Which Camera to Buy? D40 vs. D3000 vs. D5000 vs. D90

[steven_p]

<p>Though I will wait for Shun's review of the D5000 to be posted, I will say that my early indicators tell me that it's a sheer gem of a "not so basic" DSLR.</p>

<p>I sold my D40 & D80 (backup's) and got a D5000. It's a micro D300 with a flip screen</p>

[joe_a2]

<p>Sorry I'm late, folks. As Shun mentioned, <strong>I have been shooting my old trusty D40 alongside the D3000 for a few days now</strong>. As a point of reference, I mainly shoot a D300. The D40/D3000 is my little camera, my pre-AI Nikkor camera, and (theoretically) my wife's camera.</p>

<p>After spending some quality time with the D3000 and the D40 side-by-side ( I happen to have two 35mm 1.8Gs and two 18-55VRs at this time, so it's really been equivalent side-by-side, with both cameras around my neck with the same lens on each), I must say I am disappointed in the D3000. I did real-world walkabout comparisons, and more technical tripod comparisons. I <em>REALLY</em> wanted the D3000 to win going in because of the 11-point AF system, and hopeful because the computer and processing inside is now <em>several</em> years newer. I didn't even want the D3000's images to be better; I only wanted them to equal the D40's, so I could get the CAM1000 module.</p>

<p>The D3000's AF system is truly amazing at this level of camera, but the only place the images beat the D40 is at ISO 100. Let me say that again: <strong>The ONLY place the D3000 images look better than the D40 images is at ISO 100</strong>. I find this pathetic, frankly, and I doubted my settings for the first two days. But even at ISO 200, the first signs of noise are evident. You can begin applying NR to the D3000, but you then lose any advantage of the D3000's higher pixel count. By ISO 800, I would think hard about shooting the D3000 there, especially with NR high enough to remove the noise "grain". I shoot the D40 at ISO 800 <em>all the time</em>. If I had to put a value on it, I'd say the D3000 is at a 1.5 stop disadvantage ISO-wise, and from my experience comparing the D40 against a D60 twice, the D3000 may even be a half-stop worse than the D60.</p>

<p>I am probably going to keep the D40. My final decision will come after putting some D3000 shots through Noise Ninja. As an more-involved enthusiast shooter, I wouldn't mind that extra step so much, in exchange for the D3000's AF system and better resolution when ISO 100 is adequate. But with off-the-shelf, out-of-the-camera JPEGs it is NO CONTEST. The D40 files knock the D3000 files out cold.</p>

<p>I want a D2000, Nikon. A new technology 6MP CMOS sensor with the CAM1000 module. But the market/public would never have it and I know it is an impossible dream.</p>

<p>Anike.... For what you want a camera to be, take the D3000 back and get the D40. I think a D90, while a GREAT camera, is much bigger than what you want/need.</p>

[kari v]

<blockquote>

<p>i guess the nikon d3000 is not so bad, but was it really worth my money? i payed $589+tax. and the d40 is only $399.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Does the D40 come with 18-55 <strong>VR</strong> ?</p>

<p>Joe A: Could you post a D3000 ISO 1600 sample shot?</p>

[albert_lee1]

<p>i also vote for the D5000 <br>

it is less than $600 bucks online (body only) right now, so it is a steal. then you can get whatever fast action lens you want instead of being stuck with a kit lens. <br>

i also like the D5000 because it has usable ISO 6400 pictures. That should speed up your action photography a lot. The D40 is only capable of decent ISO 1600, so you are very limited in low light even if you carry a fast lens with the D40.</p>

[joe_a2]

<p>The $399 D40 kit is the non-VR 18-55. But it doesn't matter. These are interchangeable-lens cameras, and you can put the lens you want on the body you want. Buy an 18-55VR, sell the 18-55 non-VR, and upgrade for $50 net. So it's the $589 D3000 kit, or the "$449" D40 kit.</p>

<p>Here a shot of some tile boxes on the tripod. Both are ISO 1600. Both are f/2.8 through the 35/1.8G lens. Both camera are set as close to the same as they can be with different menu choices. The D40 clearly preserves more of the texture of the cardboard's surface. I think it's day and night.</p><div></div>

[joe_a2]

<p>And the D40....</p>

<p>I upsized the D40 to 3872 pixels across before making the equal 600-pixel wide crops you see. I figured I could go 'up' on the D40 image, or 'down' on the D3000, and figured 'up' makes the D40 image have to do more so it is the more conservative choice for the test.</p><div></div>

