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BobAtkins.com has posted a review of the new Canon EOS 40D.

He reports improved high ISO (3200 ISO) noise performance over the Canon 20D, at least with the High ISO Noise Reduction setting turned on:

On the basis of the few test shots I’ve taken up to now I’d say the high ISO noise (at “H” or ISO 3200) seems a little higher in the 40D than in the 20D images with the High ISO Noise Reduction function turned off. However with the High ISO Noise Reduction on, the 40D images show lower noise then the 20D images with no apparent loss of sharpness. This means that, with noise reduction on, at ISO 3200 the 40D delivers cleaner, sharper images than the 20D (and presumably 30D too). The high ISO noise reduction function seems particularly effective at reducing chrominance noise.

He goes on to report that the High ISO Noise Reduction option works at the full range of ISO settings, not just at the most sensitive setting, and doesn’t really have much effect on luminance noise. He also says that while the 40D with noise reduction turned off does have more noise than the 20D, it’s only a small amount more, and isn’t something that would be noticeable in real-world use.

From the image samples he posted, I would agree. I’m sure most people would prefer less noise to start with, but the difference does appear to be pretty small and would require printing very large prints to be able to see the difference.

There are some more updates to the review promised to show up in the near future — it was updated yesterday and the day before already, so I’m guessing those will be up pretty quickly. The conclusion right now is that the 40D is a significant step up in this branch of Canon’s digital SLR line, and a good purchase to make, either for yourself or your favorite DSLR site webmaster (hint, hint!):

In just about every respect the EOS 40D technically outperforms the EOS 30D and so I think it is a worthwhile upgrade for those who can afford to switch and who can use the new features. I didn’t feel that way about the 30D, which was a good camera but for me didn’t offer enough new features to persuade me to trade in my 20D and upgrade.

Based on handling the camera for a day, I’m very pleased with it. The larger LCD and revised (easier to navigate) menu structure is nice. The 3″ LCD is very nice. I really like the fact that the shutter is quiet in normal operation and even quieter still in Live View. The larger viewfinder and ISO display are also useful features. Though I’d initially thought of Live View as a bit of a “gimmick”, I’m actually thinking or more and more potential uses for it!

The EOS 40D is the best — and cheapest — of Canon’s prosumer line of DSLRs (D30, D60, D10, D20 and D30). Each has offered more features than the last, and done it at a lower price. The EOS 40D ($1299) clearly follows in this tradition!

Luminous Landscape has posted a hands-on preview of the Canon 40D. The Luminous Landscape has always been more about real-world usability and quality than about pixel peeping and test charts, so bear in mind that the preview is from that point of view and doesn’t have any full-size image previews to peep at.

But I tend to fall in that camp as well, and from my point of view it’s a very good preview. He continues a trend of being glad that Canon finally has an auto ISO feature, but being disappointed that it’s not as flexible as Nikon’s auto ISO. This is, personally, one of my biggest gripes. It’s just a little bit of software coding, why can’t they program in some auto ISO flexibility? It makes shooting in varying lighting conditions so much easier.

He times the burst modes, coming up with nice and speedy times:

I timed 22 raw frames in 4 seconds before the buffer started to unload and slow down a bit. In Large Fine JPG I was able to shoot 100 consecutive frames in 17 seconds before hitting the buffer and the camera starting to slow down. The card used was a 4GB Sandisk Extreme IV.

This is exceptional performance, and sports and wildlife photographers will likely flock to this camera because of its high speed capabilities.

One of the longest sections of the preview is the discussion of Canon’s Live View implementation. On the plus side, he reports that the live RGB histogram is very accurate, and was able to rely on it to get high quality RAW files by exposing bright but just short of blowing out the highlights, according to the live histogram. One downside is that the live histogram isn’t accurate in low light.

But, of course, it’s not perfect:

What I don’t care for in Canon’s current Live View implementation is that autofocus is not available. The camera can be set so that the the top-rear AF-On button lowers the mirror and activates AF for an instant, but otherwise one has to manual focus. This may not be an issue when doing landscape style shooting, but for action photography it is an issue. Manual focusing is made easier though by the ability to greatly magnify the image on screen.

Since Nikon’s D300 is said to have contrast detection autofocus available during Live View this may also turn out to be a competitive disadvantage for Canon.

The final issue I have with Live View is that the rear LCD isn’t articulated. (Neither do most cameras with Live View – yet). The lack of a flexible LCD makes using this feature less than ideal. As Live View technology matures I’m sure that we will see future DSLRs with articulated screens, and indeed some will start to come to market in the second half of this year.

