Nikon D-40 Product Test

The Nikon D-40 is heavily advertised as a user friendly camera for the amateur photographer. I was in the market for a new camera so I thought I would give it a whirl. I was nothing but impressed.

Ease of Use
I give the camera a 5 out of 5 in this category. I bought mine over the Internet and when it arrived I was able to charge the battery, plug in a memory card, pop on the lens and get right to it. It is definitely a right out of the box product. The auto focus works well, the menus are easy to understand and its just generally easy to operate. The kit came with some of Nikon's proprietary software as well as Photoshop Elements 5.0. Photoshop is traditionally an easy to understand and operate program. Nikon's Program initially appeared intimidating, but it was actually easy to learn and once I learned it I found it very easy to use.

Battery Life
The supplied battery has an awesome life. After the initial charge I didn't have to charge the battery for nearly a week. The camera got a quite a bit of use that week yet the battery hung in rather well. I would give it 5 out of 5, but as an avid aspiring pro I wouldn't venture too far without a spare battery in your bag of tricks.

Lenses
The 'kit' that I bought had an 18-55mm Auto-focus Nikkor Lens. This lens has served very well as sort of an 'all purpose' type of lens. It gets a 4 out of 5, because it was a little difficult to put the lens on initially. There is a trick to it, but once you figure it out its no problem. There are a variety of Nikkor Lenses available for most types of photography.

Image Quality
The overall image quality is impeccable. I had some doubts going from 10 mega pixels down 6 mega pixels. To my surprise, the image quality was actually an improvement. I learned rather quickly that more is not necessarily better. The images were crisp and the colors were vivid and bright. I would give it 5 out of 5

Overall rating
I give it a 5 star rating. I definitely would recommend this product to anyone interested in digital photography. It offers a great variety for the amateur photographer as well as for the professional. It offers impeccable image quality, its easy to use and offers numerous features.