I was surprised on Friday to get an email from my local camera shop to say they had a couple of 40Ds in stock. I couldn’t get to the shop on Saturday, so finally got to pickup my new camera yesterday.
And this is it!
Ok, not the best of photos of it at that scale, but thats not what counts!
So yesterday I took it for a test over Farnham park to see what I could find. I managed to try it out on some Dragonflies so it was a good test.
So what did I think. Well firstly, reviewing the photos is now so much easier with the large screen, instead of tiny on on the 20D. The screen is now 3″ increased from 2.5″ on the 30D, sadly though, it is the same pixel resolution. It could have to increased a bit to see how sharp the images really are.
Speed and Focusing. Wow its quick! I found that I was accidentally taking several photos, whilst concentrating on the subject with my finger held on the shutter. I’m not sure if it was just me, or the shutter pressure is less? Focusing with the AF points also was a lot more precise, although some of the images did seem to focus slightly off were I thought it was focusing. Saying that, I was trying to focus on a dragonflies head at 3-4 metres and it seemed to focus on the body. So that could have been me.
I found the colours to be excellent on the standard setting. The Auto ISO useful, however why restrict it to 400-800? Also, why not allow you to go backwards from Auto to 1600 on the dial instead of having to turn through the whole range (maybe there is a custom function). ISO 800 seems to be a bit better than the 20D, but the 1600 is a big improvement.
The ISO in the viewfinder is great, but I needed to remember the shutter speed is on the left! Where its always been! Just a little distracting at the moment. The ISO on the display all the time is also great, as is the extra battery lights (not sure if the 30D had that). The warning on the CF door is of course great, but I never had any issues with that problem, but I guess if I had lost images, then this is a god send!
The erase all feature seems to have gone from the erase button and is now in a menu. (was the 30D like that, or is this because of the 1D menus?) I added it to the user menu, but I admit I tend to use format these days as it takes ages to delete a 2gig card in the 20D. Also, a lot of people recommend formatting the cards regularly to avoid card errors, although I haven’t had those problems.
So with the increased megpixels and fast burst with a bigger buffer, this is going to be a great help with my wildlife photos.
I have ordered a new San Disk extreme III card as I think my card needs to be a bit quicker!