A More Fantastic Plastic-Fantastic

If it hasn't become apparent to you by now, I'll be more specific. I'm in the process of trading out my backup/secondary camera from a D50 to a D40. You might ask yourself, why even bother to trade what is essentially the same sensor into a different (albeit smaller/lighter) body? After all, it's not a major difference in size, NO difference in resolution, little if any difference in capability. 

You don't need to look very closely at these images to see the difference in mass. Although the dimensional differences are not terribly significant, the difference, "in the hand" is telling, but difficult to describe. I started thinking this after holding and playing around with my brother's D40x. One of the original reasons for the decision to go with the D50 was that my primary lens is the 18-200 VR Nikkor that is rather large and didn't balance very well on the D40. I found though that I virtually never use it on the D50, it's really my primary lens and lives pretty much exclusively on the D300. 

Actually it's this lens that's the deciding factor. It's my 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 Nikkor. How this lens doesn't get more love is beyond me. It's sharp, doesn't have anywhere near the distortion of the 18-200. It's compact, and pretty darned fast. Maybe it's that there's no VR, or that weird compressed zoom area between about 30-45mm (eq), but it's the DX/APS-C equivalent of roughly a 28-105mm walk-around lens..... and it doesn't overpower the compact D40. 

I'm not saying that it wouldn't look great with a "pancake"; just look! It makes that Pentax K10 look positively HUGE. But I doubt that I could A) afford that 45mm Nikkor-P, and B) it's probably not how I'd be using it most of the time. It's going to take the place of both the D50 and the Panasonic GF-1. So it's typically going to have one of two or three lenses mounted on it depending on it's role at the time. When I'm out shooting portraiture, it'll most likely have my "chipped" 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor mounted and become the "low-light/available-light" camera secondary camera that already has the lens mounted, which eliminates the need to change lenses in the field. In a weird way, one of the strengths of this camera is the 6Mp sensor, meaning very-few/very-large sensors on the same physical size give it excellent light gathering abilities. 

And as you can see; making it, virtually, the perfect companion to the full-boat loaded D300. Kinda like the contract killer's .22 pistol compared to a machine gun!

And of course, it's other most likely use would be the walk-around camera when the D300 isn't necessary or welcome. This body is small enough to take the place of the mirrorless GF-1, while at the same time big enough for me to feel comfortable using. In this configuration, it would probably mount the 18-70mm or something even smaller, such a chip-converted 28mm which would give it a very usable 42mm eq. focal length. 

 

When combined with the Quantaray XLF-50 (SunPak RD2000) that I picked up recently, gives a very compact little, "do everything" kit. One of the things that swayed me toward the little Quantaray was the rotating shoe that can hide out of the way when not in use. That along with the $40 price-tag and Nikon iTTL compatibility might have something to do with it as well!

Don't get me wrong. The original "plastic-fantastic" was a great idea (and a really nice camera). I really loved having the GF-1 as well and it did a great job for it's suited purpose. So, how I'm going to choose to see this change as an upgrade. On top of which, I eliminate one entire system and having to keep two different manufacturer's ways of doing things. Plastic-Fantastic/Travel Camera 2.0