# Nikon D40(x) vs. Canon EOS 350D



## evanGR (Jan 8, 2008)

Title says it all.
Which one should I go for?

Thanks,
EvanGR


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## nicfargo (Jan 8, 2008)

oooo, you've opened up a can of worms.  Be nice everybody, he knows not what he does.  

In all seriousness I'd go to a retail or camera store and look at both.  Hold both.  Take pictures of both.  Then I'd go from there.  They are both very capable cameras.  I've heard from some Nikon users that you might as well go for the D50 instead of the D40 because of the D40's lack of in-body autofocus I believe.  Whatever the reason it won't be able to use certain autofocus lenses.  As you can tell by my siggy, I use Canon.  That doesn't mean I'm married to Canon by any means, it just happens to be what I chose at the time.  Hopefully my response doesn't lead you one way or another...go check them out yourself and find which one you're comfortable with.  Some people hate the layout of the Nikon, some hate the layout of the Canon.


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## Big Mike (Jan 8, 2008)

Coke or Pepsi?  Ford or Chevy?  Red or Blue?  :er:

I'll second what Nic said.


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## Sideburns (Jan 8, 2008)

I think the D50 would be a better buy...

But between the two, I say the Canon, not because I like Canon (I am not biased one way or the other), but because the D40 lacks a aufofocus drive.

Also, the D40X is overpriced and not any better than the D40 anyway...


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## Mav (Jan 8, 2008)

It's impossible to make a recommendation based open zero user input about what their needs are. 

As for the D40, I'd suggest reviewing this thread and then you can decide for yourself whether you'd be okay with a D40 or not.  I'd much rather buy a used or refurbished D50 or D70s than a D40x, but I do think the regular D40 (6MP) is a great little camera and have one for myself, along with a D80.  I bought the D40 _after_ the D80.

If you said you were shooting sports or a lot of action shots, I'd lean towards Canon.  For photojournalist type stuff, Nikon.  It all depends on what your needs are.


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## Sw1tchFX (Jan 8, 2008)

A can of almonds.


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## NateS (Jan 8, 2008)

Sideburns said:


> I think the D50 would be a better buy...
> 
> But between the two, I say the Canon, not because I like Canon (I am not biased one way or the other), but because the D40 lacks a aufofocus drive.
> 
> Also, the D40X is overpriced and not any better than the D40 anyway...



I agree 100% with everything said in this post.


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## shivaswrath (Jan 8, 2008)

how is the D40x overpriced, have you checked www.beachcamera.com?  it's pretty reasonable considering what you're getting (a stripped out d80). . .


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## frXnz kafka (Jan 8, 2008)

I wish Nikon would just hurry up and discontinue the D40 line so we don't have to see these threads anymore 

Of the two, I would go with the 350D. If you had said Nikon D50 or D80, it might be a different story. But the D40 (and the D40x) lacks an AF motor in the body. This severely limits your choice of glass.

If you must go Nikon, buy a used D50 or a D80.


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## Sideburns (Jan 8, 2008)

shivaswrath said:


> how is the D40x overpriced, have you checked www.beachcamera.com?  it's pretty reasonable considering what you're getting (a stripped out d80). . .



a hundred bucks more?

Not for a stripped down D80, but for a riced out D40.

The only real difference is more resolution...and it adds noise.


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## Sw1tchFX (Jan 8, 2008)

TWO cans of almonds?


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## sobi (Jan 8, 2008)

Mav said:


> If you said you were shooting sports or a lot of action shots, I'd lean towards Canon.  For photojournalist type stuff, Nikon.  It all depends on what your needs are.



Very interesting. I have never really heard this. Would you care to elaborate on this and explain your reasoning? I'm not flaming you, but merely asking out of curiosity as I am going to be taking the plunge soon. I like to have a multitude of peoples opinions on things.


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## Sw1tchFX (Jan 8, 2008)

Mav said:


> If you said you were shooting sports or a lot of action shots, I'd lean towards Canon.  For photojournalist type stuff, Nikon.



