dslr.ws

Just for completeness, I point you in the general direction of a Canon 40D review that came out a few days ago (many months after everyone else posted their 40D reviews.) This one is by Anthony Dhanendran of “Computeract!ve” and is all of 230 words, six paragraphs long, and not much more than six sentences total. Seriously.

Let’s review their review, shall we?

First paragraph: States that the 40D is the “most expensive” of Canon’s “consumer-level” digital SLR cameras. It then states that the price range does go higher, for example for the Canon 5D, but that’s more expensive. I kid you not, that’s really what it says. Don’t believe me? Allow me to quote it:

The EOS 40D is the most expensive and, so far, most impressive of Canon’s consumer-level digital SLRs. The range goes up higher (see the professional 5D), but you’re talking about adding £1,000 to the price.

Second paragraph: One sentence which states that it’s bigger than many digital cameras, but easy to handle and similar to the 30D.

Third paragraph: Two sentences, one stating that the 40D has a better sensor than the 30D and a larger LCD display, and the second sentence saying that most DSLRs can’t compose pictures with the screen but the 40D can.

Fourth paragraph: Easy to use, menus are good.

Fifth paragraph: They tested it with the Canon 17-55mm lens, but it will work with all EF-S lenses. Obviously, that’s not a very accurate statement, since it works with all EOS lenses, EF and EF-S, but they just say that it works with EF-S lenses.

Sixth paragraph: Here we get into the actual meat of the review, the test results and image quality. This paragraph devotes one sentence to that, which I will quote in full:

Image quality throughout was excellent, although in truth not far above the 30D.

Immensely helpful. The last sentence of the paragraph, and of the review, is their conclusion, which is that this the Canon 40D is an expensive camera but something that’s good for replacing your “ageing [sic] film camera or entry-level digital SLR.”

Now, my post here making fun of their amazingly pointless review is about 50% longer than their review of a complex digital SLR camera. But it was fun to make fun of, at least for me. For you, random reader, who might have been hoping for some actual useful information, I apologize. To make it up to you, I’ll point you towards a much better Canon 40D DSLR review and hope that you’ll forgive me for wasting your time with this foolishness.

And happy new year’s!

Yes, the most trusted name in digital SLR reviews, ABC News, has reviewed the Canon 40D.

The review doesn’t have a whole lot of useful information for someone who already knows the camera’s specs, but it is interesting to read a review from a different perspective, if for nothing else than for its mild amusement value:

Similarly, if you’re used to small, pocket-size lightweight cameras, this is clearly not the choice for you. The camera is slightly larger than its predecessor and is a little heavier than you would expect.

That’s kind of a strange statement. Why wouldn’t they list the actual weight of the camera, instead of a vague “a little heavier than you would expect?” And just because someone is used to small point and shoot cameras doesn’t mean that the 40D is “clearly” not the right choice; many people start off with P&S cameras and then move up to a DSLR some time later, so “clearly” people who are used to small and light cameras would sometimes want to buy something like a 40D (although the Digital Rebel XTi might be a better starter DSLR.)

Despite all these great features, the 40D does have its flaws. First, there’s the battery life. If you are a fan of viewing your shots through an LCD screen rather than the viewfinder, you are bound to have a shorter battery life.

1It would have been nice of them to actually list what the battery life is, but that might be asking a little much. And since the review seems to be aimed at people used to point and shoot digital cameras, the battery life for the 40D would actually be more that they were used to.

Overall, the camera is sturdy and has a great feel. It has a good rubbery grip for your shooting hand, and the colors are pretty accurate on photos. This would make a great gift for aspiring photographers or for photographers just looking to spoil themselves.

And there you have the extent of the image quality analysis: “the colors are pretty accurate.” DPReview probably doesn’t have anything to fear from ABC News taking over as the leading camera review site any time soon, huh?

Adding themselves to the Canon 40D review pile-on, Imaging Resource has posted their review. The main point is that not a whole lot has changed from the earlier D models, but that’s a good thing: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and that line of cameras has always been well-liked and produced excellent images.

From the various improvements that it does have, Imaging Resource likes the sealed body, the faster frame rates for burst shooting, and the larger viewfinder; the reviewer doesn’t really care so much about live view, the larger LCD display, or the increase in resolution.

They did find a few issues with the autofocus system which I haven’t seen mentioned in other reviews. It may not be much, but it may be something worth considering. Autofocus is one of those features that lots of people overlook, but plays a much bigger role in real-life shooting conditions than many people think about. Here’s what the review has to say about the issues they saw:

Canon says that the various improvements make the EOS 40D’s autofocus calculation speed 30 percent faster and more accurate than the EOS 30D, and better in low light. The 20D and 30D have what I consider to be the best low light AF system on the market for the price, focusing on a person lit only by a television screen, and it does seem that the 40D can best them in some situations.

