THE EOS 40D MEETS THE BIRD-IN-THE-FIELD
When digital photography was first introduced, I was skeptical. When I acquired my
first digital SLR camera I was amused.
But now, having spent several days intensively photographing shorebirds
along the Outer Banks of North Carolina using Canon's new EOS 40D
camara, I am officially impressed.
The 40D is a 10-Megapixel
DSLR camera with a 1.6x crop
factor, which
means that it crams roughly 10 million pixels into a sensor of size
22mm
by 15mm (i.e., about 40% smaller than a standard 35mm film cell).
Nikon has a similar offering (the D80), though I've not
experimented with that model, being limited by the fact that all the
lenses I own are for Canon EF mount. What I can say about the
Canon 40D is that for bird photography, at least, the critical
threshold
for replacement of film in real-world applications has (in my opinion)
finally been crossed. This camera coupled with an 800mm
telephoto lens is capable of delivering stunning images of birds at a
close distance (i.e., 30-50 feet) with plenty of room for creative
cropping to achieve desired composition.
In this review I will attempt to
summarize the features and developments accompanying this new product
release from Canon, with a strong emphasis on the implications of this
new camera for bird photography.
RESOLUTION
The 40D has a slightly higher Megapixel
count than the 30D: 10.1
megapixels for the 40D, versus only 8.3 for the 30D. That's a
mere 22% increase over the older model. Since both models sport a
1.6x crop factor, that's a 22% increase in the per-unit pixel density
--- i.e., not just an additional 2 Megapixels spread out over a larger
area of the CMOS sensor. Thus, you can expect a (roughly) 22%
increase in detail when photographing birds with this new model.
Is that a lot? I think so.
Just check out the fine detail in the eye-ring on this plover
below. The bird was over 20 feet away, and yet I was able to crop
the image so aggressively that it looks like I was sitting 6 inches
away with a macro lens:
Semipalmated Plover, Pea Island
National Wildlife Refuge
Canon EOS 40D + Sigma 800mm
f/5.6 HSM EX APO DG
@800mm,
f/11, 1/800 sec, ISO 400
Although many reviewers are describing the "resolution bump" for this
model as a very minor selling point, I find (as described below) that
the new model provides what I consider to be the ideal amount of detail
for birds photographed at a reasonably close distance through
reasonably powerful lenses.
Since most of the birds I photograph (like warblers) are very small, I
virtually always have to aggressively crop my images (even after my
sensor applies a 1.6x crop factor) in order to blow up the bird within
the frame. So for me, pixel density is very important, since it
limits how much digital zooming I can apply during post-processing of
my photos. The Canon EOS 40D sports the highest pixel density of any
Canon DSLR to date --- a whopping 175 pixels per millimeter. At a
street price of $1300, this level of detail and quality comes at a very
reasonable cost.
It should be noted, however, that there tends to be a trade-off between
resolution and image "noise", since smaller pixels mean smaller
photosites on the CMOS sensor, which individually capture less light
and are therefore subject to more statistical fluctuation (as well as
being potentially more limited by the effects of diffraction).
Indeed, it is a very interesting fact that the most expensive Canon
DSLR cameras are not those with the highest pixel densities, but rather
those with the largest pixels
and therefore the least noise (i.e., the EOS 1D series and the
now-legendary EOS 5D). As the state-of-the-art in digital imaging
technology advances, it will be interesting to see how this tradeoff
comes into play in defining the optimal resolution for serious bird
photography.
IMAGE QUALITY
The first thing I noticed, in the field, about the image quality of the
new EOS 40D is that, judging by the LCD on the back of the camera body,
the images appear to be significantly over-saturated. I found
this very disturbing, to say the least. I was much relieved when
I returned to my hotel room to find that upon uploading the images to
my laptop they looked perfectly natural chromatically. I only noticed
the over-saturation after adjusting the LCD brightness to the highest
setting (it being a very sunny day).
Black-bellied Plover, Cape
Hatteras National Seashore
Canon EOS 40D + Sigma 800mm
f/5.6 HSM EX APO DG
@800mm, f/11, 1/125 sec, ISO 400
I've read from other reviews of the 40D that the LCD image is much more
natural looking, without the "green cast" of the older 30D. I'd
have to object to this description, at least when LCD brightness is set
to the maximum setting. Perhaps for photographers working in a
studio (i.e., out of the bright sunlight), in which case the LCD
brightness can be set to a lower level, the colors may look more
natural. Out in the real world, however, where one has often to
contend with bright sunlight washing out the image on the LCD even
after shading it with your hand, the colors at the highest brightness
setting definitely appear over-saturated. Does this matter?
I don't think so. You simply need to re-calibrate your mental
model of the image quality as derived from the occasional peek at the
LCD during an in-the-field shoot. Image brightness and sharpness ---
the two things I have control over when using my camera --- seemed
perfectly representative of what I got out of the images at the end of
the day when viewed on my computer.
