Canon EOS 40D Review

Words by Julian Lass

No product is perfect for everyone, but the new EOS 40D from Canon comes pretty damn close. Although Canon is currently the number one DSLR manufacturer across the globe, the middle area between entry-level and pro is fast becoming the most competitive. With the 40D, Canon has launched a camera that will have immense appeal for both advanced amateurs hankering after top quality images and pros looking for a suitable travel model.

The 40D’s body construction is the same as that of its predecessor, the EOS 30D, employing a stainless steel chassis. Again, as with the 30D, the exterior has a high-quality, black satin finish with a non-slip texture, and the main exterior covers at the top, front, and rear are made of magnesium alloy. The EOS 40D improves by adding a black foam seal to the CF card slot cover and battery compartment cover to improve dust- and water-resistance.

The foam is of the light-tight variety you find in the backs of film cameras. It also sports a new, enlarged pentaprism and the viewfinder looks bigger with less vignetting or edge cut-off when you look through it. A nice touch is the full-time display of the active ISO speed in the viewfinder, as well as on the top LCD.

The 10.1 million pixel CMOS sensor in the EOS 40D has been designed and developed by Canon, and although it’s based on the Canon EOS 400D’s, it also improves on it. Normally, the larger the pixel size, the lower the noise, but Canon claims the new sensor gives the same ISO range and low noise as the EOS 30D, even though the individual pixels on the 30D are larger.

This is something to do with new processes incorporated in the tiny lenses above each pixel. Not as entry-level bling as the EOS 400D, but oozing more sophistication, you’d be hard pressed to see any difference in image quality between the two cameras, but the 14-bit processing on the 40D should give marginally better images from Raw on paper, simply because it produces more colours.

To you and me though, the results seen on an A4 print at a normal viewing distance will be exactly the same with both. The EOS 40D also boasts a rapid 6.5 frames-per-second shooting speed, thanks largely to two new driving motors, which is great for ‘cannon’ shooting the local football team. Canon says it has a maximum burst of 75 shots in JPEG Large/Fine and approximately 17 shots in Raw. By comparison, the maximum burst for the EOS 30D was 30 JPEGs, so that’s an impressive 150 per cent increase.

In practice using a 2GB SanDisk Extreme IV CF card, the Raw shooting speed was indeed around the 17 mark, but shooting at high speed at the Large JPEG setting, the camera machine-gunned on for 140 images. Now that’s nearly four times more.

The most easily visible upgrade though is the whopping three-inch LCD screen, which dominates the rear. The whole rear layout is more EOS-1D Mark III than EOS 30D, right down to the extra AF-ON auto focus activation button, which sits comfortably under your thumb. This similarity extends to the menu system, which is organized in the same tabbed format as the Mark III.

I much prefer it to the laboured menu system of my EOS 5D. It also signals Canon’s intent to make camera operation more uniform throughout their professional and prosumer ranges, and Canon claims that the operation method, screen design, and specifications were kept as much as possible the same as those of the Mark III. By the way, an added advantage of the larger-sized display is the ability to use a larger font size for text, making it easier to read.

The 40D retains the same excellent 35-zone metering sensor as the 30D. The camera’s E-TTL II auto flash and 12 exposure control modes are also unchanged from the 30D, but Canon has now added three Custom exposure modes, the C1-C3 mode settings. You could have C1 programmed for landscapes, C2 for hand held and C3 for fast action, each with your preferred ISO, white-balance and exposure settings – that’s really quite useful.

Also, you can now adjust the flash settings of the Canon Speedlite 580EX II directly from the camera, useful for wireless flash operation. The E-TTL II auto exposure algorithm of the EOS 40D is another thing it’s borrowed from the EOS-1D Mk III’s E-TTL II autoexposure algorithm.

With the EOS 30D, the selected metering mode was used to meter the ambient light, but now, as with the EOS-1D Mark III, evaluative metering is used to meter the ambient light. This is great if you’re shooting on the hoof, but I’d much prefer to retain the option to use spot metering when using flash if I want to. The in-built flash unit has a guide number of 13 at ISO 100, providing a decent pop of light. It’s probably best for parties adding catchlights to eyes in dull lighting, and easing those harsh shadows in direct sunlight. In the creative modes, it’s enabled by a press of a button, otherwise it pops up automatically.

