D40, D80, D200 To Go?

The D40 replacement and Nikon's new entry level SLR is .... drum roll... the D60. Not sure why you were shocked - the D200 has already been discontinued, the D40 has no reason to exist as new production, and the D80 is well overdue for a replacement.

 

Uh? Putting aside the premise that the D40 has some performance advantages over the D60, from a marketing point of view, it fills a price niche. For a manufacturer, that is a "reason to exist." If Nikon removes the D40, either it has to drastically reduce the price of the D60 or Nikon has good evidence that it will not lose sales because the same potential customers will pay more. Marketing to entry-level consumers - who have not committed to the hobby - involves different strategies than marketing to those who have already decided they like slr photography and are willing to spend more to upgrade or purchase accessories such as more lenses and external flashes.

 

The D40 is one of Nikon's hottest selling cameras and it's also one of their very best too. Good high ISO performance, very sharp output, ultra-light, easy to use, 1/500s flash sync. I actually prefer it to my D80 a lot of the time.

 

I went to a Nikon event at a local camera store. The rep told me the D40 will be discontinued at the end of the year. For the D200 and D80, I am speculating. Since the D300 is out its only matter of time for the D200 to leave the line up. If the D90 replacement is announced soon, the D80 will be discontinued, too. As stated by someone else. The D60 is the new entry level camera. My wife has a D40 and I like it a lot. I am saving money to get a DSLR for myself, because I am using her camera a little too much. I am looking at all the options, including good deals on people dumping their D40, D80, and D200's.

 

If the Nikon D40 is one of Nikon's hottest selling consumer cameras, then the managers and stocking specialists of all my local consumer electronics stores are brain-dead and should be fired, because there is not a single store that carries it. I repeat, not a single store: zero, zip, nada. This includes Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, Target, and Walmart. Sure, they have it listed online but not in the store. Heck, with the exception of Circuit City, none had the D80 either, and have not had it for a while.

I can believe that. "Only" 6 MPx helps, as does inheriting a lot of the circuitry of the D50. My new (to me) D40 arrives tomorrow, so I am a believer. However, from a marketing standpoint the D40 is a dead duck, competing in a non-existing segment. When Joe Schmoe goes to Best Buy, the pimply teenager on the other end of the sale is going to be pushing megapixels over high ISO noise, just like the pimply teenager in the computer isle is pushing megahertz and gigabytes over bandwidth and rpm.

Not if there are insufficient customers in that price niche to sustain the manufacturing and distribution costs at a reasonable return on investment. The $300 price range is occupied by the mid-upper range compacts, Canon's dSLRs start at around $600. It is not clear to me what is the consumer electronics niche you are referring to.

 

I agree. I absolutely loved my D40. I bought mine from my local circuit city.I just replaced it with a D80, also purchased from my local circuit city. Since owning the D40, I have had 5 friends also buy it after seeing the photos I took using it. And I originally bought it because a friend had the D50 and recommended the D40. Word of mouth is a powerful tool! I would hate for them to get rid of it in their lineup. It's an excellent camera!

 

Maybe there's something peculiar about your market, or illegal price/market fixing going on, because I always see them in stores around me. According to BestBuy.com some of the BB's around Portland do carry them "in store", but I have no idea which specific stores you're going to. On BB.com, there are twice the number of online reviews for the D40 than for any other Nikon. The next closest is the D80, and it goes down from there. It's nearly impossible to track down solid product mix data, but Nikon Japan DSLR sales have surged past Canon based on huge D40 sales.

Not if they've read Ken's site! :tongue:

 

I totally disagree on the D40 not existing anywhere thing. Every major electronics retailer and camera retailer here has the D40 on display and in stock. The Best Buy's have both the regular D40 and the "Kit" with extra lens, bag, etc. I have friends and family who recently bought a D40. I constantly see random people with D40s and D50s. The market exists and is huge.

I can assure you, not every "pimply teenager" working at Best Buy is ignorant about the products they sell. Try it. Talk to a few of them. They should know why you'd need more megapixels. It shouldn't be "Because more is better." I worked there for 7.5 years during high school and college. Sure there were some that just didn't care at all about what they sold, but more people did than didn't. The ones that have been around the place a while will also have some useful knowledge about what brands/models have specific complaints or problems. I think you'd be pleasantly surprised about the information you can get if you give them a chance.

 

All good things must come to an end but I think the D40 will be around for a while longer. They're still selling pretty well at the camera shop I use. I guess the D60 will probably be the replacement for the D40 but I've heard from a couple of people that mega pixels aside, it's not that much better.

 

I apologize for the "pimply teenager" generalization. There are good people everywhere, I am sure that this is the case even in the vast wasteland known as a "consumer electronics store"

I am serious about the D40 not being in stock a few weeks ago, but seems that the situation has changed. Before making the decision to get rid of my D200 I wanted to handle the D80 to ensure that its form factor (and hopefully the eventual D90 successor) would feel just as good in my hand as the D70. Went to my two closest BB's, all they had on display was the D60 on the Nikon side, and multiple versions of the Canon Rebel. I did not ask the sales staff if they had it though, I just assumed...

 

Just go to www.bestbuy.com and look up the D40, then click on the link for store availability. Punch in your zip code and it'll tell you which stores have them available for in-store pickup in your area. As it goes in retail, they might have them in stock but just not on display. These things get stolen all the time, even with the theft protection devices on them. When that happens, the manager might not want to put out another. A friend of mine works at BB and they had a brand spanking new Canon 1D Mark III stolen from them like that during an anti-theft "malfunction". Whatever your equivalent to Ritz camera is out there (Wolf, etc) in every mall there is should have them too, in the glass cases behind the counter.

Now if all of the stores in your area are all agreeing behind the scenes to NOT carry the D40 in favor of the higher profit margin D60, they're probably violating some federal anti-trust laws on market manipulation, which is why I don't believe that nobody has the D40 in your area.

 

the d45?

 

If you look at the dates of the links, they were speculating before the D60 was announced.

 

Yeah, but it's probably that megapixel thing that Nikon is reacting to. Remember, this is an entry-level camera and novices are often impressed by the wrong statistics.

My impression is that the D60 is almost the exact same camera as the D40x, which was described to me as a D40 with "improvements" nobody asked for.