Ummm....


Are really serious?


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## shivaswrath (Jan 8, 2008)

noise can be your friend if you know how to use it. . .i was in a similar situation when I went to buy a dSLR, and honestly, the sensors between the D80 and D40x were similar to me when I took test shots and the D80 was to large for my tastes, so I went with the D40x. . .I'd suggest that the OP go and PHYSICALLY TRY THE CAMERAS out, I think we pontificate our opinions on these boards all day about what's better from our own perspective, to the OP, get your own perspective by
1. Taking your handy SD or CF card to your local shop
2.  Insert said card into demo D40x, Cannon whatever, D80 camera
3.  Take some shots (same resolution, jpg, raw, whatever) and go home and take a look at how they compare (obviously use the same subject matter)

After doing that exercise, the D40x was the clear choice for me. . .



Sideburns said:


> a hundred bucks more?
> 
> Not for a stripped down D80, but for a riced out D40.
> 
> The only real difference is more resolution...and it adds noise.


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## Mav (Jan 9, 2008)

sobi said:


> Very interesting. I have never really heard this. Would you care to elaborate on this and explain your reasoning? I'm not flaming you, but merely asking out of curiosity as I am going to be taking the plunge soon. I like to have a multitude of peoples opinions on things.


Canon sports advantages:

- Their autofocus speed is *snap* instantaneous on most of their consumer level lenses that I've tried. The equivalent lenses from Nikon are fast, but not as quick as Canon. At the professional level there's probably little to no difference.

- Canon offers EF/USM primes at normal to short tele lengths which focus very quickly as opposed to Nikon which only offers their clunky slow focusing screw driven primes at normal to short tele lengths. For indoor sports where lighting is often poor, this can be critical. Even for outdoor sports it can be a pain. My Nikkor 85mm f/1.8D lens couldn't track my daughter on a slow moving swing consistently, but my cheapy AF-S (USM) 18-55 lens could, which of course has no ability to isolate the subject due to the small aperture.  You can get the screw focusing lenses to focus quickly, but only on the pro Nikon bodies that have the beefier focus drive motors.

- Canon lenses "generally" have nicer and creamier looking bokeh than the Nikon equivalents. Once again that short tele Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 is said to have very nice bokeh, whereas the Nikkor equivalent has pretty ugly bokeh, along with not being able to track focus at all in more severe conditions.

- Canon level consumer bodies "generally" seem to have cleaner looking images at mid to high ISOs, and also "generally" from what I've seen, seem to do a bit better job of maintaining details at high ISOs also.

- The 70-200 f/4L with or without IS awesome for sports. It's sharp wide open, handles beautifully and is lightweight, and is reaonably priced. Nikons telephoto zooms are either f/5.6 at the long end and slow, or heavy f/2.8 bricks. Their entry level 80-200 f/2.8 is $900 but has slow focusing. If you want AF-S (USM) you have to spend a ridiculous $1700 on the 70-200 f/2.8 AF-S VR which is absurd when all I really need is a $500 70-200 f/4L in the Canon system. You can also hook up an EF Extender to one of those. So Canon's telephoto zoom setup is much much better than Nikon's IMHO.

- If you really get serious, Canon's super telephoto primes (300, 400, etc) are usually a lot cheaper than Nikon's equivalents. On the really high end stuff, sometimes the difference is so big that the Nikon guys will just go buy the Canon lens _and_ a Canon body to go with it and can still come out hundreds or even thousands of dollars ahead than if they had just bought the Nikon lens.


Nikon photojournalist type shooting advantages:

- Fully programmable Auto ISO, Auto Contrast, Auto Sharpness, and Auto Saturation all means you can just point and shoot your camera and get the shot, rather than missing it due to fiddling with settings on a camera. I can set my Nikons up so that I can point it at a bright window and an instant later to a dark corner and I'll get proper shots for both of them without even touching the camera. Auto ISO lets you program in a minimum shutter speed before it'll start ramping up the ISO. It's also smart enough that if your flash wasn't competely recycled or you got a bad bounce, it'll crank the ISO up to try and save the shot for you.

