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. ;)

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.

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 8x10. 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.

The camera is small and compact. The resolution is great and if you buy extra memory it can hold tons of pictures. But...sometimes i want to just use a disposable camera because this one is soooo frustrating. The auto-focus takes forever, so many times, you miss "kodak moments" because the camera isn't ready to shoot. When you have the display screen on, it sucks up the batteries. You can't view pictures right away unless you close the lens...which takes forever. Little things like this are very frustrating. And the dial for photo settings is so convenient that it often moves without you knowing so your settings will be off and you get a messed up picture. I'm no camera genius, i know how to use all the functions but this camera really tests my patience and i've missed alot of good shots. It's not just point and click like many other cameras i've used.

We bought this camera (actually the European version C-40 Zoom) after doing lots of research, and loved it. It was easy to use, had awesome picture quality, and even made short mpeg movies. However, when it was about 10 months old, we had a problem where it wiped one of our smartmedia cards, so we lost a few photos. We sent it away for checking, as it was still under warranty, but they found nothing wrong, and we didn't have the problem again.

However, when the camera was 15 months old, it failed completely. It was no longer covered by warranty. We spent a LOT of money on this camera, believing you get what you pay for (and I guess it was great while it worked), and were very unhappy that this occurred. At the time of writing this review, we have yet to send it away to see how much repair would cost, but have been told by Olympus that we'd probably be better off buying a new camera. If that's the case, it won't be an Olympus!

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 8x10 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.

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.