Canon EOS 40D

The 40D has a host of natty features......

Canon 40D SLR Camera

The world of professional photography is generally divided in two - Canon V's Nikon. I'm a Canon man. It hasn't always been that way. In fact, my first professional level camera body was a Nikon F5. But once I started down the Canon route (largely because I was impressed by their range of telephoto lenses), there was no looking back.
Now they are pioneers of digital image gathering, and the range of DSLRs (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras they offer is extensive and a little bewildering.

I have followed the progress of the high-end consumer models from their very beginnings, first with the 10D, then the 20D, 30D and now, the 40D.
Of course, you get what you pay for to a large degree, and a camera body that costs under £1k can't compete on every level with one that will set you back over £5k! But the 40D does a pretty good job of it, and for wildlife photography it includes several features that make it shine over some of its bigger, more expensive cousins.

Bear with me for a mo whilst I get a bit techy on you.

For the Wildlife Photographer, there are major plus points with the 40D:

Chip
Frame rate
Size



Let's start with the chip, i.e., the wee box of tricks that has replaced film in a digital camera. The 40D has a chip that effectively converts any lens you put on the camera by1.6X. This compares to the so called "full frame" sensors in the Canon range (5D, 1Ds MkIII etc) which have a chip that is the same size as 35mm film frame.
The up-side of this, and it's a big one for a wildlife photographer, is the effect it has on a telephoto lens. If I put my 500mm lens on my 40D, then it effectively becomes an 800mm lens. The image is still using 10.1 megapixels (that’s a lot of dots and plenty enough for most of the professional applications I might wish to use, from magazine articles to A3 sized art prints) but now I have moved in that bit closer, and that can make a big difference when working with elusive critters.
The negative end of this effect is that wide-angle lenses are not as wide on the smaller chip, but the 40D will take some of Canon’s super wide lenses to compensate for this.

When it comes to the image pumped out by this little gem of a chip, the colours are rich and faithful to the subject, the contrast is well handled (if properly exposed and white balanced, the whites don't burn and there's good detail in the blacks) and detail is superb. I have cropped in to images by quite a percentage and been very happy that the result is still crisp and publishable.

Now to the Frame Rate. A blistering 6.5 frames per second! This compares to the EOS 5D at 3 fps and the MkIII 1DS at 5fps. Only the 1D MkIII betters it at 10fps.

If a rapid frame rate doesn't matter much to you, you may be better off going for the excellent 5D (which I shall deal with another day)
But if, like me, you often want to rattle off frames on a fast moving subject, be it a bird or a cheetah in full flight, then those extra images can really make the difference between capturing the moment, or not.
Once you press and hold the shutter release on the High frame rate setting, its scary how rapidly the 40D belts through the image processing exercise. The buffer (the memory that holds onto images whilst they are being processed onto your memory card) is amazingly good. If course, just how many shots you squeeze off before the camera calls time depends on the specification you have set and the speed of your memory card, but at the highest spec. i.e. RAW files, you can certainly get through about 20 frames in 4 seconds before things start to clam up a bit. If you are using Large JPEG, you can get through about 100 frames in less than 20 seconds before things slow down. That’s amazing!


And so to size. Like its predecessors, the 40D is light, pretty compact, and very comfy to use. Like all the EOS series, it incorporates a user interface that is intuitive and remains consistent throughout the range (more or less) so if you know your way around a Canon digital SLR, there won't be many nasty surprises. The big change with this body is the large screen. It’s much larger than its predecessors, and as a result, very user friendly in the field.

The 40D has a host of natty features, like "live view" on the LCD screen (which I haven't found a use for yet!), to Sensor Cleaning every time you switch the camera on or off, which does keep those annoying lumps of micro dust at bay. It also has a "silent shutter" mode, which makes the mirror stay in the "up" position until you take your finger off the button. Soooo, if you have a roe deer listening to you, 10m away, you can take the shot (this is almost silent) and wait for the deer to look away or put its head down before letting the mirror return for the next shot (the noisiest part of the image taking process, though still pretty quiet.)
The ISO range (how sensitive the chip is to available light) is super, and even at ISO 400, the image is crisp and punchy. Indeed, once you get into the upper reaches of sensitivity (3200) the image of course gets grainy, but I rather like this look, and if it gets you the shot of the leopard or the badger that you would otherwise miss, then super!

I shall continue to put the 40D through its paces and add to this review as any issues / good points crop up.