Olympus Camedia D-40 4MP Digital Camera with 2.8x Optical Zoom
- Filed under: digital cameras
- Date: Mar 27,2009
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  Release Date : 2001-11-11 Publisher : Olympus Company : Olympus |
Features
- 4 megapixel sensor captures 2,288 x 1,712 images for prints at 11 x 14 inches and beyond
- 2.8x optical zoom lens with autofocus
- Included 16 MB SmartMedia card holds 16 pictures at default resolution
- Automatically connects to Macs and PCs via USB port
- Uses LB-01 disposable lithium battery (included) or 2 AA batteries
Product Description
World-class digital photography with a strong sense of style. That’s the D-40 Zoom. An Olympus all-glass zoom lens matched to the 4.0 megapixel (effective) CCD enables great-looking photographs, while the elegant and compact camera body design makes it a perfect fit for your life. A 10-mode Program Scene Dial helps you quickly and easily set proper exposure, white balance and color saturation for awesome images. And Auto-Connect USB lets you transfer those images from the D-40 Zoom to your USB-enabled computer with a simple drag and drop. The D-40 Zoom… it’s small, it’s stylish, it’s simple.
Amazon.com Product Description
Until now, choosing a digital camera has meant a tradeoff between size and functionality. The feature-packed, high-resolution SLR replacements were too big to tuck in a pocket or purse, and the ultracompact models lacked the extensive manual controls many advanced photographers desire. With the D-40, Olympus has bridged the gap between portability and power–it’s one of the smallest digital cameras on the market, yet it includes virtually all of the advanced features found on full-size models.
Compared to an ultracompact like the Canon Elph, the D-40 is the same width, about half an inch taller, and three-fourths of an inch thicker–still small enough to easily slip into a jacket pocket, and less than half the size of most compact models. Despite the tiny dimensions, Olympus packs a 4-megapixel sensor, 2.8x optical zoom lens, full manual controls, and a movie mode with audio into the camera’s small plastic body. The trademark Olympus sliding clamshell cover turns the camera on and off, and also protects the lens, viewfinder, and flash when closed.
Images are stored on SmartMedia cards. A 16 MB card is included, which holds 16 images at default settings. If you want to take advantage of uncompressed mode and movie mode, or plan to take more than a handful of photos at a time, you’ll want to get a 64 MB or 128 MB card. Like virtually all Olympus cameras, the D-40 has a flexible battery arrangement, accepting either a disposable lithium battery (one is included), or a pair of AA batteries (rechargeables strongly recommended).
This is a camera you won’t quickly outgrow. If you’re just getting started in photography, leave the camera in Auto. In this mode, taking pictures is as easy as sliding the lens cover open and pressing the button. As your photo skills progress, you can start taking advantage of the camera’s advanced modes, including shutter priority, aperture priority, and full manual modes, plus manual focus, slow-sync flash, spot metering, manually adjustable white balance, exposure compensation, and more. The D-40 also comes with a remote control, making it easy to include yourself in group shots and it allows you to keep the camera steady in low-light situations.
For a break from taking pictures, spin the control knob to movie mode and you’re ready to shoot mini-videos with sound. Though they don’t have the resolution of camcorder movies, these clips of up to 30 seconds are perfect as e-mail attachments.
When it’s time to transfer the images to your computer, the D-40 is a breeze to use. Connect the included USB cable between the camera and your computer, and the operating system (Windows 98 or newer for PCs, OS 8.6 or newer for Macs) will automatically detect your camera as an external drive, making picture transfers drag-and-drop easy.
If you can’t decide whether to grab a full-sized digital camera for its advanced features or a tiny point-and-shoot for its portability, consider the D-40–it offers the best of both worlds.
Customer reviews
Amazing camera for its time; still a good buy for a low-end camera 
by .. Alexander C. Zorach (Lancaster, PA)
This was my first digital camera; it is a quite out-of-date model but it was among the top of the line when it was made, and in some categories it still holds its own against modern, much pricier models.
The biggest strength of this camera is that it takes excellent photos. The automatic setting works pretty well. It supports ISO-400 and has less noise than many newer cameras. It also takes decent flash photos. And it does have modest optical zoom. The settings are pretty easy to use and it gives you a good amount of flexibility, although the full manual mode is clumsy. It is very small, and it is very durable–I have used mine for four years, and the plastic cover for the ports broke off, and the icons wore off the dial, but it still works like a charm. The night-setting also takes fabulous long-exposure pictures.
The weak points are pretty self-evident. The viewscreen is tiny, the camera has a very slow startup time, and flash cycling is pretty slow. And the digital zoom is pretty much useless; modern photo programs can interpolate at least as well.
I think this would be an excellent purchase for those wanting a low-end digital camera. It simply blows away modern models in the below-$100 price range. I now have a Canon PowerShot A700 (about $300) and I can say with confidence that this old Olympus still wins out over my new camera in some situations. Especially for people who are going to take a lot of lower light photos but want a cheaper model, this is one of the best options out there.
