options.

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, and Rear Curtain+Slow 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 Shooting Display 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. As we noted earlier, there are fewer buttons present than on any other Nikon DSLR, making for a bit simpler user interface, but one that won't be quite as fast for advanced users to navigate as that on the D50 or D80. We'll start our tour at the top left, and proceed counter-clockwise from there.

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 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.

Thumbnail View / Zoom Out / Help Button: Just below the Menu button, this button either zooms out from a magnified view 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.

Quality / 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 19x at the largest image size. (Zoom magnification is limited to 15x or 10x 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 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 camera, in the upper right hand corner, directly under your right thumb. Compared to other Nikon SLRs, the Command Dial on the D40 has a reduced role in the user interface. Many of the camera settings that were controlled through the combination of an external button and the Command Dial have now been moved to the Shooting display, where they're now controlled via the Multi Selector rocker panel and OK button. What's left for the Command Dial to control are shutter and aperture settings, and both ambient and flash exposure compensation. In Playback mode, the Command Dial lets you rapidly scroll through previously-captured images.

AE/AF Lock 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 D40 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 D40 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 D40's competition. For a complete list options, see the D40 "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 D40's menu are non-destructive, in that they always store their results in new image files on the D40'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 D40 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, Warming, and Custom.

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 D40's Skylight filter looks like:

D40 Skylight Filter (Click on any image to see full-size version)
As-Shot	"Skylight" filter

Warming
Warming 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 D40'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.

D40 Warming Filter (Click on any image to see full-size version)
As-Shot	"Warming" filter

Custom
The real fun comes with the Custom 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 Custom 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 Custom filter extends quite a bit beyond what's possible with the Skylight or Warming filters, not to mention that it can adjust the color in any direction, not just make it warmer.

Nikon told us that one important change in the D40 was 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 D40 Feature Comparison

The chart below compares the D40 with other current Nikon cameras. We've used color tints in the cells to highlight differences between the D40, D50 (its predecessor) 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.

We also have a table comparing the Nikon D40 with competing models from other manufacturers. This table is a bit wider though, and breaks the page layout in some browsers, so we're simply providing a link to it here that will open in a separate browser window. See the Nikon D40 vs the Competition comparison table for more info.