Miscellaneous information guaranteed not to improve your photography :-)
Sales data
January-2007: Sales of Nikon D40 in Japan eclipses that of the Canon 400D / XTi / Digital Rebel Kiss X. Nikon now occupies 49.9% of the digital SLR market in Japan, relegating Canon down to #2 with their 33.1% share. Link: DPReview.com forum post. Another forum poster, PerL, reports that Nikon is #1 in Sweden too.
Camera technology
Performing an ASCII dump of the camera firmware will reveal that the D40 has two processors: one for camera body control and the other for graphic processing. The camera body CPU is sourced from Fujitsu (CPU B) and the graphic chip from NEC (source: forum post).
Nikon’s Marketing Prowess (or lack thereof)
When the Nikon D50 was launched, it was touted as Nikon’s entry level camera, and a pretty feature-packed one at that. Yet, D50 sales pale in comparison with the D40, a camera with no in-body focus motor (but with numerous other slick features the D50 doesn’t have). It was predicted that the D40 would go down in history as one of Nikon’s utter failures. And yet, the sales of the D40 surged strongly. Why? Thom Hogan gives some insight into Nikon’s “accidental” success: link to the forum post.
Heard on the forums
DPReview reviewer recommends the D40
Simon Joinson recommends the D40 to a friend, but reminds us about the “different strokes for different folks” principle.