Nikon D40 vs Pentax K100d
After searching for a Digital SLR for some time I finally settled on a Nikon D40. The battle was down to the Pentax K100d and the Nikon. I read quite a bit of reviews and talked to some other friends who are into photography at the same hobbyist level or so that I am.
What intrigued me most about the Pentax was its image stabilization built into the body of the K100d. However after looking at a few reputable sources such as DP Review it was clear that the stabilization technology in the K100d was nearly completely ineffective. The Nikon Digital SLRs that I had been looking at don’t have stabilization built into there body’s. Instead they offer as part of the VR (Vibration Reduction) series lens.
The only other downfall I had been worried about with the Nikon D40 was the lack of a focus drive motor. In order to use auto focus the lens must have its own focus motor. That means it only works with the latest AF-S and older AF-I lenses. That effectively kills your ability to auto focus on a large number lenses that Nikon has made in the past but you have to ask yourself is that a problem for you. Do you have a collection of Nikon lenses you intend to use on an entry level Digital SLR? If so why not spring for the D80 or D200 and get a body only? The D40 is actually only sold in the US with a very nice AF-S lens included and even with the lens it is still quite cheap. It also works with Nikon 18-200 AF-S VR, as you can see in this article on KenRockwell.com, which is probably the best general purpose digital camera lens I know of for Nikons.
So I bought a kit that included the D40 with all its goodies (charger, batteries, strap etc), AF-S 18-55, a big Nikon brand bag, a SD wallet, a cleaning kit, a USB SD card reader, some random image recovery software, 25 4×6 prints and 5 5×7 prints free from Shutterfly and a subscription to PC photo magazine for $569+s/h from Cameta Camera on eBay. They seemed pretty reputable as they have an enormous amount of positive feed back and a 1-800 number listed on all of there auctions that actually takes you to a friendly support team. I know as I wound up calling twice. Initially just to see how responsive they were and ask about there return policy (store credit only which is there one weaknesses to a lot of other vendors.) and then to verify my package would get shipped that day. It is pretty clear they have a clue what they are doing and not selling these out of the back of there van.
Next up was an 8GB SDHC card from the gods of quick shipping over at newegg.com. With this thing in D40 I think I should be able to take around 4,000 shots at the maximum JPG quality as they seem to take up about 2MB each. I also picked up a ton of USB Mini-B cables from iofast.com so I will always have one on me.