[alanjns]

Hi Neil,

I use the Nikon D40 and I love it. It's my first ever DSLR camera so I have no other experience to compare it with. For me, it was a financially driven choice and unless my lottery numbers come up, I'm stuck with it, but that's fine by me.

I was lucky enough to receive the 300mm VR lens as a birthday present last year, and all of the photo's I have posted have been taken with the D40 and this lens. I've never had very steady hands and have had some real dissapointment in the past when I've had museum shot photo's developed after a holiday etc. The VR function works really well, but could be better, I still get a fair amount of blurred images which I think is down to a combination of the weight of the lens and me shivering in the recent cold weather!. I'm prepared to put up with this though, because I also get a fair number of crisp, clear and wonderful shots, that I could never have achieved before I got my D40.

I'm still relatively new to photography and continue to get confused by the terms and settings that DSLR's offer. I've given it a go however, but find that I'm always having to make adjustments for different conditions etc, and often end up missing the shot or producing terrible results. Instead, I tend to use the camera's pre-set settings, and am getting some fairly good results with the sports setting, for example I'm getting sharper images of birds in flight - see my image of Turnstones in flight in my album, a shot I'm very pleased with which was taken on these settings.

All in all, if you are like me, on a budget and a photography novice, using his DSLR as a souped up point and shoot, you'll get some decent images of birds and won't be dissapointed. For those who can get to grips more readily with the functions of a DSLR and the basics of photography, then the D40 is capable of going all the way.