Evaluation:     
Conclusion: The best professional Camera in the market. Review: Hi everyone,
Before I purchased canon EOS 40D, I had done my home work. What I mean by that is checking every web site for the best camera in the market, every search engine for the best price and quality, consumer reports, consumer reviews and most of the retail store reviews online. Believe me when I tell I have been lsearching for 4 months at least! Here is the conclusion: This is the best (Budget wise $1300 - $2500) professional camera in the market in term of picture resolution, picture quality (not too red or too white, great skin tone), Image stabilization(when you use your hand not the tripod), sport pictures (moving objects, this camera takes 6 pictures/SECOND!!!), Easy to use (you have to read the manual for few hours first), The quality of the picture, the quality of the camera( not too light and not heavy), and the durability (if you take care of this camera, it will stay working with the same efficiency for 20 years at least!
Remember, Canon professional grade cameras are the most expensive ones in the market, Do you know why? Because you pay for what you get. It is an asset for every home, business, or any time you need a camera to take memorable pictures.
P.S. All parts in this Camera even the battery are made in JAPAN.
Good Luck.
Evaluation:     
Conclusion: Amazing Canon 40D camera. Love it Review: Amazing Camera.I bought it for sport events. Make amazing pictures in low light places. Really good bargain.
The only complain is about a big screen with low resolution.
It's not always clear if pictures are sharp.
Evaluation:     
Conclusion: A solid step forward with room to improve Review: Pro:
- Speed: power-up, continuous shooting. The high speed mode is so fast that I have to switch to the normal speed so I don't waste disk space all the time, and I am shooting raw+JPG on a SanDisk UltraII, not exactly the top of line disk. Comparing to my XT350D it's day and night. Canon seems to have solved the bottle neck of data communication between the camera and the disk once and for all! Feels like I can create an animation movie with this camera!
- ISO 800/1600 is dramatically better than 350D, ISO1600 is very useful now. ISO 800 is favorably comparable to ISO400 on the 350D. In fact now I found my old pictures from 350D@ISO400 to be annoyingly 'noisy'. Thought they were pretty clean before. This is especially true with the pics I took under indoor low lights.
- Customizable settings, very helpful (But could use a lot more of these considering how awful the overall menu/button/switch combo are needed to get to the core functionalities! But I'd rather wish for a more streamlined redesign on Canon's part...)
- Works better with 580EX flash than my 350D XT, far better. 350D seems to have a hard time figuring out how much flash it needs in auto mood. Not 40D, fortunately.
- Battery life is very long. I was fiddling with the camera all night last night, figuring out the settings and features, flashing shooing, deleting, shooing, changing settings. Not one bar was lost on the battery today!
- Viewfinder is brighter and bigger, great! I can actually do some MF indoor with very little light!
Neutral:
- Build quality doesn't feel significantly better than my 350D, slightly maybe. The battery door is better, to a degree. The rubber pieces covering the USB/power/video are of questionable quality fit.
Con:
- No improvement on AWB in indoor lighting, still come out with odd looking color - awful. Flash solve the problem, but still awful.
- Menu system is convoluted, too many buttons/switches and the combination of them to get to the things I need. Why the 3 position power switch, why in that awful location? (I know, that is Canon position, but still, why? Power up is so fast, but from that location? Also, the print button is useless, so is the joystick, not much joy to use, and not much use at all. If these switches have to be there, at least give them more work to do!) This really is a software design issue. Canon should hire some consultants from Honda/Toyota. The layout and functionality on a Honda/Toyota counsel is so much straightforward comparing to a Chevy or a Lincoln. Americans use to believe that is because the Japanese cars are cheap with fewer functionalities.Might have been somewhat true 15 years ago. But the real genius in those simplified straightforwardness prove to be true winner in the end. There's always ways to do things in a lot fewer steps. Under the current design, the customization functions are much needed, but only as a last resort, should never be a substitution for fixing the somewhat time-honored poor design from Canon. Many folks like myself are still with Canon because its line of lenses and 3rd parties support too. But that might change. When I saw Nikon's new offerings, I almost jumped the ship...
- AE/over expose under bright sunlight, this is true with 350D as well. I sent my 350D for fixes back twice, and didn't fix the problem. Probably the problem lies in the hardware I am afraid rather than calibration. And too bad Canon only supports +-2 compensation. Under bright sunlight -1.2-1.7 seems to be about right for me.
- Auto-dust cleaning system is not working for me. My brand new 40D got dust spots on my ocean view pictures already, and many of them. I didn't switch lenses often and I didn't shoot in dusty places. Canon should save the dust info into RAW so each pics can be digitally cleaned afterwards. As it stands, dust data collecting is not straightforward at all.
- The LCD is big, but prove to smear and of very odd color. The resolution and color accuracy are simply not present. This probably was a cost cutting measure? Too bad. Bigger is not always better.
- The new software pack is faster and more useful. But raw processing is still slow. And 40D is only a 10mp camera and 1Ds doubles that, imagine that! My PC is quite up to date with 2GB RAM. But I still have to use raw to get the real picture I intended. JPG is so often ruined by the AE/AWE problems beyond rescue.
Bottom line:
A very solid and useful DSLR has very strong features in speed shooting. But the old AWB and AE problem remain unsolved. The menu system is a nightmare. What happened to user-friendliness? Ease-of-use? Straightforwardness? Making complicated things simple is genius. The other way around? Well, call it whatever you want.
40D is not the flagship, priced at $900+ is a bargain. But still, buyers of this group is not exactly in for the bargain. Just hope Canon can really solve the AWB/AE problems in the near future. Oh, a better LCD too. Bigger is not always better, so true here!
Evaluation:     
Conclusion: Not so complicated Review: I bought this camera for my trip to Europe and was very impressed with the quality of the pictures it takes. For being such a high-tech camera its also very easy to use. Most of the complicated features kick in automatically on their own when they are supposed to do. The camera is also a respectable size, not the smallest, but definitey not too big.
Evaluation:     
Conclusion: Awesome! Review: Out of the box the Canon 40D works great. I am very impressed how simple it is to shoot great shots witht this camera and lens combo. It has more features than most SLR's and I am very happy with my purchase. I highly recommend this camera and escpecially at this price point!
|