In terms of the actual color saturation of the final JPEG images when
viewed after upload to the computer, I've found that the images from
the 40D appear significantly less
saturated than they did from my EOS 30D. This is actually welcome news
to me, since I've found that on occasion the images from the 30D have
been a tad oversaturated (and indeed, I was under the assumption for
many months that my 800mm Sigmonster
lens was imparting too much saturation, whereas I now believe it was at
least partly the fault of the 30D --- see my Prairie
Warbler gallery for an example of the problems an inferior sensor
can have with intense yellows in bird plumage).
One very significantly improvement in the 40D derives from its use of
14 bit A/D color conversion, which results in smoother color
gradations, especially in the out-of-focus backgrounds around a
bird. For some images this improvement is quite obvious,
resulting in images that are strikingly more natural-looking than those
produced with the 30D. The colors themselves also seem more natural to
me. Personally, the color improvement alone would be worth the upgrade
from a 20D or 30D.
In terms of high-ISO noise, I've found that whereas I never felt very
comfortable increasing the ISO speed on my 30D to above 400, I now use
the 40D at ISO 500 and 640 exclusively, with the images still appearing
as good as or better than those coming out of the 30D. Although noise
is readily apparent when viewing the pixels at 100% magnification, the
noise levels appear very low at the typical image sizes which I
use. Even after aggressively cropping around a bird I find that
photos at ISO 640 produce smooth background gradients without obvious
noise.
I'll also mention in passing that I've tried the third-party software Noise Ninja to reduce the noise
level even further, but haven't noticed enough of a difference to make
the program worth buying at this point.
At the bottom of this article you'll find a wider sample
of images
taken with this camera.
THE FEEL
Although excessive weight is never a good thing for those of us who
sometimes have to hike quite a distance to arrive at the site of a
prospective shoot, I've always preferred cameras that have some heft to them. Part of the
reason is that I've found that laptop computers which feel too flimsy
often are too flimsy and end
up falling apart long before they would otherwise become obsolete.
In the case of cameras I simply prefer that a camera feel solid. A $1200 camera
shouldn't feel like a thin plastic casing with some electronics
rattling around inside. The new EOS 40D feels quite solid,
without feeling overly weighty. Part of that "solid" feeling is
due, however, to the external battery
grip (Mfg. #BG-E2N) which I now keep
permanently attached to the camera body. With the grip in place,
the 40D looks and feels more like a pro body --- i.e., like the EOS 1D
Mark II or III that Canon is hoping you'll upgrade to someday (for a
mere $4500, or $7500 for the "s" model).
With the superb image quality of the EOS 40D and the very pleasing
ergonomics of the unit with battery grip attached, I'm doubtful whether
I'd be any happier with a significantly more expensive pro body.
Lesser Yellowlegs, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge
Canon EOS 40D + Sigma 800mm f/5.6 HSM EX APO DG
@800mm, f/11, 1/320 sec, ISO 500
As has been noted by other reviewers, the rubber body armor of the 40D
feels just a bit "rubberier" than on the 30D, so that squeezing the
camera during
those moments of extreme photographic joy feels that much more
pleasurable. The 40D has also been contoured a bit more to fit
the photographer's right hand, and I've noticed this does feel better
than my 30D. In terms of actual weight, I've not noticed a
difference. The 40D feels as solid as the 30D did.
AUTOFOCUS
My main interest in the EOS 40D stemmed from a dissatisfaction with the
30D's autofocus capability. I've read several other reviews of
the 30D which criticised its autofocus. In my case, I'm
interested in maintaining maximal AF accuracy while tracking birds in
motion. I'm also concerned about the possibility of autofocus
mis-calibration, which is when the autofocus mechanism in the
camera
consistently focuses slightly in front of or behind the subject,
resulting in out-of-focus subjects or requiring the expenditure of
extra depth-of-field via stopping-down.
I've read reports of this happening with Canon cameras before,
especially from users of the 30D. Canon is apparently aware of
the problem, because in their new pro body, the EOS 1D Mark III, they
incorporated a custom function allowing the user to re-calibrate the AF
module.
More generally, I've just been dissatisfied with the AF accuracy in my
twin 30D's out in the field when photographing moving birds (i.e., in AI Servo mode). When
initially acquiring a bird in flight the 30D quite often hunts through
the entire focus range before finding the subject. It's 100 times
better than my old Nikon D50 with the Nikkor 80-400mm VR lens, but
still not perfect.
