Nikon D40x

Features
Instead, the 2.5-inch LCD does double duty, serving up camera settings, in addition to its normal role of menu access and image playback. Nikon's new graphic-based interface, introduced in the D40, lives on in the D40x. While it looks nice, and does a good job of showing users the effects of the camera's various controls, the new control scheme isn't particularly intuitive, so users who don't read their manuals may hit a few snags.

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For example, while we did find it intuitive to press either the Info button near the shutter or the "i" button on the camera back to bring up the shooting information screen, we had to consult the manual to discover that a second press of the "i" button lets you navigate through that screen to change settings such as white balance, ISO, metering, AF mode, or image size and quality. We laud the simplicity of this approach, but the double-button-press process slowed us down during our field tests.

While Nikon's not alone in putting a 3-point autofocus system in its entry-level dSLRs (Olympus' E410 and E510 also use 3-point systems), some competitors, such as Pentax's K100D and K110D (11-point AF) include more sophisticated autofocus systems.

In our field tests, the D40x had occasional difficulty locking on subjects, sometimes choosing the wrong object, but more often was just a bit sluggish. In other areas, the D40x surpasses some of the competition. Its sensitivity settings range from ISO 100 to ISO 1,600, plus an H1 setting, which is essentially equivalent to ISO 3,200. By contrast, the D40's lowest sensitivity is ISO 200, as are the Pentaxes'. The two Olympuses start at ISO 100, but top out at ISO 1,600.

Shutter speeds on the D40x range from 30 seconds to 1/4,000 second, and exposure compensation covers a rather wide swath of plus or minus 5EV in third-stop increments. However, the scale used to show exposure compensation in the viewfinder and on the LCD screen only covers plus or minus 2EV, so beyond that, you need to pay attention to the tiny numerical indicator next to the scale. All other exposure controls also run in third-stop increments, as opposed to the more-coarse half-stop increments that some cameras, such as the Fujifilm S3 Pro, use.

As always, Nikon includes its barely useful Picture Project RAW processing software with the D40x and expects you to shell out an extra US$150 to purchase the company's Capture NX software if you want a more robust way to process RAW images. That means, if you plan on shooting in RAW, you need to add US$150 to the price of this camera when drawing comparisons with its competitors, all of which include decent RAW converters at no charge.

We have yet to meet a Nikon photographer who is not affiliated with the company who doesn't complain voraciously about Nikon's stance on this issue, but it doesn't seem as though the company will change its mind anytime soon. On the flip side, the Capture NX software is quite nice and includes some innovative image editing tools.

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