Hi, I'm a "very" proud owner of a D50 but I must say that all this noise about the D40 is beginning to make me feel insecure about it. I'm neither a pro or a beginner. I position myself as a "middle of the road" fussy photographer when it comes to image qualities as noise, blown highlights or blur. But all l this bang about the D40 has had me going to the camera store where I bought my D50 and...ask for a replacement. Salesman abruptly stopped me from doing it saying I would not gain so much more in term of image quality and functions. Came back home and then I read that Nikon changed the algorythms inside the camera making the D40 delivering still much more stunning photos than the D50. I wonder if there will be many D50 owners that will make the switch. As for me, I'm won't be listening any more to "D40 blows D50 away". I just hop eI won't regret it... Cheers. Germain

Hi Germain,

Enjoy your D50, From what I have read about the two cameras I would still prefer the D50 over the D40. They left off some features on the D40 that the D50 has. A D50 owner that also has a D40probably can tell you more about the major differences. I'm sure the final photograph from either camera is just as good as if it was done with a D100, D200, D1X or D2X. A good properly exposed picture can be accomplished with any of these cameras. It's the extra features and stuff like the larger buffer on the D2X and D200 that make a big difference in these higher end cameras. Read Steve's reviews and not the advertisement hype and you will be happy with your D50.

Ronnie

There are many good reasons to select the D50 instead of the D40, including reasons from Tamron, Sigma, Tokina, Cosina/Vivitar and more.

That's because the vast majority of third party lenses won't Autofocus on a D40, since it's missing an in body focus motor.

That also means you won't have Autofocus on a number of Nikkor lenses (including a lot of good primes).

If you only want to use newer Nikkor AF-S lenses or Sigma lenses with HSM, the D40 would be fine. But, if you want to be able to tap into a lot more lenses, I'd stick with the D50.

Image quality is probably very close, and if you shoot in RAW, the difference is probably negligible. The D50 has so many more features it is truly a step up from the D40 in terms of feature set. I wouldn't lose anymore sleep over it.

I'm sure the D40 is a very good camera, but I don't think you have any reason to feel insecure with the D50. You can look all over here and other places to see amazing photos taken with the D50, I doubt the D40 will really do better. I have no doubt the person behind the camera will make far more difference than there is between the D40 and D50.

John

JimC wrote: JimC makes the best argument for the D50 over the D40. I see the D40 as a truly "beginner" camera for someone who has no current lenses and will probably end up with the kit lens and something in the 50-200mm range and never buy anything else. The D50 opens up the owner to a vast range of older AFlenses and third party lenses a big plus (especially since the D50 image quality is excellent anyway, the D40 offering very little advantage here)

Ira

I had the choice of getting either the D40 or D50 when I bought mine 2 weeks ago. I went with the D50 because 2 out of the 3 lenses I wanted to buy right away wouldn't autofocus with the D40. And 1 of the next 2 I want to buy down the road won't auto focus with it either. The D40 seems like a fine camera but it just wasn't for me.