dslr.ws

The Japanese site asahi.com has posted an article stating that Nikon has taken the DSLR sales lead over Canon for the first half of 2007, thanks in a large part to the popularity of the Nikon D40.

Nikon clinched a 47.5-percent share of the domestic market from January to June, surpassing Canon’s 36.5 percent, according to Tokyo-based market research firm BCN Inc.

It was the first time that Nikon has held the top spot over a half-year term, although it had done so on a monthly basis before.

Nikon and Canon have long been the dominant players in the domestic SLR camera market, but Nikon appeared stuck in second place for digital SLR camera body sales.

In the first half of 2006, Canon led at 46.4 percent to Nikon’s 31.9 percent, and at 42.9 percent to Nikon’s 35.5 percent in the second half.

They also mention that competition for the third place spot has been tight, with Pentax at 6.7%, Sony at 4.5%, and Olympus at 4.3% for the first half of 2007. Olympus took over third place behind Nikon and Canon for May and June, however, thanks to the release of the Olympus E-410.

Don’t forget that this article is only talking about the Japanese DSLR market, and doesn’t talk about sales in other parts of the world. We can try to make assumptions about what this might mean for Nikon and Canon in other parts of the world, but we’d probably be wrong. So we won’t.

PC Advisor has posted a review of the Nikon D40x. It’s pretty short and spends more time talking about things that anyone could read from the specs sheet than it does talking about their actual experience with using the camera — nobody’s going to mistake this for an in-depth dpreview.com review. But it can’t hurt to take a look. They don’t have real complaints or anything about the camera:

Taking the Nikon D40x along to an advertising shoot for some behind-the-scenes, reportage-style portraits, the camera metered well on a mix of extreme light and shadow, producing pleasingly even exposures, natural if slightly cool colours and a competent level of sharpness given the DSLR’s amateur status.

With light sensitivity ranging from ISO 100 all the way to ISO 3200, there’s obviously the issue of image noise –– tiny, grain-like speckles that resemble a fuzzy TV picture –– intruding into shadow. Though it’s visible at higher settings, Nikon has done a good job of keeping the Nikon D40x’s shots usable, and converting such low-light images to black and white, if desired, solves the problem.

Despite Nikon’s “nobody could better the D40 so we decided to do it ourselves” flippancy, owners of the D40 shouldn’t feel pressure to update, the Nikon D40x version’s additions have generally been made to bring the camera’s specs up to match competitors. The Nikon D40x is a dream to handle and delivers the goods. It’ll be interesting to see where Nikon goes with its camera range next.

CIPA now lists the Canon EOS 40D on their page of PictBridge Certified camera models, which would seem to suggest that it has to be getting very close to being officially announced.

In case you missed it, the rumored specs are pretty much the same as the 30D, but with a 10.1 megapixel sensor and an anti-dust system. There are a number of reasons to suspect that those rumored specifications are fake, however — for example, they listed the DIGIC II processor, while the DIGIC III has been available in Canon cameras for a while.

But since rumors start so easily, I’d like to officially start the rumor that the Canon 40D will have anti-lion technology. Taking your DSLR on a safari in Africa and worried about lions attacking you? Fear not! The Canon 40D will repel lions with a high definition anti-lion ultrasonic sound wave. Safest digital SLR for wildlife shooting ever!

Or maybe I’ll just leave the rumors to the experts. I don’t think I’m very good at it yet.

For a break from Olympus E-P1 rumors, here’s some facts about an actually released Olympus camera.

Not to be confused with Digicamreview.com and their Olympus E-510 review from last week, this is an Olympus EVOLT E-510 review from digitalcameraview.com. Completely different review on a complete different site, despite the confusingly similar names.

They mention one of the comment complaints about live view on digital SLRs, namely that it slows things down because the camera has to swing the mirror back down to autofocus and measure the light levels to get the exposure. This gives you about one second of shutter lag, making the camera much slower than you’d expect a DSLR to be. They conclude that it’s really only useful for still subjects:

What is neat about Live View (with stationary subjects) is the ability to view your composition on the screen, even from awkward angles, and to adjust exposure and white balance and then view the changes in real time.

The reviewer also notes slight underexposure, which doesn’t sound like anything significant to me:

I used the E-510 primarily in Program AE mode. I noted a slight tendency toward underexposure (generally by 1/3 to 2/3 EV) in Program AE and Auto mode, but this shouldn’t be problem for most shooters. Slight underexposure produces more intense colors and harder contrast, and better preserves highlight detail. The other side of the coin is that even minor underexposure causes some loss of shadow detail. Photographers who are bothered by the E-510’s consistent tendency toward minor underexposure in the Auto modes can simply dial in +1/3 EV of exposure compensation (in Program AE mode) or shoot in one of the manual exposure modes.

The review ends with two concerns about the camera:

I have only a couple minor concerns. Why isn’t there a shoot-only (IS engaged only during exposure) IS mode and why can’t users delete an image immediately after it is taken?

I’m surprised that there’s no way to delete an image right after taking it. That’s one of the things I do most often when I’m taking pictures. Click shutter, check preview, oops that picture is terrible, delete. When so many digital SLRs offer competitive image quality, little usability details like that become more and more important, in my opinion. Bring out a camera without any small things to complain about and you have a strong competitor.