A great, if dated, choice by .. Mistypaw (South Florida, United States)
I’m a budgeter, but I also really wanted all the cool manual features and eveything. The D40 suited up perfect. Yes, 4MP may not seem much compared to what’s out there now - but I figured, when am I ever going to print anything larger than 8×10 anyway? 4 MP was perfect for me, more would be a waste.
As i said, the features are all there. Choose your own shutter speeds and apetures, white balance, video (yes, the vid sux, but that’s true of most cameras. Same as digital video cameras take sucky stills. Give it a few more years you might be able to get a really good true hybrid. But i’m not waiting that long.) The only feature I can think of that I’ve really missed was no hotshoe for a bounce flash. It does have a tripod mount.
It’s also a great point and shooter, with several pre-sets. So you can use those and if you decide you want to be brave and try out other stuff, that’s there too.
It takes AAs, which if you get rechargeables and if you don’t use the LCD screen can go for quite some time. I was once old school photography, so the viewfinder feels better to me anyway.
The one major flaw I heard of before buying was that if you shoot an extremely high contrast shot you might get some violet bleed. In the few years I’ve had this camera, I’ve yet to actually see that happen. And even if it does - it’s easily corrected in photoshop.
My last thing to point out is it IS dated. The memory cards it uses are a thing of the past that you will mostly likely have to hunt for or buy online. I bought myself 4 cards, which will last me several hundred pics, which is more than I exspect to ever have to shot at one time.
Oh, another thing I really liked - it’s size was perfect for me. The tiny ones always seemed to flimsy and it gets hard to hold the camera right if it’s too light or heavy. This is not a wallet or slim shirt pocket camera. But it will fit in a pocket or purse quite nicely.
Overall, for the price, it is an excellent little camera. Does everything I could ask for, and despite the world moving on with more technology I still have yet to feel the urge that i’m missing out on anything.
it’s been 3 years and i still love my D-40Z by .. schuss (Seattle, WA United States)
check my pics in the customer shared gallery for some examples. 
i bought this camera for the 4MP, the compact size, the sliding cover to protect the lens, the relatively cheap memory format (smartmedia), the AA batteries, and the combination of automatic modes and manual adjustments. 3 years later it continues to deliver for me in all these areas and more.
i spent a month in europe last winter and took 150-200 pix a day with it. everything from skiing to dark pubs to out-the-car-window came out well.
an oft-overlooked feature that has become my favorite (the icon is worn off the selector knob from use…) is the “My Mode” setting. once you pick a setting and save it here, it’s at your fingertips. my preference is flash off, motor drive, auto shutter/fstop, overexpose by 0.7. it’s my snap-pix-of-my-friends-discreetly mode. anyway, dedicating a selection on the mode knob to a custom setting is much appreciated, thank you olympus!
overall, it takes great pictures, is easy to use whether you want to tweak with things or just hold down the button and fill a card with shots, is reasonable with batteries, and is well-designed and constructed. it has been everywhere with me - travel, skiing, sailing… it has bounced around in my bag, hung out the window on the freeway, gotten rained on, snowed on, hailed on, been to the beach… and is still a champ.
btw, those first two pics i posted in the share gallery i took today… so that’s how it works after 3 years of abuse.
Don’t Know Why Olympus Stopped Making It by .. Confederate (Bethesda, MD)
When this camera first came out, I could only afford to look at them on the dealer’s shelves. Small, lots of features and reviews praising the image quality up the gazoo, AA batteries (no scarce proprietary). But the price was anything but affordable. Now that they can be had on eBay, Amazon and other places refurbished or in mint condition, the D-40 is still one of the most desired cameras around. The only rub I’ve discovered is indeed minor: don’t leave the autofocus on constant when you’re shooting movies with sound; otherwise the focus mechanism makes a distracting noise.
I don’t worry too much about filters and white settings. Most of that can be fixed in Photoshop.
It’s such a nice camera, I don’t know why Olympus stopped making it. At 4 megapixals, it’s got a lot of life still in it.
Terrific, easy to use camera. by .. H. Cassell (Portland, OR)
This was my first digital camera, which I used constantly for the three years I owned it. I loved it and I shouldn’t have been so eager to “upgrade” (I recently, and foolishly, switched to the Sony T1).
This is a fantastically easy to use point-and-shoot camera that takes fabulous photos, up to and probably even beyond 8×10. It’s friendly in low light conditions, at the beach, in the bright white snow, and just about anywhere a person would want to take their camera. Action pictures turn out great. The flash is strong. It is light, compact, and very sturdy. The picture taker’s hands don’t have to be deathly still to take a killer shot. The lense stays closed. The batteries are AAs–YAY! (I’m amazed at these features I took for granted because my T1 lacks in ALL these areas, much to my chagrin.)
For the price this camera is being offered at on Amazon, you can’t go wrong, even if they are used. You won’t be disappointed with the D40.
