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Old 01/10/2008, 07:15 AM
KurtsReef KurtsReef is offline
Wish coral grew faster
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: North Boston, NY
Posts: 1,311
The D40 is a point and shoot camera you can change lenses on.

That is not my experience, what I have read. Never held or used one.

There are plenty of used DSLR's on the market. If your going with Nikon then look at the D100, its not too big and has excellent photo quality. Used lenses are also available...

VR does not equal professional grade lens. Plenty of lenses are made with vibration reduction, that is a feature of many lenses and not a sign of professional quality. The glass and materials used in producing the lens and available apertures are what matters. With Nikon and Canon your best zoom lenses (a zoom lens is any lens you can change the focal length with) will have a constant large aperture and would be listed like this:

28-70mm f/2.8
70-200mm f/2.8

The consumer grade glass has to change aperture as you change the focal length, the more you "zoom in" the less wide open your aperture can be which means you need more light. Those lenses will be listed like this:

18-200mm f/3.2-5.6 or something similar

A great place to pick up used equipment is either on photography forums from posters, Craigslist, or a great retailer is KEH (www.keh.com) out of Atlanta Ga, large selection and pretty good prices. You can pick up most of their used "Bargain" rated lenses that will be in very good shape.

hope that helps.