[richard_driscoll]

<p>Thanks for that Joe.<br>

What's more the D40 looks sharper despite being upsized, due no doubt to the NR on the D3000 destroying any resolution advantage it had.<br>

I'm now even more convinced that my D40 was the best 258 pounds UK I ever spent!<br>

If the D3000 is worse than the D60 it's hard to guess what on earth Nikon have can have done. Surely they could have kept the image processing the same and just improved the AF?</p>

<p> </p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>wow, the d3000 is clearly much noisier...</p>

<p>anike, if i were you, i'd either downgrade to a d40 and learn how to shoot sports with 3pt AF or upgrade to a d5000.</p>

[joe_a2]

<p>I will also add and clearly concede that there's more sharpening (in-camera) in the D40 file. I am, right now, finally installing CS4 so I can use the new Camera Raw that sees the D3000. Then I can compare RAW to RAW, with everything in-camera dropped, and the WB set the same. Stay tuned.</p>

[joe_a2]

<p>OK. I've done a slightly more scientific comparison for those of you who care about such things. You need to understand that as I was comparing the D40 and D3000, I just shot them both the same way for a few days, and compared things as I went along. I didn't save pictures as I went along because they were inquisitive, not creative.</p>

<p>Everyway I tried them - low light, bright light, golden hour, noon-day harshness, low ISOs, high ISOs, on a tripod, handheld, fast 1.8 lens, slow consumer 5.6 zoom - it was always the same. The D40 was better except when comparing the D40 at ISO 200 with the D3000 at ISO 100 (when lighting allowed the lost stop). When Kari asked for an example, both cameras had blank, formatted cards waiting for today's playing.</p>

<p>I shot both cameras again at the tile boxes. I used the same 35/1.8G on both bodies. Both are ISO 1600. Both are f/5.6. Both are 1/2 second. Both on a G1325 with a Markins M20. The exposure more correctly approximates the boxes as they sit in the corner than the shots above.</p>

<p>I opened both NEFs in Adobe Camera Raw 5.5.0.97, set them both to a white balance of 3200 degrees, and set all sliders to zero. Before saving I upsized the D40 file to 3872 pixels wide to match the D3000. I applied no sharpening, curves, levels, nothing. I saved both as 8-out-of-12 compression JPEGs in Photoshop. I then made 650x650, 1:1 pixel crops of the same area from each file, and this is what you see below.</p>

<p>The D3000....</p><div></div>

[joe_a2]

<p>The D40....</p><div></div>

[richard_driscoll]

<p>Joe,<br /> The D3000 example looks a little higher magnification. Were the shooting distances a little different perhaps? With the upsize to 3872 the two should be the same. (On the original pair, the new ones look the same).</p>

<p> </p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Well, I'll let everybody draw their own conclusions. However, I really appreciate that Joe puts in his time to show us an A/B comparison. This type of effort is time consuming; I am speaking from experience.</p>

[joe_a2]

<p>Richard.... Any difference is me and my finger drag-creating the 650x650 frame for the crop/resize. I suppose one could be 647 and another 651, for example, before the cut. I think they're pretty close.</p>

<p>And finally, two more with more exposure. These are two new NEFs, not the ones above processed brighter. These are just like above, just more initial exposure. I see the gap between the two much closer than I did comparing JPEGs to JPEGs out of the camera. But I had gone fairly neutral on settings in both. I see no way to set everything to the same "zero" in-camera that you get by "resetting" the JPEG in ACR.</p>

<p>A completely neutral JPEG-from-CameraRaw'd-NEF is nicer than any base setting I got the D3000 to. But so are the same things from the D40 NEFs. Comparing JPEG-from-D40 against JPEG-from-D3000 it was all D40. Gonna need more testing for me to decide what I'll keep, but we are WAY outside the realm of John & Ann Q. Public getting the cleanest images from one camera or another.</p>

<p>The D3000....</p><div></div>

[joe_a2]

<p>From the D40....</p><div></div>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Joe A., great work, thanks for the effort. Indeed quite disappointing on the D3000, not at all what I expected of a re-dressed D80 + 3 years more development on firmwares...<br>