After the first Live View reviews (possibly for the Olympus E-510 or E-410) I was under the impression that the frame rate was low for this early generation, much like the early digicams had a low frame rate LCD view. But after seeing a view preview of the Canon 1D Mark III’s live view, it looks like Canon’s Live View is very smooth and usable. So that’s a big plus. Another generation or two and DSLR Live View is probably going to be something much more usable.

The preview closes with the angry e-mail inducing claim that the image quality of the 40D may slightly surpass the image quality of the 5D — anyone else remember Luminous Landscape’s similarly controversial claim about the Canon D30 blowing away 35mm slide film’s image quality?)

Oh, and he also mentions that it’s an excellent camera:

The bottom line is that the Canon 40D is the most DSLR for the money that Canon has ever offered. Certainly in its price range there doesn’t seem to be anything that can touch it. Move up a notch in price though and the forthcoming Nikon D300 may well put the squeeze on Canon’s hegemony in the DSLR marketplace. Time will tell, and no matter what happens we’ll all benefit from the renewed competition.

Definitely looking forward to some full reviews for this one.

While it’s a little bit sad that we can’t keep making up new rumors about the Canon 40D, I guess it’s a positive development that Canon has officially announced the camera today.

The major updates over the 30D are a dust reduction system (it looks like the same one that’s used on the Digital Rebel XTi), a resolution increase to 10 megapixels, 14-bit RAW files and a 14-bit A/D converter, a larger and brighter viewfinder, faster burst shooting speed (now 6.5 fps, and able to go for 70 JPEG images before filling the buffer), a Live View sensor, DIGIC III, and a larger LCD screen (3 inches).

Interestingly, they’ve added a few bits from the 1D line. The 40D now uses the same menu system as the 1D, and supports sRAW at 2.5 megapixels. sRAW is a lower resolution RAW file (“small RAW”) for situations when you want the flexibility and power of shooting RAW, but don’t need the camera’s full resolution and don’t want to use up that much storage space.

The autofocus system on the EOS 40D is 9-point, all of which are cross-type AF points. The eight outer points are supposed to only work up to f/5.6, though, with the center point “capable of accurate focusing up to aperture f/2.8,” according to Canon’s press release. I have to assume the auto focus still works at larger apertures, but possibly not as well? The auto focus on my Canon 350D seems to work just fine at f/1.8, and I don’t have any lenses that go beyond f/1.8 to test with.

One awesome new feature which I haven’t seen mentioned much — and I guess it is a pretty simple one, but one which I’ve been wanting to see for a while — is that the ISO is permanently displayed in the viewfinder now. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve shot photos with the ISO set much higher than I thought it was, simply because I forgot to turn it back down after doing some low light shooting. This would (hopefully) have prevented that, and I’m glad to see it in the 40D.

Speaking of ISO, the 40D also adds an improved auto ISO setting. The Canon 30D had auto ISO, but only when you were using Auto mode or one of the scene modes, which wasn’t very helpful. With the 40D you can now use it in all modes. Unfortunately, it’s still not as powerful as the auto ISO functions that Nikon has had for a while, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

The Live View sensor can be used remotely (with included software) in a studio environment.

Canon announced a few other new products as well. There’s the Wireless File Transmitter WFT-E3, which will work with the 40D, which will even connect directly to a hard drive for tons of storage on a long shoot.

There are also two new EF-S lenses:

• EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS — I guess the main difference between the old EF-S 18-55mm kit lens is that it’s image stabilized? It’ll be interesting to see what the quality is like on this, Canon describes it as “affordable.” I’m not sure what the cheapest Canon IS lens is right now, but maybe this will be the new champion?
• EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS — Canon touts this as the longest focal range in the EF-S line so far, and says the image stabilizer offers 4 stops of shooting range improvement.

In conclusion, if anyone wants to buy me a 40D for my birthday — let’s just say that my birthday is whenever the 40D goes on sale — please feel free.

In case you haven’t seen the Canon 40D information leak from a Best Buy employee who took a picture of the info sheet and spread it around the Internet, let me catch you up.

It looks like the 40D will be released on September 2, 2007, and have a retail price — or, at least, a Best Buy price — of $1599. It’s unclear whether that’s the body only or if it includes a kit lens of some sort as well.

There are a few more specs floating around the net, although it’s not clear of those are coming from the same Best Buy source or from somewhere else, or if they were just made up by someone with too much time on their hands. Those specs say that the 40D will will have a 10.2 megapixel CMOS sensor, a 2.5 inch LCD display, and a 100-3200 ISO range. It also gets 5 fps burst shooting speed and somehow improved metering. And, of course, DIGIC III and dust removal.

As with all these early rumors, we’ll just have to see what happens.