R Valentino
Senior Member
My 30D was at Canon service for calibration- didn't know if it was coming in before this Saturday, Tallyns had a 40D in stock, I ordered it. Of course my 30D came in the same day as the 40D. Oh well.
The weather has been cloudy and rainy since I got it. Managed to take some shots yesterday and today.
Impressions: 40d
It meters better in evaluative and more accurately in the other modes.
It feels better, just a little bigger, different. Just enough for it to be more comfortable to hold, especially with the 70-200/2.8 attached.
It's faster of course and feels it when using high speed continuous.
Shutter sounds much better
VF is brighter, hard to tell about bigger, I haven't compared it with the 30d directly, just from memory.
VF info is much easier to see in daylight
The custom user settings are great. I can set the camera for Af-On button focus, but be able to put it on any other mode and give it to my wife or anyone and they can focus and shoot with the shutter button. What a relief! Can't tell you how hard it is to get non-technical types to be able to push 2 different buttons at the same time.
LCD is much more color accurate. Maybe a little easier to see outdoors. It's still not sharp enough to actually check focus though- as expected.
IQ- I'm not going to bother doing back to back pixel peeping with my 30D.
But the 40D seems to have less shadow noise- especially in jpeg even without high ISO NR on and even with HTP on.
High ISO noise in RAW seems to be about the same- maybe a tad more with the 40D, but it seems to have less chroma noise, and for me I find it easier to deal with luminance noise anyway. Noise seems to be finer grained- maybe the result of smaller pixels.
So about the same level of noise and 2 more MPs. That's an improvement.
Color, saturation etc.. all seem very good. I like the standard picture style for jpegs with sharpening plus 1. Of the photos I took the last 2 days I only upped the saturation on a couple and they were all taken under overcast skies. So I think that 's good.
AF- mixed bag. I haven't tried using just the outer AF points yet to see if they actually are useful at F2.8 (on the 30d they were not). Can't really tell any difference in speed, feels about the same.
AI Servo seems a little better, but Canon said my 30D had to be adjusted for back focus. With the 40D I still got some back focused images where other players were in the frame, even though the Af point was on the intended target.
I also still got some shots where nothing was in focus. So AI servo maybe the same to a little better. Again I'm not going to compare back to back as it is what it is.
Overall I think it is an improvement. VF and Custom user settings, better (not sharper) LCD and faster overall performance with and overall slight improvement in IQ, and a better fit all add up to a nice improvement.
And I need all the help I can get. Some of you could use an old brownie instamatic and beat the pants off me.
I don't profess to have much photographic skill, nor am I likely to acquire it any time soon. I just do the best I can. So any improvement in technology that can help me is worth it to me.
The 30D will now be heading for the sale section-
A few images to follow if anyone's interested. Nothing great, but 40D samples nonetheless.
Gene
The weather has been cloudy and rainy since I got it. Managed to take some shots yesterday and today.
Impressions: 40d
It meters better in evaluative and more accurately in the other modes.
It feels better, just a little bigger, different. Just enough for it to be more comfortable to hold, especially with the 70-200/2.8 attached.
It's faster of course and feels it when using high speed continuous.
Shutter sounds much better
VF is brighter, hard to tell about bigger, I haven't compared it with the 30d directly, just from memory.
VF info is much easier to see in daylight
The custom user settings are great. I can set the camera for Af-On button focus, but be able to put it on any other mode and give it to my wife or anyone and they can focus and shoot with the shutter button. What a relief! Can't tell you how hard it is to get non-technical types to be able to push 2 different buttons at the same time.
LCD is much more color accurate. Maybe a little easier to see outdoors. It's still not sharp enough to actually check focus though- as expected.
IQ- I'm not going to bother doing back to back pixel peeping with my 30D.
But the 40D seems to have less shadow noise- especially in jpeg even without high ISO NR on and even with HTP on.
High ISO noise in RAW seems to be about the same- maybe a tad more with the 40D, but it seems to have less chroma noise, and for me I find it easier to deal with luminance noise anyway. Noise seems to be finer grained- maybe the result of smaller pixels.
So about the same level of noise and 2 more MPs. That's an improvement.
Color, saturation etc.. all seem very good. I like the standard picture style for jpegs with sharpening plus 1. Of the photos I took the last 2 days I only upped the saturation on a couple and they were all taken under overcast skies. So I think that 's good.
AF- mixed bag. I haven't tried using just the outer AF points yet to see if they actually are useful at F2.8 (on the 30d they were not). Can't really tell any difference in speed, feels about the same.
AI Servo seems a little better, but Canon said my 30D had to be adjusted for back focus. With the 40D I still got some back focused images where other players were in the frame, even though the Af point was on the intended target.
I also still got some shots where nothing was in focus. So AI servo maybe the same to a little better. Again I'm not going to compare back to back as it is what it is.
Overall I think it is an improvement. VF and Custom user settings, better (not sharper) LCD and faster overall performance with and overall slight improvement in IQ, and a better fit all add up to a nice improvement.
And I need all the help I can get. Some of you could use an old brownie instamatic and beat the pants off me.
I don't profess to have much photographic skill, nor am I likely to acquire it any time soon. I just do the best I can. So any improvement in technology that can help me is worth it to me.
The 30D will now be heading for the sale section-
A few images to follow if anyone's interested. Nothing great, but 40D samples nonetheless.
Gene