Though the RAWs are much closer than the JPEGs... So out of curiosity (and because I might want a small DSLR too for travel :-), does the D40 use picture styles? The "standard picture style" that is probably used on the D3000 is somewhat punchier than the defaults of the older pre-picture-styles camera, so maybe part of the noise is introduced there? It's just a thought, since the JPEGs look so much more different than the RAWs to me.</p>

[joe_a2]

<p>You're quite welcome, Wouter.</p>

<p>The D40 "JPEG settings" I used are, to use the menu names: Shooting Menu > Optimize Image > Custom > with sharpening -1 (med low), tone 0 (normal), saturation 0 (normal), hue 0. The D3000 "JPEG settings" were: Shooting Menu > Set Picture Control > Neutral > with sharpening 2 (0-9 scale), contrast 0 (-3 to +3 scale), saturation 0 (-3 to +3), and hue 0 (-3 to +3). With the exception of sharpening, I have them both dialed back about as far as the menus allow. There is no getting a "stripped NEF" JPEG out of either camera. These are the camera settings for the first pair of pictures I posted above at 11:57 and 11:58.</p>

<p>It really makes me rethink it because I can shoot NEF and batch-process to "plain old JPEGs", for snapshots and such, to level the playing field and get the cleanest data out of the D3000. <strong>But I need to stress to newbie readers that the two crops above that look so similar are IMPOSSIBLE to obtain straight out of the camera</strong>, even if you shoot NEFs and process through Nikon software. I am taking a significant custom step in the workflow.</p>

[chloe_jenning]

<p>so all in all. i've decided to save my money for future cameras and once i get more experienced. but now i'm not sure if it would be better just to stick with the d3000 and work around it or go down to the d40. which camera would deliver better sports photos. especially indoor ones. this is so hard. and thank you so much joe for the extraordinary help with the photos and such. i think you are not just helping me out. =)</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>If you are going to shoot sports, I would say forget about the D40 because of its AF system. Even the D3000, D5000 and D90's is not ideal for sports, but 11 AF points will help. I'll take nosier images over out-of-focus ones any day. If you can afford the D5000 or D90, I would get something a little better than the D40/D3000 unless you are a totally casual photographer.</p>

[chloe_jenning]

<p>ok thanks. yea i'll stick with my d3000. i'll start off not so expensive, because first of all, i'm not a pro and i'll save up some money. also i want to wait a while until the movie and live view feature gets better. =) thanks alot guys.<br>

so final answer is: d3000. =)</p>

[albert_lee1]

<p>the d5000 and d90 have much better capability to shoot in high iso, that is critical for high speed action photography, limiting yourself to ISO's of 800 or below with the poor noise of the d3000 will hamper the shutter speed. being able to shoot at iso 3200 or 6400 on the d5000 and d90 and get usable pics will allow you to shoot at shutterspeeds 4x and 8x faster, that is a huge speed increase and with a f/1.8 or f/1.4 lens it will help immensely.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Albert, I have compared the D3000, D5000 and D700 side by side. The D5000 has, at best, one stop advantage over the D3000. If you are limiting the D3000 to ISO 800, to get the roughly the same quality, you'll have to limit the D5000 to ISO 1600.<br>

If you set the D5000 to its top rated ISO 3200, it is going to be mediocre. To get any further into Hi (6400), you'll see poor results.</p>

[albert_lee1]

<p>i like the results of the d5000 at iso6400, compared to the d40 at iso3200 (which was very unusable) the d5000 at iso6400 in my subjective opinion cleans up noise very well and gives me a very usuable picture. and the d3000 has the worst noise out of these 3 cameras from my eyes.</p>

[kenneth_cortland]

<p>I think the D90 would give you everything you are looking for. You should be able to find the camera with the 18-105mm VR lens (which is pretty good), for around $1150 or so if you hunt around a bit. I had a D60 for a short period of time but wanted more focus points and more frames per second. The D90 gave me this as well as better high ISO performance. If you can save up a little more or stretch a little beyond the $1000 limit, I'm sure you'd be very happy with the kit. It also has very easily adjustable settings with the small screen on top of the camera body.</p>

<p>I don't think you can go wrong with the D3000 either since you say you really want to get the hang of the dSLR. One great thing about Nikon products is that you can sell stuff on eBay or something and get pretty good money for things as you grow out of it. I felt the same way you did (just wanted to stay under a certain price point and not get the advanced equipment) and got the D60. I liked it a lot but sold it and bought the D90 a few months later, and that D90 is just the best thing out there for the dollar (IMHO).</p>