First "professional" shots ever!

[Baaaark]

Messed with it a little. This looks slightly better IMO. Not really sure what I did but we will see.

That looks very lush, like right after a rain. And the water is super cool. How did you do that? Every time I try this, it doesn't work. Congrats!

 

[kundalini]

Kundalini, I just bought the D40 upon many great reviews. I'll probably use this a good while before I upgrade to anything else just to get the feel. I'll try to shoot RAW when I get the D40 going. What will be my main advantage in doing this???

As for editing, where do I even start?? I downloaded Gimp but there are sooo many different tweaks. Guess I'll just have to mess with everything right?

Congratz and welcome to the Dark Side bwuhahaha

The D40 will shoot some excellant images. The D40 is a great little starter dSLR if you're just getting your feet wet into this game. The reason I mentioned keeping the P&S over the D40 is mainly because of your limited lens choices that will both meter and autofocus. That's not to say all the other lenses can't be used, they can. If you stick around long enough, you will read someone say "it's the lens, not the body", which is very true. Without a split prism viewfinder, I can't manual focus worth a crap .... old eyes.... but getting better in the macro world though.

I use LightRoom II to import, edit and convert to JPEG my RAW images. It is a wonderful tool because I don't spend a great deal of time post processing. One day I will take the time to work on that . I also use an older version of Photoshop Elements and Capture NX for final tweaks. Shooting RAW will give you the greatest latitude for editing.

Nikkor came out with a 35mm f/1.8 DX lens recently that will fully function on the D40. I have the FX version and absolutely love the focal length on both cropped and full frame sensors.

Your edits are an improvement.

 

[NateS]

Kundalini, I just bought the D40 upon many great reviews. I'll probably use this a good while before I upgrade to anything else just to get the feel. I'll try to shoot RAW when I get the D40 going. What will be my main advantage in doing this???

As for editing, where do I even start?? I downloaded Gimp but there are sooo many different tweaks. Guess I'll just have to mess with everything right?

Congratz and welcome to the Dark Side bwuhahaha

The D40 will shoot some excellant images. The D40 is a great little starter dSLR if you're just getting your feet wet into this game. The reason I mentioned keeping the P&S over the D40 is mainly because of your limited lens choices that will both meter and autofocus. That's not to say all the other lenses can't be used, they can. If you stick around long enough, you will read someone say "it's the lens, not the body", which is very true. Without a split prism viewfinder, I can't manual focus worth a crap .... old eyes.... but getting better in the macro world though.

I use LightRoom II to import, edit and convert to JPEG my RAW images. It is a wonderful tool because I don't spend a great deal of time post processing. One day I will take the time to work on that . I also use an older version of Photoshop Elements and Capture NX for final tweaks. Shooting RAW will give you the greatest latitude for editing.

Nikkor came out with a 35mm f/1.8 DX lens recently that will fully function on the D40. I have the FX version and absolutely love the focal length on both cropped and full frame sensors.

Your edits are an improvement.

Your two posts in this topic make absolutely no sense to me. So you are saying, that because the D40 is more limited on lens selection than higher modeled nikons, you would rather have something with NO lens selections? That's like saying since you can only afford the entry level BMW, you'd rather just get a Chevy Cobalt (no offense to cobalt owners).

In the past, you were 100% right, but in the last year, so many 3rd party manufacturers are coming out with lenses with built in motors that the limitations of the D40/D60 series are not as significant. Here's a short list of affordable lenses that should be considered regardless of your camera (on a budget)

Tamron 17-50 f2.8 (has built in motor)
Sigma 18-50 f2.8 HSM (has built in motor)
Nikon 70-300 AF-S VR (works fine with D40)
Tamron 90mm f2.8 (now has a built in motor)
35mm f1.8 AF-S (has motor and only 200 bucks)
50mm f1.4 AF-S (pushing 500 bucks but only about $150 more than the non AF-S and worth the extra money for faster focusing anyway)


So, the lens limitation argument against a D40 is kind of absurd these days....the D40 has many other limitations that would bother me before lens selection.....but you'd rather have a point and shoot over a D40 and some of the lenses above? I just don't get it.