AF focusing is fast and responsive, and the nine area focus system locks accurately on to target. You can also select which one to use. Despite also being an acronym for Short Range Assault Weapon, sRaw is actually a means of cutting down Raw file sizes; it was first introduced earlier this year on the pro EOS-1D Mk III. Great, I hear you say, I can now fit 75 per cent more Raws on my memory card, because while a Raw file takes up around 12.4MB on the 40D, giving you 156 images on a 2GB CF card, an sRaw occupies just 7.1MB, giving a hefty 275 images.

But hang on, all is not as it seems. For a start, why shoot sRaw and not JPEG, which when uncompressed will contain four times the information of sRaw, but compresses to a file size of just 3.5MB? If you want to save space, this seems the best way to go – 550 shots on a 2GB card.

There are rumours on many web forums that since sRaw uses four pixels for every one used when shooting Raw, this equates to a larger ‘virtual’ pixel size and therefore lower noise. This is something called 2x2 pixel binning, and if you want to know more, Google it. It’s true that pixel binning does reduce noise, it’s a method used on some digital compacts to counter the problem resulting from overpacking pixels on small sensors, but my tests didn’t show an appreciable difference when compared to a Raw file taken at a high ISO. The lower information in the sRaw image is more obvious than noise levels.

Continuing on that technical note, the EOS 40D also incorporates something Canon calls Highlight Tone Priority function, buried deep within the custom function menu, and first introduced with the Mark III. This expands dynamic range from the standard 18 per cent grey to bright highlights for more tonal detail in areas such as clouds at ISOs between 200 and 1600. In practice it worked well. Film has a better capacity than a digital sensor for rendering detail in highlights when there’s extreme contrast ranges, and expanding the dynamic range in this way is a good attempt to mimic this capacity. This is also something found on the Nikon D200, D300 and D3.

The 40D also has a self-cleaning sensor unit attached to a standard filter in front of the sensor. This filter shakes itself down whenever you turn the camera on or off, but this can also be operated manually, or you can disable it. Canon states that the shake system will eliminate most dust, but you can also choose to append Dust Delete Data. This allows you to later erase the dust spots via the appropriate setting in the camera’s custom function menu and the supplied Digital Photo Professional software. In practice both systems work well, though a third, and quicker, option is to clean the sensor yourself.

SPECIFICATION

Manufacturer:    Canon
Model:    EOS 40D
Price:    £1010 plus 17-85mm USM
Distributor:    canon.co.uk
Resolution:    10.1-megapixels
Lens mount:    Canon EF, EF-S
Focal length:    Approx 1.6x magnification
Sensor:    22.2x14.8mm
Autofocus:    9 areas
Exposure:    Evaluative (35 zone), centre system weighted, partial (9%), spot (3.8%)
Exposure modes:    Creative Zone: P, Av,Tv,M, Custom 1,2,3, A-DEP, Full Auto; Basic Zone: Portrait, Landscape, Close-Up,Sports, Night Portrait, Flash Off
ISO range:    100-1600 in 1/3 EV steps plus 3200
Shutter speeds: 30-1/8000sec, in 1/3 EV and 1/2 EV steps, plus B, Flash sync at 1/250sec
Viewfinder:    95% of actual image
Monitor:    Rear TFT LCD 3in. Live view shows 100% of image
Flash:    Yes, GN 13m (ISO 100) file formats Canon Raw, sRaw, JPEG (six levels). Raw and JPEG simultaneous
Image size:    3888x2592 pixels
Storage media:    CompactFlash, Type I or II
Drive system:    6.5fps, 75 frame JPEG buffer
Battery:    BP-511,512 or 514. With Battery Grip BG-E2N or BG-E2 attached, AA-size batteries can be used
Dimensions:    146x108x74mm (wxhxd)
Weight:    740g body only

PROS AND CONS

The movable focus spot in Live View acts as a moveable spot meter. The clunk of the shutter. The huge LCD

In Live View, focus restricted to manual. The multi-controller knob is fiddly for larger hands

VERDICT

Photographers such as Erik Refner, World Press Photo of the Year award winner, was asked by Canon to test the EOS 30D at its launch. For the rest of us, the 40D is simply a great camera at a great price, producing prize winning images. It also costs less than the EOS 5D, so it’s attractive if you want some change left for a top optic as well. It also has appeal for EOS 20D and 30D users wishing to step up to a sturdier camera than the 400D.

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