Camera Compare Panasonic FZ50 vs Nikon D40

Tea_Bag

Anyone have experience with either of these camera's that can help me decide which to purchase? the FZ50 is 10.1mp and the D40 is the 6.2mp version.


thanks in advance.

Borderfox

There is no real comparision between the two, the Panasonic is good out of the box but with some time the Nikon will far outshine especially with some good (cheap) fixed glass

melekalikimaka

nikon is far superior tbh

Corkfeen

The fz50 is fantastic, I had it for about a year. But then upgraded to an eos 400d and would never look back. The difference between an slr and bridge are immense. Don't think about megapixels too much. Go for the D40

Tea_Bag

Borderfox wrote: »

There is no real comparision between the two, the Panasonic is good out of the box but with some time the Nikon will far outshine especially with some good (cheap) fixed glass

melekalikimaka wrote: »

nikon is far superior tbh

Thanks for the quick replies!!

I was leaning heavily towards the D40, but then i got swayed by This DP comparison

Im just a little scared of buying my first real camera with only 6.2mp. i guess those marketing geniuses have worked me with the more is better shenanigans.

DaireQuinlan

Tea_Bag wrote: »

Thanks for the quick replies!!

I was leaning heavily towards the D40, but then i got swayed by This DP comparison

Im just a little scared of buying my first real camera with only 6.2mp. i guess those marketing geniuses have worked me with the more is better shenanigans.

This is probably the most important figure on that comparison:
Sensor size 23.7 x 15.5 mm (3.67 cm²) 1/1.8 " (7.18 x 5.32 mm, 0.38 cm²)

Mannnn that panasonic sensor is tiny.
Plus, if you're concerned about megapixelage, look at it differently, in terms of dimensions. That extra 4MP only gets you an extra 700 pixels on each dimension. Not so much when you think of it like that :-) Couple that with an optical viewfinder, less shutter lag, and probably considerably faster AF, and the D40 is better in most practical respects.

hbr

Tea_Bag wrote: »

Thanks for the quick replies!!

I was leaning heavily towards the D40, but then i got swayed by This DP comparison

Borderfox sums it up nicely. The Panasonic will be great out-of-the-box. The Leica lenses on Panasonic bridge cameras are very good. Once you recover from the initial cost of buying the D40, you will probably buy some lenses which will tilt the balance in favour of the Nikon. Because it has a larger sensor, the DSLR will be better than the bridge camera in low light conditions.

Im just a little scared of buying my first real camera with only 6.2mp. i guess those marketing geniuses have worked me with the more is better shenanigans.

6.2MP will do a very nice A4 print. Don't get too hung up on mega-thingies. Have a look at the best looking photos on photo sharing sites like pix.ie and flickr. You will find that many of them are well below 6MP. Just to put things in perspective, remember that a 2MP image will completely fill a 1920x1080 HD screen.

Kintarō Hattori

As everyone has pointed out go for the D40, there is no comparison between a DSLR and a bridge camera. Apart from anything if you are going to be viewing the photos on screen rather than having them printed to large sizes then 6MP is absolutely enough.

As pointed out go and have a browse on Flickr or Pix.ie for some photos taken with your camera. I use a Pentax K100D Super which is a 6.1MP camera and was Pentax's equivalent to the D40. I don't think I've ever felt hindered by having 'just' 6.1MP.

A DSLR and a decent lens or two and you'll be laughing.

coolmoose

The D40 is a great little camera, started off with one last year...believe me you won't be disappointed, great image quality!

Pivot_Al

Definitely go for the D40. I took this shot on a canon 350D {8 megapixels and 5 year old technology} at 1600 ISO. The larger sensor of the DSLR will always do better than even the most up to date bridge camera or point and shoot.

Tea_Bag

Thanks so much for all the responses. as my gut told me, the D40 FTW!

now, for a nifty fifty...

Pivot_Al

Coincidentally that shot I posted was taken with the nifty fifty at 1.8

Thecageyone

I only recently upgraded from a Fuji bridge camera to a Sony dslr, Man, the difference in Image quaity is striking! And they're both 10mp. No competition in any other way though.

10mp of crap, is still crap. I used to hate viewing my bridge cam shots full sized on screen, it revealed a hell of a lot of ugliness. With the shots from the dslr I love viewing them full size, they look amazing.

I also got a nifty fifty [minolta f/1.7] with it, excellent little lens. Better quality again, than the kit lens, but that's useful for a little more range wide/zoom wise [18mm - 70mm]

I learned the basics of manual control on the bridge though [never took it out of Manual mode] , which is the reason I bought it over a pocket cam. But once you get to a certain point, you really need to step up.

I'd go for the D40 anyday.