40D : LCD bad for checking focused pic

[tommy leong]

I tried to check if the pic is properly focused or not , but the
low resolution LCD simply cant tell at all.

I am not talking about total miss, but whether it was back or front focused.
Its the same with the 30D's LCD.
I had complained about it when it came out, but it seems most user
are ok with it..........its the same problem

I guess if those guys could live with 30D's LCD, surely they can live with 40D LCD.

I tred to zoom out, hoping that the smaller pics might look like the 10D LCD, and thus able to tell..........no hope there too

So we are stuck with this horrible low res LCD
I guess we have to work with it

--
http://www.tommyleong.com/tommyBlog

 

[Juli Valley]

I take it's no worse than the 20D or 30D. The LCD has never been good for that.
--
Juli
http://www.pbase.com/julivalley/galleries
Canon FiveDee, Canon 4oD, Canon Gee3, Canon S7o, Fuji Eff30, Sony Hnine.

 

[Shifter]

Are you saying we should bail out and go Nikon D300????

My god. What's going on?

Use a 300D LCD and then you'd know what you have.
Or... maybe not.

===============

I tried to check if the pic is properly focused or not , but the
low resolution LCD simply cant tell at all.

I am not talking about total miss, but whether it was back or front
focused.
Its the same with the 30D's LCD.
I had complained about it when it came out, but it seems most user
are ok with it..........its the same problem
I guess if those guys could live with 30D's LCD, surely they can live
with 40D LCD.

I tred to zoom out, hoping that the smaller pics might look like the
10D LCD, and thus able to tell..........no hope there too

So we are stuck with this horrible low res LCD
I guess we have to work with it

--
http://www.tommyleong.com/tommyBlog

 

[warren prasek]

...or $500 extra for all the goodies the 300D offers (pro AF, real AutoISO, AF micro-adjustment for lenses (YAY), better spot meter, on-demand VF gridlines etc etc)

Fingers crossed for the 5D MkII, but we all know it'll just be a FF 40D. sigh

(note- I am upgrading to a 40D from my 20D in the meantime)

--
warren prasek
web design ~ interactive media ~ photography
http://www.wprasek.com/
gearlist: a camera and some other stuff.

 

[tommy leong]

incidentally I bought along my trusty 300d when I was at the shop
IT IS BETTER than the 30D / 40D LCD
Not kidding, when its zoom in, you could tell if the focus is out
But not the 40D.......neither as is nor zoomed in, you just cant tell

Thats how bad

My god. What's going on?

Use a 300D LCD and then you'd know what you have.
Or... maybe not.

===============

I tried to check if the pic is properly focused or not , but the
low resolution LCD simply cant tell at all.

I am not talking about total miss, but whether it was back or front
focused.
Its the same with the 30D's LCD.
I had complained about it when it came out, but it seems most user
are ok with it..........its the same problem
I guess if those guys could live with 30D's LCD, surely they can live
with 40D LCD.

I tred to zoom out, hoping that the smaller pics might look like the
10D LCD, and thus able to tell..........no hope there too

So we are stuck with this horrible low res LCD
I guess we have to work with it

--
http://www.tommyleong.com/tommyBlog

--
http://www.tommyleong.com/tommyBlog

 

[Glenn W.]

What I've found is that if a photo really is in good focus and if you bump the sharpness setting up higher, you CAN see focus reasonably well on the LCD.

For those of you who shoot jpeg this may be of little or no help, but if you shoot RAW, bump the in camera sharpness up to 7, then zoom in all the way... you can see if the shot is in focus. If you shoot JPEG, you most likely do not want focus bumped up to 7, as it would likely make post processing a problem...

The other issue is that the camera views a smaller preview image and zooming in on the camera is not the same as zooming in on a full large jpeg... your really zooming in on the smallest jpeg.

I can tell you that on the Canon 300D, which has a even smaller LCD, I could always see focus better on it, then I could even on a 30D.

Bottom line... I personally don't feel that the problem is the resolution of the LCD, but more the resolution of the preview image... or at the very least it's a result of having both issues...

I tried to check if the pic is properly focused or not , but the
low resolution LCD simply cant tell at all.

I am not talking about total miss, but whether it was back or front
focused.
Its the same with the 30D's LCD.
I had complained about it when it came out, but it seems most user
are ok with it..........its the same problem
I guess if those guys could live with 30D's LCD, surely they can live
with 40D LCD.

I tred to zoom out, hoping that the smaller pics might look like the
10D LCD, and thus able to tell..........no hope there too

So we are stuck with this horrible low res LCD
I guess we have to work with it

--
http://www.tommyleong.com/tommyBlog

 

[Shifter]

...or $500 extra for all the goodies the 300D offers (pro AF, real
AutoISO, AF micro-adjustment for lenses (YAY), better spot meter,
on-demand VF gridlines etc etc)

I wish the 300D had those options. ;-)
Oh.. you meant the D300?
(strange why Nikon named their cam similar after the best selling
DSLR of all time...?)

