practice..

Practicing manual focus with the Sigma 70-210 F4-5.6 AF-D (manual focus only on the Nikon D40) and manual flash-exposure with the SB-600 speedlight.

 

Since the Nikon D40 was meant for the beginner DSLR user, they've pretty much made the focusing system as unobstrusive as possible, i.e. nothing to complicate matters for beginners. This translates to a simple, 3-bracket autofocus points system in the viewfinder, which looks exactly like this: [ ] [ ] [ ]

Basically, when using an AF-S autofocus lens, half-press the shutter button and one of these bracket points lights up red; great for making things simple (since apparently Nikon's target market with this camera would most likely use AF-S lenses with built in silent-wave focus motors - AF-D and older lenses have only a screw drive system for on-camera focusing motors, i.e. no built in motor on the lens).

 

The real drawback comes with manual-focus lenses, it becomes relatively difficult to determine where your focus point lies, since the viewfinder is rather small (though with 96% mag) compared to older 35-mm film SLRs

(As usual, pupsy was happy to oblige as a model.)

 

Lighting/Lens info:

- SB-600 at 1/4 power, triggered by poverty wizards, bounced off white ceiling to camera left (you can see the room ceiling lamp shadow in pupsy's eyes)

- Nikon D40 w/ Sigma 70-210mm F4-5.6 AF-D; manual focus (only mode possible on D40 since it has no screw-drive motor to drive the lens), shot in M-mode at 1/200, 100mm at f4.5, manually focused on pupsy's eyes. SOOC shot, white balance set to AUTO

Done