Nikon D40

Another thing they cut down on the D40 is a second jog dial dedicated to adjusting the aperture size. This one's purely a matter of preference, but any Nikon user moving on to this camera will definitely miss the ease that a second jog provides. Still, luckily, the controls are easy to understand in this one and it won't take much time for a veteran photographer to get used to it.

To the delight of casual users, the D40 uses a Li-Ion battery, which keeps the weight of the camera in check while providing enough juice for it to shoot hundreds of pictures on a single charge.

Features
While most cameras releasing these days include the CCD vibration technology for dust removal, Nikon has kept that gimmicky but essential feature out of the D40. I wouldn't try changing the lens at dusty places if I were you. Also the autofocus as been cut short to 3 area TTL as compared to the 5 area TTL in the D50.

New to the D40 are the in-camera retouching features for red-eye reduction, cropping, image overlay, monochrome and other such features.

The camera supports sensitivity levels from ISO 200 to ISO 1600 along with a HI 1 level equivalent to an impressive ISO 3200. There's no optical image stabilization built into the camera body. It's weird that Nikon didn't include a feature as important as that in a starter-level camera.

On a brighter note, the camera does have some user friendly shooting modes like Auto, No-flash, Portrait, Landscape, Child, Sports, Macro and Night Portrait. These modes should help make the camera friendlier for users upgrading from a consumer camera.