by
Rusty » Sun May 24, 2009 12:41 pm
If you want a dSLR, you'll probably find a pretty good price on the D40. I think it is soon to be "discontinued".
Nikon brought out the D40 and, a few months later the D40x (same camera, just more megapixels) and promptly discontinued the D50 and D70. Now they have, I believe, discontinued the D40x leaving them, at the so-called consumer level, with the D40, 60, 80 and 90 and one introduced just a month or so ago, the name of which I can't remember. They expect the D60 to be considered a direct replacement for the D40x.
If you already have a dSLR, and are even staying in the same 'family' (Nikon or Canon or whatever), you still have to pay attention to the specifications. When I changed from the Nikon D50 to a D80 I didn't have to buy a single lens. The same lenses that worked on the D50 were just fine with the D80. That is not true for some other Nikon offerings including, I think, the D40.
If you want a dSLR my advice is the same as from Chas, stick with Nikon or Canon and you will have more accessory options to choose from. Also, the less expensive lens options (Tamron, Sigma, etc)
always are available in Canon or Nikon mounts ... not always in some of the others.
I was in my camera store the other day and casually mentioned to my usual salesman that, if I had the money to buy another camera, I would like an advanced P&S for times that I didn't want to carry a lot of stuff around. I asked about a new Nikon I had read about, said I had heard nothing but good things about the Canon G10 but it didn't have enough optical zoom for the kind of things I like to shoot, this new Nikon had more than twice the zoom of the G10. He said the Nikon was junk, he and two other salesmen went out shooting and none of them were impressed at all. Picked up a new Canon,
"XS-something", that he believed was superior to the G10 ... especially if you wanted a big optical zoom. It's $600 and change if you want to be able to shoot RAW, the exact same thing without RAW ability is $200 less.
Isn't it funny to ask advice here -- wow, lots of opinions.
Rusty