However, there have been quite a few situations where the Canon 40D kept on seeking when the 20D just quickly found and locked focus, specifically when the 40D was in Multi-point AF mode. I’ve found a few situations where the Canon 40D just seeks and seeks, and never stops. Most cameras give up after a few seconds. This is the first autofocus SLR of any make that I’ve seen do this. You can turn Focus Seek off in the Custom Function menu, but that still doesn’t stop the endless seeking. Oddly, this occurs more for me in vertical mode.

In horizontal mode, Dave had a heck of a time getting the Canon 40D’s top center AF point to focus on Marti’s hair during the indoor shots. Hair isn’t the best place to focus, of course, but it works well enough when we do it with other cameras. In Dave’s case, the camera said it was in focus, but it was either front- or back-focusing.

When shooting a soccer match in AI Servo mode recently, the Canon 40D had a hard time finding and keeping focus on my subject. It was usually okay if I could keep the player over the center point, but not always. It still randomly focused many yards behind a player for one frame, then snapped back to proper focus, then back out. Soccer is an extreme example — and I am spoiled by shooting the 1D Mark II N, and even the 1D Mark III — but the 20D does better than the 40D in these situations. I got better results shooting in AI Focus mode, which is probably more appropriate for a more random movement game like soccer.

However, when it’s working well, the AF is very good:

Testing in the lab proved that the EOS 40D does even better than the company claims, focusing accurately at less than -0.5 EV (1/4 foot candle), all the way down to 1/16 foot candle, the lowest light level we test. Of course, that’s with a high-contrast black and white test target, and we have no way of knowing what Canon’s test conditions are.

In summary, I’ve found the Canon 40D’s AF system to be stronger in some ways and weaker in others when compared to the more predictable 20D and 30D AF system. I got more consistent results in single-point AF mode.

Personally, I’m ok with that, since I always shoot with just the center AF point selected, and I know a lot of other photographers do the same thing. Maybe camera makers need to find some extra-special improvements that they can offer for shooters like us — an extra-super-sensitive center AF point? I suppose they already did that by making the center point cross-type before the other points (though on the 40D they’re all cross-type) but maybe there’s something left, like the Olympus E-3′s new double cross AF points? Just a random, uneducated thought.

Other possible significant negatives that the review points out are horizontal banding at 3200 ISO and a shorter battery life, due to the larger LCD screen and the automatic anti-dust shake system.

Be sure to check out the full review for all the details and the sample pictures, as always.

DPReview always does an excellent job reviewing digital cameras, and many people would consider them the de facto go-to camera review site. Endless pages upon pages of test results and image comparisons, graphs, charts, and lots of full-size images to pixel peep. And now they’ve posted their review of the Canon 40D, all 29 pages of it.

What’s the verdict? No big surprise, it’s a highly recommended camera. The main negative points they list aren’t a big deal, in my opinion at least. Those negatives include poor automatic white balance under incandescent lighting, which is something that every single Canon camera has; apparently it’s an intentional decision by Canon to give incorrect white balance in order to give a warmer image, and they keep getting dinged in reviews because of it.

Another downside they note is that their burst shooting speed is slower than Canon’s specs say it should be, down to 6 fps at 1/500 sec shutter speeds. They also point out the useless “print” button on the camera, wasting a button that could be used for something more photographically useful. But they do say that it’s tough to find negatives with it, it’s an excellent camera.

And tons of praise, of course:

From an image quality point of view the combination of the Canon CMOS sensor and DIGIC III processor means equally detailed images at all sensitivities (except maybe ISO 3200), low noise and a complete lack of unnatural artifacts. The new high ISO speed noise reduction option has no effect on luminance detail but removes any lingering chroma noise, giving high ISO images a more film-like grain; something Nikon has been doing for some time. We would be interested to see Canon using a less strong anti-alias filter which would mean that JPEG images would require less sharpening and would be naturally ‘crisper’ straight off the sensor, but it’s a minor point and would really only be seen by ‘pixel peepers’.

One surprise came from our testing of the cameras dynamic range, it delivered a consistently higher range than both the competition and its predecessor. The majority of this improvement, however, was in the shadow range, a function we presume of the new 14-bit processing pipeline.

I don’t suppose there have been any negative reviews of the 40D, have there? It seems like you can’t really go wrong with it, especially if you’re buying it for me as an early Halloween present. Please?