Best SLR value w/ a caveat

Without question this is the best under $500 SLR body value available today. The bundled 18-55 mm lens makes it an amazing package. Image quality is amazing and except for a small quirk noted below, the camera works well even in "Program" mode. It has a few pre-configured settings like portrait, sports, landscape and maybe a few others. However, I never use them and can't say how well they work. (Arguably, if you do use them you should perhaps consider a more automated and less expensive camera.)

The comments that it doesn't "work" (meaning doesn't auto focus) with all Nikon lenses is true enough. However, between the 18-55 that comes with it and the relatively inexpensive 55-200 auto focus VR lens you have pretty much everything you need. There is also an in-focus indicator in the viewfinder. This can be used to manually focus both lenses that can't auto focus and ones that can but you choose not to.

Ease of use rating was low for two reasons. First, this is not intended as a point and shoot camera. If your intention is to only use the automatic modes then your money would be *much* better spent on a compact digital camera. The other reason is that many of the convenience features like multiple programmable function buttons (there's only one here), recallable configuration groups, and depth of field preview, are not available on this camera.

The battery lasts a long time. On a recent assignment I took 700 pictures (none with the internal flash) and the batter was still half full (or half empty, depending on your outlook). Power-on and shutter response is almost instantaneous; focus delay is about as quick as you need.

All that said, and even if you decide to replace the body at some point with a more "professional" model (costing about 4x to 5x of the D40) you'll still have a backup body, something any "professional" would certainly have on hand. Also, may Pros will still defer to the D40 for field work as it is much lighter.

There is a known issue that this camera has been tuned to overexpose. This was done in response to a concern that most purchasers would object to having details hidden in shadows. (So instead they are irretrievably lost in blown highlights.)