Valhalla Island

Around a month ago I bought a brand new Nikon D40 for $600. It is a digital SLR still camera, it came with a 18-55mm AF Nikkor lens and has a built-in flash. It is my first SLR camera - film or digital - and I know next to nothing about photography.

I knew I needed a camera to take with me overseas but it was never my intention to buy an SLR. In fact, I published what I was looking for in a camera a couple of months ago. My requirements then didn’t match an SLR at all. I was aware of the beautiful, professional photographs SLRs are able to take but I was also aware of the whopping price of them.

The SLR option was first considered when consulting with the knowledgeable members in the BC IRC channel. I was looking at a Canon Ixus, a relatively high-end point and shoot for around $400. Caius, a D80 owner and Henry a new D40 owner both spoke highly of the D40. It was cheap too, $200 more than I was planning on paying, for a much better camera.

At stores in Australia they start at $1200, I thought I should check one out at the store before buying for half that price on eBay. Compared to all the other DSLRs it was a baby, much lighter, much smaller by all dimensions. This was important as I’d be carrying it around often. I bought it and it arrived a few days later.

Contrary to older film SLR cameras (and perhaps popular belief about SLRs), it is very easy to take amazing photos. I took it out of the box, I turned it on, I took a photo and it looked great. Now that I know a little more about using it, it’s even easier to take great photos.

These are the things I love about this particular camera, I imagine they would also apply to most DSLRs.

• It takes photos extremely quickly, there is no time between pressing the button and the shutter opening.
• Being able to pick out a subject of focus is what really makes great photos.
• On anything that’s not full manual, it always compensates beautifully. It’s hard to take a bad photo if you don’t fiddle a lot.
• The colour is super vibrant and heavily saturated
• The photos are dead sharp
• Like everything else, if using the flash, it never blows out, it has varying levels of brightness (I guess it’s called).
• That’s not that important though because I never need the flash, not even at night.
• It can take great super close ups if you want to pick up the detail in something like second markers on a wrist watch.
• The screen is the best I have ever seen on a portable device.
• The menus are beautiful, easy to use and super fast. Navigating through photos is instant, looking at photos on the camera is faster than looking at them on my computer.
• The battery lasts days and days.

I love using it. I can’t wait to use it while traveling.

There are a couple of problems though.

Obviously, the size is an issue. If I’m going out to a party or to a bar and I want to take some photos of my friends it’s a battle deciding whether or not I should take it. You can’t just slip it in and out of your pocket. It gets in the way and protecting it distracts me from what I’m actually doing.

In an ideal world I’d have a tiny point and shoot to complement the SLR for situations exactly like that but for my news six months overseas, the SLR suits well.

My final problem is not the fault of the camera. Wherever I take it people want to talk to me about it. Initially I was cool with this as I was excited about owning and showing off a nice new camera. But when you’re asked “how many megapixels is it?” for the 20th time, it becomes annoying.

I really don’t know enough about the camera to talk about it extensively but the people who ask tend know much less but pretend to know much more. Hearing their disappointed sighs when I inform them it’s 6 megapixel proves that. So I’m often caught between trying to answer their questions while not contradicting everything they’ve said and sounding like a camera know-it-all.

I’d just like to take it out, take photos with it and put it away.

If you’re in the market for a camera and you’re looking at spending a decent amount of money on a point and shoot, consider the cost/benefit of spending a little more on an SLR. I definitely recommend it.

You can see some of the photos I’ve taken with the D40 on my Flickr page or some of my favourites at photos.jimwhimpey.com. Photos from my travel will be consistently uploaded to both websites.