Thinking about upgrading...... need opinions.

[Kimberly81]

Well the D40 has been fun, but I think I want something with a bit more "detail" to work with. I want more Megapixels and a shallower DOF. A friend of mine has one of these and I am thinking of selling the D40 and purchasing this one, do you guys think it is a smart upgrade? It is still in my price range but I think it offers more. I am moving forward in my desire to produce more high quality, creative images and I think this is a good match for my buck:

http://www.adorama.com/ICADRXSIBK.html?sid=1225446711922206

 

[JustAnEngineer]

A wide aperture lens for your Nikon camera would give you shallow depth of field. I'm not sure how switching to the Canon Rebel XSi would achieve that, other than there being a few more lenses available for a few less dollars for the Canon.

I'm not a fan of the D40/D60, but Nikon's more expensive models are quite good.

 

[Dao]

Basically jumping from D40 to XSi is not a big jump at all. What lens did you have for your D40?

If you are just looking for more mega pixels, nothing else .. yes, you can call that an upgrade. But I will say going to D80 or higher will be a better choice for camera body.

However, the lens is also very important for making a quality image. Getting a better lens will help on capturing a good sharp image. As for the shadower depth of field, upgrading the camera body has very little to do with DoF. Upgrading the lens will help.

And understanding how to create shadow DoF will help as well. Your D40 can product nice blur background image. If you do not believe it, just go to www.flickr.com and search for D40 DOF. You will find a lot of examples. Some of them are quite nice.

 

[Overread]

I agree with the others - depth of field is not going to be affected by this upgrade - the only depth of field adjustment possible (and its really only strongly visable with macro work) is when you compare crop sensor with full frame cameras - which have one stop less depth of field - however both of the cameras you are looking at are crop sensor - so no change in depth of field.

If your moving forward to better photos this is the order of prioity to achiving that:

1) The person holding the camera
2) The lens on the camera
3) The camera body

this is because the camera body is just a recording device set to record the light at the settings the user sets. Ergo being a better photographer will improve how you camera captures sights and a better lens will improve the light and thus image quality you get as an end result.
Thus I say look to upgrading your lens - to do this work out first what you want the lens to do for you (like landscape, macro, animals, birds, studio etc...) and then work our a rough budget - you can then ask for advice as can be directed to lenses that will help you achive you end. Also high quality lenses are made to last - a top range lens should last you decades of good use whilst a body is a more short term item.