I’ve tried to ignore this certain person who has an awful lot to say about cameras. I don’t want to mention names, but he claims to be a pro photographer, and he’s just very opinionated about everything, and when I do a search about cameras or equipment I’m looking into, right on top is his website. He contradicts himself vehemently, which bugs me. One review he says a camera sucks because it only has 6 megapixels. The next page he says megapixels don’t matter, anyone that tells you they do is a liar, and 3 megapixels are great.
But he also must think people are really stupid, which irks me even more. Because of his devout love & constant recommendation for everyone to buy the Nikon D40 DSLR.
I’ve never tried one in person, and couldn’t say I’d refuse a free camera if someone wanted to give it to me, but I’d probably still complain about it just the same. When it appeared clear that I need to either repair my existing DSLR or buy a new one, I started my research (and hence ran into this website constantly). I looked for the cheapest camera that would fulfill my most basic desires. And I looked at the D40.
It has two hitches I just don’t like. It only has 3 points to use autofocus. I like at least 5. Newer cameras even have 11 and up. 3 equals left, middle, right. It’s all nice to think that what every photographer wants to focus on is in one of these three places, but often it’s not. If you’re hand-holding it like a point & shoot, it’s not such a big deal. Focus on what you want, press half-way down, then reframe your picture and take it. If you’re taking a serious photo w/a tripod, however, this would drive me nuts. Bring what you want in focus to one of those three markers. Click half-way down. Change camera to manual focus so you don’t lose the setting because exposure lock only lasts a couple of seconds. Move the camera to frame what you want. Lock it down securely. Take the picture. Put it back on auto-focus for the next one. Bang head against hard object as needed.
But what really gets under my skin is that this guy says the N40 is the best camera ever made when it doesn’t have a white balance. My little $200 point & shoot has a white balance. It has several settings. Ok, most people snapping shots of family & vacations may not know or care, and that’s fine for them. but some of us would like to think we’re a little smarter than the camera. We don’t expose all our shots at 18% gray because “the camera says so.” We take into account where 18% is, but then we do what we want for extreme light or dark shots. The same goes for white balance. The camera can guess, but I’d rather have options. I’d rather have some control & input. Do you really want to go into PhotoShop to adjust every shot’s white balance because the camera didn’t guess correctly? Seriously? Sure, technology and cameras are nifty, but they don’t have all the right answers. Sometimes you may want to use the white balance for artistic effect. Why not have that freedom? It’s one thing if Nikon makes a decent SLR without white balance. But let’s not exalt it on a throne for that. Come on.
