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An amateur's review of the D40: Long exposure time examples

I am pretty pleased with high exposure times on the D40. The last time I really played with long exposure was with my film camera.

What I am NOT pleased with is MY inability to focus properly - aargh! But in my defense there isn't a focusing screen (like split prism, or ground glass). I wonder if I can get one of those for the D40?

Click on the examples to get a 1200px downsampled versions.



If you ignore my amateur focus you will note the amazing lack of noise even on 30s long exposures. I like this sensor.

In the last two pictures below I let the D40 decide the exposure and used aperture priority. The D40, like the F65, knows exposure. (For normal photos, on the F65, I ended up deciding to let the camera decide it. Whenever I took over I did something wrong. Only for special shots - like the really long exposures - did I put everything on manual. I think the same is going to be true of the D40.)

Its amusing though, these last two shots have the same exposure, but they are lit differently. It could be that the street lamps vary in brightness over time.

In short: great sensor!

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