Nikon D40X ?

Couldn't be more untrue.

I bought a D40 three weeks ago for a "niche" camera... street photography
with my 24 or 50mm Nikon primes.

I've had no problem at all focusing with the oem screen, quickly and
accurately (of course, I make my living with a state of the art video camera
(currently P2) where auto focus is non-existent, shooting in uncontrolled
environments, so maybe I've had more practice at manual focus that some
others might have had), but even so.

Even for those eyeball challenged, all you need do is jack up the f stop a
bit and let dof take care of any slack.

Of course, I don't use long lenses on my D40, but I'd say, don't sweat the
lack of auto focus on the D40 unless that's all you know.

DP

 

The 45mm was my plan too, but I can't find one... Very happy with the 24 and
500 mm on my D40, though, and like you, I've yet to take the "kit" lens outa
the box... probably will at some point, to play with it though.
DP

 

I think ebay is the only option for finding a 45mm, unless you get
really lucky and find one locally. You can usually find one on ebay,
albeit at an astronomical "buy it now" price. Be patient and wait
until one appears on a real auction, but don't overbid. I ended up
getting an absolutely like-new black one for $328, including the
dedicated lens hood and shipping from Canada.

The problems with the kit lens, besides the cheap construction, are
slowness and bulkiness.

 

Right.
However, Nikon is strongly pushing the DX line of lenses for digital cameras
and is adding new lenses to that line almost every month. Those lenses are
not even backward compatible with film SLRs any longer.

Unless you want to dig into the pool of existing used lenses you should be
fine without the focus motor in the camera body.

jue

 

Which is exactly what I *do*. (With a D70, and hopefully a D200
later).

Enjoy,
DoN.