Canon 40D Review - Part 1 (Introduction)

Part 1 - Introduction

When the 40D was announced, it definitely peaked my interest. As readers will undoubtedly already know, the 40D (and its predecessors 30D, 20D, 10D, etc) are marketed as “prosumer” cameras. They compete with Nikon D200 / D300 (albeit not always directly) and provide a step up to those who started with the entry level DLSR’s from Canon (350D, 400D, etc). The truth is, despite the fact that the 20D and 30D are great cameras (I’ve used them both extensively and enjoyed them greatly), the 40D is the first time I’ve really felt like I had to own a prosumer x0D series Canon.

The interest I had in the camera wasn’t entirely related to its specs either. Lately I’ve been shooting on the set as the Official Photographer of a major international TV show – The Contender Asia – and given that the 5D is my primary camera, I felt I needed a cropped sensor to provide a different field of view on some of my L glass. So the timing of the 40D’s announcement was excellent and I decided to start with this camera for th first show rather than level up and get a 1D Mk3. After all, if it didn’t measure up, I could always quickly sell it for a minor loss and get it’s bigger brother, the 1D, which was immediately available.

As a side note, you may wonder why I choose the slower 5D over the faster 1D Mk3 or 40D in the first place. It simply comes down to field of view. Shooting boxing at ringside requires a use of certain types of lenses and a full frame sensor allowed me to shoot with my preferred glass – at a field of view that worked really well for the subjects. If the 1Ds MK3 had been available at the time, I would have undoubtedly used this as my primarhy. In my case, the glass dictated the choice of body, not the other way around – as I believe it always should be.

Anyway, coming back to the 40D, the most notable features of the now well-known specs are as follows:

• 10.1-megapixel CMOS sensor, a 2MP increase from its predecessor
•  Digic III processing engine, to bring it in line with the 1D MK3 and 400D
• 14 bit support for a finer graduation of colour and tonal transitions
• 6.5 frames per second continuous shooting and a larger buffer with support for up to 17 RAW images
• New AF sensor with 9 cross type AF points (with a doubly sensitive centre AF point when used with glass at F/2.8 or faster)
• Live View function (live view capability similar to those used in the Olympus E-x10 series
• Larger, brighter viewfinder
• 3.0” LCD
• Highlight tone priority function
• Upgraded dust and weather seals
• Self cleaning sensor unit

All these features are improvements over the previous model. It’s impressive. There was some criticism when the 30D was announced in that it only offered marginal improvements over the 20D. Any repeated complaints at the launch of the 40D are completely unwarranted – this is a significant update. 

In addition to the above, there were a number of other improvements such as sRAW, Auto ISO and the ability for the camera to continue writing if someone opens the CF card slot. However, I consider these improvements to be too minor to affect any purchasing decision. The above items are the highlights, certainly from what I look for.

OK before I continue it’s time for a brief introduction into my philosophy of camera equipment. What I plan to cover in this review is a number of things which were of interest to me, and thus I think will be of interest to other enthusiasts. For those of you who are already familiar with reviews I’ve done in the past, I’m not particularly keen on lens charts or studio scenes. DPReview and other sites do a great job of these already. Besides, while they are of course important for many people (and very popular on forums), I do not find them to be particularly representative of real world results in the field. Instead, my focus will be more on the usage of the camera, what can be achieved with it in the right hands (with the right glass) and of course what shortcomings exists. Another important point of note is that in contrast to what is becoming an unnecessary trend on certain review sites, I do not downgrade cameras for requiring their settings to be modified from their out of the box defaults. If a camera operates “conservatively” out of the box and more “pop” or sharpness can be obtained by turning up the respective values in camera settings, I consider that to be perfectly acceptable. I think too often reviewers try to judge how beginners will use an entry level DSLR – stating that as they’re unlikely to change custom settings, anything which requires tuning or tweaking is unsuitable. This I couldn’t disagree with more. If a beginner is unable to apply an unsharp mask in post processing, increase saturation through a menu or use a camera properly, it’s very unlikely they’re going to be able to recognize minor differences when viewing an image at 100%.

OK, so lets take a look at the 40D.

Comments

[Warren Prasek]

Great review Lawrence, a pleasure to read a real-life qualitative opinion from an experienced owner rather than the usual technical "measurbator" type article. Your findings correlate pretty closely to my own, coming from a 20D and patiently awaiting the 5D MkII before finally moving up to full-frame.

Any tips on how to become a stills photographer on a TV series or motion picture? I've always thought it might be an interesting job - how do you find it?

Thanks
Warren Prasek
www.wprasek.com