Rembert Oldenboom
New member
Bought the 400d just over two weeks ago and tried to master it with two tennis tournaments. As the 400d with kit lense wasn't on stock, I bought the body with an 18-200 Tamron lense. I already had a 540 EZ flash although this one can only be used in manual mode (for the digital Canon cameras one better use a flash from the EX series).
At first I had some troubles with the autofocus and needed to get used on how to make last second changes to the settings - my previous camera was the Canon Powershot G2 and before that I had a EOS 650 (still have that one). Using the camera software I checked what went wrong and how to improve my skills.
A week later I went island hopping in Scotland - visited Kintyre, Isla, Mull and Iona - and took marvellous pictures, great sunsettings, great landscapes, wonderful portraits of sheep (never thought of making portraits of sheep but it's very interesting) and some shots (without flash) in a dark abbey. Most pictures cristal sharp. Did play a lot with the ISO settings and other settings.
The camera handles well and is very quickly in response. Making changes to your settings is very easy, at least compared to the G2 on which changing the settings means pushing far too many buttons. Battery life is good enough although I'll buy another cell just to be sure.
I was a bit unsure of the weight of the camera. I don't like light camera's as it won't improve your stability. But IMO the 5D is just too heavy. But with the Tamron lense the camera weight feels just right.
Value for money? Yes, indeed, but I got about 25% discount on the camera + Tamron lense to accommodate the error of not having the kit on stock (which was actually Canon's fault).
Problems:
The button for focus point selection is on the wrong spot, it's not easy to grab that button while holding the camera close to your eye. Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to it.
I don't like the way the autofocus is working with the built-in pop-up flash: it will fire many flashes in order to focus. But this was easily solved by clicking on the 540 EX flash (with omnibounce). The manual mode forced me to do some thinking - I have never made pictures with flash with such natural colors. I always ended up in a fight with flash, never could master how to use the flash properly but now I'm getting the drift.
I don't have really large hands (I do play the alt and soprane saxophone as well as guitar) but the grip is just a bit too small, even for me. I'd like to have a 5 mm wider grip.
No spot metering.
At first I had some troubles with the autofocus and needed to get used on how to make last second changes to the settings - my previous camera was the Canon Powershot G2 and before that I had a EOS 650 (still have that one). Using the camera software I checked what went wrong and how to improve my skills.
A week later I went island hopping in Scotland - visited Kintyre, Isla, Mull and Iona - and took marvellous pictures, great sunsettings, great landscapes, wonderful portraits of sheep (never thought of making portraits of sheep but it's very interesting) and some shots (without flash) in a dark abbey. Most pictures cristal sharp. Did play a lot with the ISO settings and other settings.
The camera handles well and is very quickly in response. Making changes to your settings is very easy, at least compared to the G2 on which changing the settings means pushing far too many buttons. Battery life is good enough although I'll buy another cell just to be sure.
I was a bit unsure of the weight of the camera. I don't like light camera's as it won't improve your stability. But IMO the 5D is just too heavy. But with the Tamron lense the camera weight feels just right.
Value for money? Yes, indeed, but I got about 25% discount on the camera + Tamron lense to accommodate the error of not having the kit on stock (which was actually Canon's fault).
Problems:
The button for focus point selection is on the wrong spot, it's not easy to grab that button while holding the camera close to your eye. Maybe it's just a matter of getting used to it.
I don't like the way the autofocus is working with the built-in pop-up flash: it will fire many flashes in order to focus. But this was easily solved by clicking on the 540 EX flash (with omnibounce). The manual mode forced me to do some thinking - I have never made pictures with flash with such natural colors. I always ended up in a fight with flash, never could master how to use the flash properly but now I'm getting the drift.
I don't have really large hands (I do play the alt and soprane saxophone as well as guitar) but the grip is just a bit too small, even for me. I'd like to have a 5 mm wider grip.
No spot metering.