- The 18-200VR "freedom lens". I personally am not a fan of this lens, but a lot of people are, and there's no Canon-branded equivalent of it. I like their 18-135 better which is a lot cheaper (but no VR/IS), and there's also no Canon-branded equivalent of this.



JMO on all of this from what I've experienced myself or seen from others. YMMV. I've seriously considered switching to Canon twice now for their lens lineup that's more to my liking, that's generally cheaper, and doesn't force me to choose between too little and too much like Nikon's tends to. But the Nikon bodies just plain work better for me and my particular needs, which is more along the lines of a PJ type shooter. In the end I like Nikon's body designs and functionality more than I dislike their lens lineup, so I've stuck with Nikon. Can't shoot a lens without a body. Ideally I'd like to use Nikon bodies with some of Canon's lenses, but unfortunately that isn't possible (although the reverse can work).


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## Mav (Jan 9, 2008)

Coincidentally, and talking only about current cameras, the little Nikon D40 (not the D40x) has one huge advantage over almost every other DSLR on the market for daytime sports. It has 1/500s flash sync. If you have deep shadows on people's faces from the mid-day sun, and you're also shooting action, the piddly 1/200s flash sync on most other cameras out there stinks. This is why even some pros out there will use D40's for daytime sports where they're close enough to blast off shadows with a flash.  If we're going to a park during the day and we're going to put my daughter on a swing or send her down a slide or something, I take my D40 for this reason and my D80 (1/200s flash sync) stays at home.


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## NateS (Jan 9, 2008)

My D70s has a 1/500th flash sync speed and I can autofocus a bunch of lenses that the D40 can't. 

Why wouldn't a pro use a D70s for those situations over a D40?.....and don't say that the D70s is outdated because it's far from outdated....it just doesn't have the "neatness" of a newer DSLR.


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## Mav (Jan 9, 2008)

I was only talking about current cameras. Yeah the old Nikon 6MP cameras (D50, D70, D70s) had 1/500s flash sync, but you can't get those new today anymore unless you really look for old stock that might still be sitting around somewhere.

I want a D70s. It has much better metering than my D80, the cleanness of the 6MP sensor (I rarely need the 10MP, but commonly need better high ISO performance), and the faster 1/500s flash sync vs the pretty much useless in daylight 1/200s sync on my D80. :mrgreen:  If my D80 blew up or got run over by a truck, I'd probably try to find a used 70s if I didn't feel like springing for a 300, or if I don't care for the coming D90.


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## GeorgeUK (Jan 9, 2008)

Big Mike said:


> Coke or Pepsi? Ford or Chevy? Red or Blue? :er:


 
Pepsi
Neither (more of a BMW man myself!)
Blue



If you are considering the 350D, I'd see if it is possible to stretch to the 400D. It has the inbuilt sensor cleaning and a larger read LCD screen. Similar with the D40, if you can stretch to the D40X, I think there's quite a few MPx difference.

As advised, get into the shop and get a hold of both models. Sometimes despite all the info/stats/facilities the most important thing can be how it feels in your hands.

Good luck and whatever you choose, you can be assured of having a great camera


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## evanGR (Jan 9, 2008)

Thanks George and all of you. But i really don't look for replies complaining how the D70 is better than the D40x.

and yes i think i'll go with Canon.


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## Sideburns (Jan 9, 2008)

GeorgeUK said:


> Pepsi
> Neither (more of a BMW man myself!)
> Blue
> 
> ...


Neither the sensor cleaner nor the bigger LCD are reason to upgrade to the 400D/XTi.

The reason to upgrade, is the better sensor with better high ISO performance.


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## GeorgeUK (Jan 9, 2008)

^What he said! 

(simple things for simple people like me though!!)


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