Tricolored Heron, Pea Island
National Wildlife Refuge
Canon EOS 40D + Sigma 800mm
f/5.6 HSM EX APO DG
@800mm, f/11, 1/1000 sec, ISO
400
What I've found so far with the new EOS 40D is that the AF
accuracy
does seem to be very good for large birds --- for those shots that are
"in focus", they
do appear to be perfectly in
focus, producing extraordinarily sharp images. Note that I've
also bumped up the "sharpness" setting in my "User-Defined Picture
Style" within the camera (see above), so that also increases the
apparent sharpness
of the resulting image, and may confound my impressions somewhat.
In terms of the number of in-focus versus out-of-focus shots, I'd say
subjectively that slightly more of the shots are in focus, though there
are
still a few inexplicable shots taken in rapid sequence of birds in
flight in which the first few and last few shots in the sequence are in
focus, but one or two of the shots in the middle of the sequence are
totally out of focus. Also, note that I'm still shooting mostly
at f/11 (though increasingly now at f/8), so any slight misfocusing by
the camera's AF can be masked by
the large depth-of-field.
Brown Pelican, Cape Hatteras
National Seashore
Canon EOS 40D + Sigma 800mm
f/5.6 HSM EX APO DG
@800mm, f/11, 1/1250 sec, ISO
500
So far I've only tested the 40D on one lens --- my big Sigma
800mm
monster lens, which probably is limiting the autofocus speed somewhat,
relative to a "real" Canon lens. I was unable to test it out with
my hand-held "flight shot" lens setup (the Canon 400mm DO f/4 lens plus
Canon 1.4x Extender EF II) because the other 40D body which I ordered
had to be shipped back to the merchant prior to my trip, due to a
missing warranty card in the package (see below).
American Black Duck, Pea Island
National Wildlife Refuge
Canon EOS 40D + Sigma 800mm f/5.6 HSM EX APO DG
@800mm, f/11, 1/640 sec, ISO 500
Although I briefly considered ordering an EOS 1D Mark III as my second
camera (I always go into the field with two cameras: one
tripod-mounted, and one hand-held for flight shots), I've decided to go
ahead and replace my other 30D with a second 40D. Unfortunately,
deciding to buy one is easier right now than actually finding a
reputable merchant with them in stock.
NEW FEATURES
Compared to the 30D, the 40D has a number of functional improvements,
though some are more useful to me than others. The one I'm most
excited about is the automatic "self-cleaning" sensor. Every time I
turn the camera on or off I see this displayed on the rear LCD:
The cleaning mechanism (so I've read) consists of a vibrating,
anti-static, low-pass filter in front of the CMOS sensor, as well as
one or more dust collection elements located somewhat away from the
sensor. This is the same mechanism introduced recently in the
cheaper XTi model; it's also available on the new EOS 1D Mark III pro
body. It's too soon for me to tell whether it's working. I
have read at least two reports of owners finding a couple bits of dust
on their sensor after using the camera for several weeks, so apparently
it isn't fool-proof. Even if it only reduces the amount of
visible dust which collects on my sensor, I'll be very happy; I've had
the sensors on my two EOS 30D's professionally cleaned only once, and
there are quite a number of photos on my site featuring visible dust
spots.
For this model Canon has increased the size of the rear LCD from 2.5
inches to 3 inches, though the LCD retains the same number of pixels,
so that the resolution of the LCD hasn't increased. In order to
increase the size of the LCD, Canon had to extend the LCD all the way
to the left edge of the camera's back, which, as it turns out, is where
my nose lives. Because my big 800mm lens doesn't sport Image
Stabilization, I employ the technique suggested by Art Morris of firmly
plastering my face against the back of the camera in order to help
stabilize it. As you can see below, after just three days of use
my LCD has become quite filthy:
My nose often hits the MENU button as well, though so far this hasn't
resulted in any problems (though I do sometimes wonder about the
chances of accidentally formatting my CF card...).
Canon has done a nice job of reducing the shutter noise with this
model. I always thought the 30D was ridiculously loud. I
can remember shooting with my 30D just a week and a half ago next to a
guy with a 40D at Huntington
Beach. The difference in shutter noise was amazing. It
really made me become more conscious about the noise my camera was
making, and I wondered if birds in a wilder location might be scared
away by it.
Other new features bear mentioning briefly, though I've not personally
tested them all out:
- 6.5 frames per second (this is very nice!)
- Highlight Tone Priority (I've not used it yet)
- Live View (I've not used it yet)
- 14-bit color conversion (better color gradation -- see
photos at end of article)
- Larger and higher-power viewfinder (should be useful for
manual focusing)
- High-ISO noise reduction (I keep this turned on)
Note that most of the images on this page were taken at ISO settings of
either 400 or 500. I did take a few shots at 640, but haven't had
time to sort through them yet. I've seen comparisons from other
users showing very little improvement in high-ISO noise compared to the
30D, but based just on the photos I took this weekend at ISO 500, I
think I can now bump my default ISO up to 500 instead of 400, which
should give me a modest improvement in shutter speeds in all
situations. So far I haven't noticed any noise whatsoever in any
of the ISO 500 photos taken with my 40D in the field. From that
I'd guess that
ISO's of 640 and even 800 may be quite useful in a pinch.
