[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I chose the Nikon D80 over the D40 because of lens compatability - I have a significant investment in Nikor lenses that would not work on the D40.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's my only real problem with the Nikon. Apparently, there is no auto-focus inside the body of the camera. That means that every lens you ever use with this camera must have an auto-focus built into the lens. I'm wondering if this is going to be a problem in the future.
[/ QUOTE ]The same is true for Canon lenses also (the AF is in the lens, not the body). But you shouldn't worry about that at all. Canon and Nikon will be around and making compatible lenses for a long time.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, I was mistaken here. (Typical Canon user, I know little about the Nikon system.) This is something I would worry about also.
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here's some background. Back in the 80s, Nikon had its F-mount lenses and Canon had its FD-mount. But when Nikon and Canon started switching to autofocus, they took different paths.
Canon completely dumped the FD mount and developed the EF mount, with the AF motor located in the lens. The end result is that all Canon's autofocus lenses will completely work on all Canon AF bodies. But none of the MF lenses will work.
Nikon didn't want to abandon the F-mount, so it modified it by putting the motor in the camera and putting a screw drive mechanism in the mount, to drive the AF motor. Lenses compatible with this format are designated "AF".
Later, Nikon started making lenses where the AF motor is built into the lens. These lenses are designated AF-S. This is all fine and good until Nikon released the D40 and D40X. Neither body has an AF motor. So none of the AF lenses will operate on this body in AF mode (though they will operate as Manual focus lenses.)
The end result is that you must consult a lens compatibility chart (like this one:
http://www.nikonians.org/nikon/slr-lens.html ) to determine what features will be working with a particular lens/body combination.
It would seem that the inability to use a large number of Nikon lenses with the D40 would seem to render useless the purpose of getting a Nikon body (access to the Nikon range of lenses). OTOH, there are a lot of AF-S lenses, so maybe it's not that much of a handicap. You'd have to ask a Nikon user for more specifics, though.
And to go off on another Rockwell rant, on
this page, he praises the compatibility of all Nikon lenses on all Nikon bodies, going paragraph after paragraph lavishing praise on them. Then you go to
this page and you realize that a whole bunch of Nikon lenses don't fully work with the D40. They will mount, but the meter won't work or the AF won't work. Funny how he doesn't mention that while praising the compatibility. A lot more of today's users would care more about whether old lenses fit on new bodies than if new lenses fit on old bodies (which is the focus of the first link).