Keep it simple for your D40(x) enjoyment.

Sometimes you want a particular lighting situation that your pop up flash on you D40(x) especially is not going to give you.

Impossible to do bounce or other great diffuse light and shadow controlled shots. You need a "Speedlite"or Flash Product as Nikon calls it.

Keep it simple. No Guide Number what.., no I-TTL, or manual whatever. Just attach the SB-400 Flash onto your accessory shoe and go. Your camera body does all the driving. Red eye and all. Whatever the D40(x) says to do, the flash does.

Keep it small. The D40(x) are wonderfully small, and as much as I love my SB-800, I want to maintain that great small form factor.

Getting ahead of myself a bit. How much, and what do I get. I paid $129.99 plus tax here in Los Angeles. I saw it later in the day for $10.00 less..sigh.

In the box you get the SB-400 Flash unit, Instructions that look like a fold out map from last century. Multi-lingual so no excuses on I don't know how to use it. Zip carrying case of decent vinyl quality (SS-400). Warranty info and other Nikon documents inside a box no bigger than 6 inches square and about 3 inches tall.

Well packed with an inner box for the flash encased in a plastic bag and vinyl carry case. Documents on top.

Physical size 2.6 x 2.2 x 3.1 inches and weighs without the 2 AA batteries that come with that I forgot to mentions, oops, is 4.5 oz.

Alkaline or rechargable of 1.5v or less are allowed here.
Update: 08-04-2007. Please use freshly charged Ni-Mh with the highest MAH..that is Milli-amp hour rating you can find. I use 2700mah with good results. I used some older 2000 mah batteries with poor results. Only got about 30 flash shots with it and cycle times were slow. This occuring at the Boeing Museum of Flight. I should have carried spares. Possible the batteries may have discharged in the flash head overnight before I went. I will test some more with the higher capacity batteries and update.


Use and compatibility. Any Nikon camera with Creative Lighting System. Hmm, interesting since the D40 or the D50 for that matter aren't CLS friendly. For the record my D40 functions perfect with the SB-400 Flash unit.

The tilt head up front at the lamp assembly portion of the SB-400 pivots in 4 steps up to 90 degrees. I love this feature to get the right balance of light and shadow and soften the light so especially clothing doesn't shine unnaturally. Also with the tilt feature you minimize Red Eye so your family and friends don't have that I worship satan look.

According to Nikon the approximate guide number of 98.4 feet at ISO 200 (at 18mm zoom head setting) is expected. I have no reason to doubt this doing comparison exposure tests on my own and saw that this flash unit if much more powerful than the pop up flash unit of the D40. For the record the pop flash of the D40 is a little more than half what the SB-400 flash unit is.

Flash shooting distance is from 2 to 66 feet. The flash fires at a duration of 1/1,300th second at full output.

For probably cost and size constraints no pivot side to side is built in on the SB-400. My SB-800 spoils me I guess. The SB-800 is a much more powerful flash unit than the SB-400. My SB-800 will take up to 5 AA batteries using the additional single AA battery pack for faster cycling.

In the real world easy no fuss comes to mind with the SB-400. I took to this flash very quickly compared to my many featured SB-800. My pictures look more balanced and I have at times the ability to use a higher fill flash shutter speed than the built in pop up flash. More distance range too. So I have to say this flash is a reasonable value and a great no fuss flash to go with any Nikon DSLR especially the D40 family.

Summary. Low cost $129.99 retail price. Easy to use with the camera body doing all the modes. Small size makes it an ideal travel flash. Perfect mate to the smaller D40 family cameras, but just as at home on my D200 for instance.

Negatives..none really though a swivel head left and right would be nice, but would it make the SB-400 bigger and more complex and expensive??

If you have a Nikon and need a small flash unit, Nikon did good here. Try one. Thank you for reading. V.C.