Fingers crossed for the 5D MkII, but we all know it'll just be a FF
40D. sigh

(note- I am upgrading to a 40D from my 20D in the meantime)

I'm with you. Same here.

Shifter.

 

[Shifter]

I hope you're kidding.

The 30D and 40D LCDs are worse than a Drebel 300D's???

It can't be.

=====================

incidentally I bought along my trusty 300d when I was at the shop
IT IS BETTER than the 30D / 40D LCD
Not kidding, when its zoom in, you could tell if the focus is out
But not the 40D.......neither as is nor zoomed in, you just cant tell

Thats how bad

 

[EvanDavies]

I don't think its the screen but the fact that when viewing images on the LCD you are actually looking at a lower res JPG. Perhaps the 300D viewed the actual images and thats why it looks better. The LCD itself is obviously better on the newer cameras.

 

[Shifter]

I don't think its the screen but the fact that when viewing images on
the LCD you are actually looking at a lower res JPG. Perhaps the
300D viewed the actual images and thats why it looks better. The LCD
itself is obviously better on the newer cameras.

Even tilting the 300D abit will give a wrong reading on the LCD. It has
virtually no viewing angle other than straight on... and thats hard to find!
Trying to guage exposure is not possible on a 300d LCD due to that alone.
It goes light to dark when tilting the cam.

Trying to find sharpness is a joke with a 300D LCD even when zooming.

Shifter.

 

[BryanS]

Shooting JPG, you can check focus just fine. Shoot RAW and you're looking at a low-res jpg-representation on the screen. The D300 will be the same no matter how many pixels there are on that LCD.

Hmm, I wonder how well RAW+Large-JPG will do with this. Have to try that someday. Not that I'll regularly shoot that way, since they're such a waste of space.

--
BryanS

 

[SteveDude]

As others have said, it's a problem of zooming in on the super-small "preview" image stored with the jpegs. It would be great if canon would give you a "check focus" function that would do a zoom on the real image (it might take a few seconds due to the decompression, but would be worth it many times).

You can use live-view to do a focus check of course - that works great.

But the LCD is NOT the limiting factor here. Folks keep saying it's the low-res LCD but it simply is not the problem.

Steve

I don't think its the screen but the fact that when viewing images on
the LCD you are actually looking at a lower res JPG. Perhaps the
300D viewed the actual images and thats why it looks better. The LCD
itself is obviously better on the newer cameras.

--
http://www.pbase.com/stevegrillo , Equipment on profile page

 

[RomanB]

For those of you who shoot jpeg this may be of little or no help, but
if you shoot RAW, bump the in camera sharpness up to 7

And all this time I've been shooting RAW I didn't know that... do I feel stupid now... Thanks for the trick.

--
Roman
http://barshay.us/photo
http://public.fotki.com/rbarshay

 

[Kiddpeat]

You mean the one that isn't in production yet?

 

[warren prasek]

• same number of dots - 230,000 (ie 320x240 pixels, QVGA) in a smaller LCD (1.8" versus 3") means the 300D LCD would appear sharper - more dots per square inch. Smaller, but sharper.

Which is why everyone wants VGA for such a large LCD. Go Nikon, indeed!

--
warren prasek
web design ~ interactive media ~ photography
http://www.wprasek.com/
gearlist: a camera and some other stuff.

 

[Blackx]

... (according to the DPReview database) so this shouldn't be the reason.

 

[LarryPhoto]

It may not be the screen, think about how the eye works, look in your view finder, you are focusing on a distant object, you set the diopter adjustment. I am 45, my short vision has dropped, they're not the same. I use the veiwfinder to focus, the screen is not sharp enough for me.

 

[warren prasek]

--
warren prasek
web design ~ interactive media ~ photography
http://www.wprasek.com/
gearlist: a camera and some other stuff.

 

[timmer350]

it seems unbelievable that with the advent of huge CF cards, that Canon doesn't use a larger preview JPG - its about 10K in size right now! Can you imagine what a 250K JPG would be able to do? This could be done with a firmware update - not a higher resolution LCD fix - and in essence nullify the high-res LCD from Nikon (if their cams do allow better zooming in).

Tim

--
Gone birding...

Photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/timothyboucherbirder

 

[Henry Richardson]

Its the same with the 30D's LCD.
I had complained about it when it came out, but it seems most user
are ok with it..........its the same problem
I guess if those guys could live with 30D's LCD, surely they can live
with 40D LCD.

I have a 30D and several times have mentioned this problem. With my old KM 7D I could zoom in to 10x with one button press and could easily see if the shot was sharp. It is disappointing if the 40D hasn't been fixed.

--
Henry Richardson
http://www.bakubo.com