Having fun with my D40
 

Hi everyone. I'm kind of new to photography... Well last year I bought a Nikon D40. I haven't put much time playing with it but recently I decided to upload some of my stuff to a flickr page and here's the result so far:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/julienphoto/

Really like this camera but It's damn tempting to buy the new D90... [rofl] I also have the Macro VRII 105mm lens and the 70-300 VR.

What do you think so far?

I've only looked through the first 7 pages, but I haven't seen but 1 or 2 I didn't really like. You've been taking excellent pictures! Doesn't look amateur at all.

Lovely photos mate, keep it up [thumbup]

doesn't look like you're new at all, I enjoyed watching them a lot.
just a little thing though, if I may- I'd straighten some horizons in some of the landscapes.

These photos looks great! You got some budding skills there. [thumbup]

Thanks everyone for your comments!

Just got back from my camera shop and I'm still wondering if I should buy the D90 or not.
Will it make a difference? Is it worth the 1000$ purchase? I mean I could get the D300 for 1500$ Should I wait and get the D300 instead? I've heard the image quality between both is quite comparable...

don't ask us... you're the one who knows best if you need an upgrade.
let's put it this way- do you feel that you've got to the point in which your D40 is holding you back?

Sometimes! Especially when I crop my images. 6MP is fine for most of my stuff however I'm sure 12MP could give me a little more versatility! I'm also concerned about ISO quality. Take a look at my zoo pics, I was using ISO 800. I don't know about the D90 but on my D40 if I used 1600 I've had lost to much quality. And there's the build in VR motor in the camera body. Since I doesn't have any in my D40 I have to buy all my Zoom lens with build-in VR in it which cost more...

Anyway, I'm sure I could find many more great things about the D90. I really need to convince my girlfriend... that's the big deal right now! [surrender]

some great shots regardless, enjoyed looking through themhttp://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/cool1.gif

That's the next thing I thought of bringing up, lenses. consider what will serve you better, a new body or an extra lens. although I think you're right about that 6MP not being enough. hell, I sometimes wish I had more than 10MP...
a new body might be a nice idea.

as for your GF, tell her your D40 has swollen. moisture.. i don't know.[shocked]

i sometimes get suckered into this bigger megapixel thing a lot too. but here is my very very honest and unbiased view about d40

right now i believe d40 is one of the great price performance cameras. even tho the megapixel count 10.2 vs. 6 looks "wooooooooooowww!!" but real life sizes aren't hugely effected.

also you might want to read this article here


d40 still has great iso performance i will get into more detail why i think that way but rite now a little lazy http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/blush1.gif

That article is for point and shoot cameras. If you were to apply it do DSLRs it would be ~54megapixels. Though you'd be hard pressed to find any lens that gave that kind of res :p

Though I agree with the basic concept somewhat. That's why I went with the 10mp a300 over the 14mp a350. But I'd trade both for the 24mp a900 in a second http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/laugh1.gif.

the point of the thing is the basic concept. they took the acceptable size of a point and shoot camera photosite and applied it to both point and shoot and dslr cameras. so if they were all using same photosite size then a aps-c size sensor would be so very high megapixel.

the point is with 6mpixel aps-c size sensor has larger photosites and collects a lot more light hence has to do a lot less processing to get rid of luminance and chroma noises where as the same sensor packed with smaller photosites hence higher megapixels like 14mpixel a350 doesn't in real life collect more light or give you a way higher high iso performance. (neither does it give you a lot more detail).

but when you say a 24mpixel a900 that is a different story. even tho resolution seems to be a lot higher, being a full frame sensor, its surface area is already 2x (or even more) bigger then an aps-c sensor anyways. so even while keeping the photosite size same you can bump the 14mpixel or a350 to 28mpixel or even more without compromising iso performance. or do it the canon/nikon way keep the mpixel low as well paired with the full frame sensor and have brilliant high iso performance.


