The Nikon D40: My Introduction to Photography

I am reviving this blog site. Not that anyone is reading this, but I know this site will be found someday. And it would be a shame that there will only be a few useful things in here when I could have written more. I know I have many things to share, and I shouldn't be selfish and just keep them to myself. And so I'm so very back.

In the meantime, here's a re-post of something I wrote for a different blog site I created about a year ago. I'm deleting that other blog. I'm instead writing everything I want to write here. This blog is a keeper. Anyway, this article is about a camera since I'm now into photography.

It's almost been a year since I got my own DSLR camera -- my first SLR, a Nikon D40. I bought it for Php 21,500.00 at Henry's Camera Shop in Quiapo. It cost around Php 27,000.00 in malls then. Now it's sold at Php 23,500.00 at Henry's and Php 29,500.00 in malls. Seemingly, other digital cameras, particularly the point & shoot ones (that's P&S for you, acronymphobics) have become cheaper. The cheapening, of course, is due to digital obsolescence (read more about it here), but the tiny compact D40 has become a little more expensive! This made me think and come up with theories as to why this is so, and here are (for me) the two most plausible: a) the peso has become cheaper compared to the dollar; and b) there is still a good demand for Nikon D40.

Both are, I think, true (unless you point out to me that they are not and explain why), and so that gives me reason to celebrate my choice of my first DSLR.

It was October last year, when I was still trying to finish my Glosari ng Kinaray-a project for NCCA, when it dawned upon me that an affordable digital SLR was at my (financial) reach. I asked around for what would be a good, affordable model, and on top of my respondents' answers of course were Canon and Nikon models.

A few google searches after (but the good readings/reviews came from DPreview and Ken Rockwell), the Nikon D60 and the Canon 1000D topped my list. They were a fresh release back then. Coincidentally, a friend, Medifel, was also planning to buy a DSLR; and that, together with Pablo, started our 3-person discussion group about photography and digital cameras. How my first two choices changed to the final pick of D40 (which wasn't even on my list then) was influenced by the following points raised in the course of those discussions:

1) The Nikon D60 and Canon 1000D each shoot at more than 10 megapixels. The Nikon D40 shoots only at 6 megapixels. But Ken Rockwell, being my main source of information back then, had a good discussion about camera resolution and told me that "megapixels don't really matter."

2) Nikon D60 and Canon 1000D both have CMOS sensors. Nikon D40 still uses a CCD. That sounded like a little discouraging at first. CMOS sounded more high-tech, but a few more readings from the internet (Luminous Landscape) revealed that, ceteris paribus, CCDs are more sensitive to color and therefore bring out better pictures.

3) Still about sensor design. (WARNING: a little Greek sort of explanation follows. You may want to skip to No. 4 instead to avoid potential vertigo.) I read in a book (I'll post the title when I get my hands on it again) that the lower the camera's pixel pitch (or the bigger each pixel is), the better it's performance will be. (You can also read about pixel pitch here.) In English, that means that the fewer (and bigger) the pixels are in a given sensor area, the better the sensor's performance will be. This is because bigger pixels are more sensitive to light than smaller pixels.

Let me place that pictorially. Imagine an area measuring 1 square foot. Imagine 1-inch balls placed on it where each ball represents one pixel. So the area can hold a maximum of 144 balls: that's 144 pixels. In order for us to cram more pixels into the same area, the only thing we can do is reduce the size of the balls to, say, 1/2-inch to make 576 pixels; 1/4-inch to make 2,304 pixels; 1/8-inch to make 9,216 pixels; and so forth.

Now, both the Nikon D40 and D60, as well as Canon 1000D, are APS-C cameras. In English, that means they all have the same sensor size (about 25.1 x 16.7 mm and an aspect ration of 3:2). But look closely and you have 4 more megapixels in both the Nikon D60 and the Canon 1000D. That means that, along the way, they had to make adjustments to cram all that additional number of pixels to the same-sized sensor.

So points 1-3 made it somehow clear to me that the D40 was better than either the Nikon D60 or the Canon 1000D. But another point made the D40 my runaway winner.

4) The D40, as I said, cost Php 21,500.00 in Quiapo back then. The D60, around Php 32,000.00, and the Canon 1000D about the same. I thought it wiser to buy a cheaper (but still capable) camera and buy another lens (a Nikkor 55-200mm VR) and a flash (an SB-400). And so I did.

I purchased my camera in December of 2008.Now, a year after that, I'm still happy with my D40. I've shot lots and lots of pictures with it, and come up with good ones every once in a while. I can say that (without having to compare it to other cameras) it is a perfect camera for beginners. It's easy to operate, it's light, and it can do most of the operations most professional (read: more expensive) DSLRs can. It also is a very dependable camera. I took my 20,000th shot with it last week, and it still runs perfectly. It is a gem of a camera.