Oh and for reference, I'm a former D40 owner and sold the camera because of the lens limitations when I had it. If I had the lens choices that there are now back then I probably would have had my D40 for longer than 1 month...although I still would have outgrown it for other reasons by now.

 

[manaheim]

So, the lens limitation argument against a D40 is kind of absurd these days....the D40 has many other limitations that would bother me before lens selection.....but you'd rather have a point and shoot over a D40 and some of the lenses above? I just don't get it.

The lense argument is absolutely not absurd... we're just leaving one small piece out. Cost.

Ironically a lot of people buy the D40/D60 because they are cheaper... only to then pay a repeating additional cost on every lense that they buy... because the lenses with the focus motors built in are more (in some cases FAR more) expensive than their non-AFS counterparts.

 

[wmflyfisher]

Messed with it a little. This looks slightly better IMO. Not really sure what I did but we will see.

That looks very lush, like right after a rain. And the water is super cool. How did you do that? Every time I try this, it doesn't work. Congrats!

All I did was play with shutter speed, white balance, and exposure time maybe?? I took a few other shots that didn't turn out as good as this one and the other. Just takes messing with these til you get the look you want.

 

[NateS]

So, the lens limitation argument against a D40 is kind of absurd these days....the D40 has many other limitations that would bother me before lens selection.....but you'd rather have a point and shoot over a D40 and some of the lenses above? I just don't get it.

The lense argument is absolutely not absurd... we're just leaving one small piece out. Cost.

Ironically a lot of people buy the D40/D60 because they are cheaper... only to then pay a repeating additional cost on every lense that they buy... because the lenses with the focus motors built in are more (in some cases FAR more) expensive than their non-AFS counterparts.

The point is that most of the "new" lenses that are worth having all have built in motors now.....even third party. Name me a $400 lens or cheaper that can do a better job than the Tamron 17-50 f2.8/Sigma 18-50 f2.8 HSM that wouldn't autofocus on a D40. Oh, and if you start quoting older used Nikon lenses then it needs to be under about $350 since used copies of the above can be found for about $300-330.

Then....we talk about telezooms and the bottom line is that there is no option other than the 70-300 AF-S VR for quality......so you are stuck buying a AF-S lens for that range too. However, if you opt to buy a cheaper lens for that range like the Sigma 70-300 APO DG Macro.....guess what....those have HSM now so they'll even work on the D40 for only around $200. So show me a better option than those two that won't work because it's a D40.....better than the Sigma for $200 or better than the Nikon for $550....if only the camera had a motor.

Primes? Well that's solved now that the 35 f1.8 AF-S is out for a measly $200 and that focal length works worlds better on a crop sensor for most shooting than the 50mm anyway, so the extra $80 is well worth it.

Not trying to get into an e-fight, but if you guys are going to sit here and talk about lens limitations, please make sure to list which lenses you could use for less money than some of the newer stuff but can't because of the lens limitations.

 

[itznfb]

i would have to agree with NateS. there isn't a lens that i would purchase that doesn't autofocus on a D40/60. the only lens i own (that i actually use) that doesn't autofocus is the 50mm f/1.8 and i'll be replacing it with the 35mm AF-S anyway.

 

[NateS]

i would have to agree with NateS. there isn't a lens that i would purchase that doesn't autofocus on a D40/60. the only lens i own (that i actually use) that doesn't autofocus is the 50mm f/1.8 and i'll be replacing it with the 35mm AF-S anyway.

Exactly. 2 years ago (heck even 1 year ago) it was a good argument, but a lot of the worthy lenses have been updated recently to have a motor built in which makes this so much less of an issue that it wouldn't even be a deciding factor for me anymore like it once was.