anyway for me bottom line is 6mpixel is the minimum acceptable resolution for today. Would i go for nikon d40 or sony a200/300 knowing there isnt much of a iso performance or image quality difference ? no :)))) i still would go for 10mpixel or higher but like i said i usually get suckered into the higher megapixel thing :) even tho i know it don't give me much advantage :))

The point is that there actually is a considerable difference between 6 and 10mp...
easily thought of as almost twice the resolution, and let's take a look at the image sizes:

10mp: 3888 x 2592
6mp: 3008 x 2000

it's a 29.25531% increase from 6 to 10mp in width\height, and almost twice as much pixels.[xmascandle]

the problem is 29% of increase in the number of photosites don't translate into 29% increase in photon or light collecting power of the photosites. it actually effects them in reverse, each photosite having less area to gather light results in more artifacts in low light situations, and the total benefit of increasing 6 to 10mpixel doesn't translate into 29% increase in iso performance or per pixel detail.

if you go with higher pixel = higher everything quality then iso3200 of a sony a200 sensor should be as good quality as iso1600 of a 6mpixel d40, which is nowhere to be true.

Thanks for the info I appreciate!

Let's say If you had to choose between these options which one will you take?:

Keep in mind that I have a D40, 18-55mm, 70-300VR, 105mm VRII Macro,

I'm planning to upgrade to D90 body which is 1100$ Canadian.

Or should I keep my D40 and buy the Sigma 150-500mm f/5.0-6.3 at 1300$


http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/sad1.gif

thats a difficult question :))) i always get fooled by more megapixels just like anyone else... :))) so i think i would go for d90. or even something like sony a300/350 (if you don't have too many nikon lenses already).

on the other hand back to the actual question http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/laugh1.gif... it all depends on what kinda photography u are after. a 500mm lens sure sounds very nice on the other hand if you want it just because of a moment of hype then it will be a waste of money. u can get a decent 10.2mpixel digital slr with a couple of decent lenses for 1k.

well i think i would go with a slightly lower model of nikon that has 10.2mpixels. OR


for 1k .. i would get a350 (around $700). add a 50mm f/1.7 for $100. and a 70-300 sigma apo 3.5/5.6 for $150 on ebay or local. and $100 for a vivitar or another cheap TTL flash.

then you could still sell ur entire nikon kit and get urself a nice G series zoom lens. In the end you would have a 14mpixel dslr with 18-70mm, 50mm portrait and a 70-300mm decent quality carry around zoom lens, and a G series high quality lens.


but again thats me :)))) new stuff always gets me excited. :))

Talked to the GF today and she really doesn't want me to spend 1 000$ on another camera.... http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/cry1.gif She said my camera is good enough and my photo are great with it etc... but now I explain that my camera is only 6mp, doesn't have the VR motor in it and the ISO performance could be better on the D90 etc.. then she looked at me with a face just like this: http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo.../confused1.gif .......and said:

Stop arguing with me and go wash the dishes...


Look's like my dog is dead..... For now. [thumbdown]

increasing resolution was never meant to have anything with noise...
besides, in some cameras there were made smaller photosites AND improved noise performance, compared to their older models, with bigger photosites.

let the noise performance stay the same, with increased resolution- sounds like a fair deal.


Also, selling his whole Nikon gear just to purchase other stuff...... meh, why???

and that those sensors would be maybe ?? superccd sensors ??? even bumping up resolution on super ccd sensors have their drawbacks, improvements sure have been made to sensors and the way they gather light, but a lot of it has been with the in camera noise removal. superccd sensors which simply have a more efficient shape and configuration of photosites can pick up more of certain wavelengths but as a drawback they start getting color artifacts even at good light conditions. (aka superccd artifacting). another type of sensor; foveon x3 is a direct or color image sensor without a color array like bayer filter (which is used in almost all cameras except sigma dlsr's) but again they are as prone as bayer filters or superccd sensors to photosite size and its light gathering capacity.

again some improvements have been made to almost all sensors both bayer or foveon x3 or superccd's but a lot of it has been made also on the software side with noise removal etc. still photosite size is the major consideration while making a sensor.