D90 vs D40 low-light performance

jammy_c

jammy_c

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It was my son's first birthday party today and I have been taking sold of shots indoor with my D40 with the 35mm f1.8. Shooting wide open in aperture priority mode I noticed that the shutter speed had slowed considerably and the pictures were coming g out very hurry so I upped the ISO to 1600 from 400. Although this did make a significant improvement there were still a number of pics that were blurry (as kids aren't very good at staying still). Not much else I could do without using flash or getting horrid ISO noise from HI1

I'm looking at upgrading to a D90 very soon, but wondered if I would have the same issue? Any thoughts?
 
A D90 will allow you to shoot fairly cleanly at iso 1600. Iso 3200 is also possible but things are starting to fall apart in high contrast scenes by this point. It is usable though. Anything above that is going to be trouble.

As you say, a flash is an option, off camera even better.

If you do upgrade, a D5100 or D7000 will offer a useful gain in low light performance over a D90. A D5100 being broadly similar to your D40 in terms of size and the the D7000 being similar to a D90.
 
For up to A4 prints I was happy to shoot my D90 up to ISO 3200 (in RAW with Lightroom noise reduction) so you will get double the shutter speed which on the whole, when combined with f/1.8 should be fast enough for most situations.

edit: oh, the other option is to get a flash which you can bounce (such as the great little SB400), a technique that gives great results.
 
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Nawty said:
For up to A4 prints I was happy to shoot my D90 up to ISO 3200 (in RAW with Lightroom noise reduction) so you will get double the shutter speed which on the whole, when combined with f/1.8 should be fast enough for most situations.

edit: oh, the other option is to get a flash which you can bounce (such as the great little SB400), a technique that gives great results.
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Cheers, I actually have a Nissin Di622 which is great, but i've somehow misplaced it. :'( would have been very useful.
 
gad-westy said:
A D90 will allow you to shoot fairly cleanly at iso 1600. Iso 3200 is also possible but things are starting to fall apart in high contrast scenes by this point. It is usable though. Anything above that is going to be trouble.

As you say, a flash is an option, off camera even better.

If you do upgrade, a D5100 or D7000 will offer a useful gain in low light performance over a D90. A D5100 being broadly similar to your D40 in terms of size and the the D7000 being similar to a D90.
Click to expand...

Some good points there. funnily enough i've been debating this question over the past week: HERE
 
Nawty said:
The answer is still, unless you can get a D7000, the D90 is by far the better photographers camera.
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That's good enough for me! :) it comes highly recommended. it'll be a D90 for me unless I stumble on £750 for a D7K
 
jammy_c said:
ooooh, that's a bit tempting...
42k shutter count, but suppose they are rated to 100k+
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ah, it's plus VAT too! :( so really it's £480 plus postage. still a very good deal
 
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