USER INTERFACE
I never had a problem with the 30D's user interface. Then again,
I'm a longtime computer user, so I guess menus don't scare me as much
as they do other people. Nevertheless, it's probably worth
mentioning that Canon has improved the menu system of the camera by
splitting the menu into multiple pages, with each page having an
associated icon.
As you can see from the image above, the icons are shown at the top of
the LCD. You use the dial on top of the camera to pick an icon /
menu page, and then rotate the dial on the back of the camera to select
an item in the menu. Quite simple. From there you drill
down through the menu to the given setting that you seek. I
expect with time I'll be able to navigate the menu more quickly, as a I
gradually memorize the meanings of the icons. For now it doesn't
seem particularly onerous, so I'm not sure it's even worth mentioning
any of this.
As one example, here are my "Picture Style" settings:
As you can see, I leave all settings at the default except for sharpness --- that I set to the
maximum value. I do this for two reasons: (1) I've found with the
30D that I almost always want to increase sharpness digitally during
post-processing of the images after their uploaded to the computer, and
(2) I've also noticed that the sharpening filter seems to create fewer
undesirable image artifacts if it's applied inside the camera (prior to
export in JPEG format) than if it's applied to the JPEG file after export to the
computer. This may be specific to the software
I'm using, but so far it seems to serve me well.
Note that I'm using JPEG-FINE for all my images. Until recently I used
JPEG-BASIC, but am now confident that the increased level of detail and
"manipulability" (is that a word?) are increased by using the more
bloated file format. So far I've never shot RAW --- not even a
single image --- though I regularly run into photographers who swear by
it. Maybe someday I'll try it, but not today.
In the screen-capture above you can see that Canon also split out the
"Custom Functions" menu into individual categories (Exposure, Image,
Autofocus, etc.). I always found the Custom Functions screen on
my 30D to be a bit clunky, so this seems to be an improvement.
Double-crested Cormorant, Pea
Island National Wildlife Refuge
Canon EOS 40D + Sigma 800mm
f/5.6 HSM EX APO DG
@800mm, f/11, 1/500 sec, ISO 500
BUILD QUALITY
As a final note, I want to comment on the build quality of Canon's
products. So far I've had very few problems with
the build quality of Canon products --- and I own quite a
few. In contrast, most of the third-party products I've bought
over the past year have started to fall apart within months of their
purchase. My big 800mm Sigma lens developed a serious problem
with its camera mount just four months after I bought it, requiring a
week of downtime for it to be serviced (under warranty) by Sigma.
I have heard of Canon lenses and cameras showing manufacturer defects
shortly after purchase, but so far I've not had any cases myself (other
than collimation issues, which I'll comment on later).
Snowy Egret, Pea Island
National Wildlife Refuge
Canon EOS 40D + Sigma 800mm
f/5.6 HSM EX APO DG
@800mm, f/11, 1/500 sec, ISO 500
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I think the Canon EOS 40D is not only a significant
improvement over the product which it is replacing (the 30D), but in
some sense represents a critical milestone in consumer-grade DSLR
products, at least for the very specialized purpose of bird
photography. In all honesty, I probably would have continued
using my twin 30D's for another year or so without complaint, had I not
recently discovered that Canon had upgraded the product to the new
40D. Nevertheless, I'm quite glad to have made the upgrade, and
am excited about the prospect of taking many photos with this wonderful
toy over the coming months.
Sanderling,
Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge
Canon
EOS 40D + Sigma 800mm f/5.6 HSM EX APO DG
800mm, f/8, 1/100 sec, ISO 500,
Flash -1
WHERE TO BUY
Right now (late October, 2007), buying the Canon EOS 40D can be a very
difficult proposition indeed. Most (or all?) of the reputable
merchants (i.e., Adorama, B&H, Ritz) seem to be out of stock and
are reporting a backorder situation, and the second-tier merchants are
peddling their usual sham offers.
As an example of the latter, I recently purchased a "new" 40D via
Amazon.com. I was expecting a new unit fresh
from the factory, though I don't usually object to items which have
been returned by buyers and then re-sold as new in the event that the
previous buyer returned the item in "new" (i.e., virtually pristine)
condition. In this case, the 40D had been returned without a
valid warranty card (the previous buyer probably made the stupid move
of filling out and mailing in the warranty card before making sure s/he
was completely satisified with the purchase), and missing several other
items, such as the non-English version of the user manual. I
always keep all elements of the original package so that when I go
to sell on eBay I can offer a
complete package, thereby encouraging higher bids. When I tried
to
return the unit, the merchant tried to talk me into keeping it.
Fortunately, in the end I
was able to return it for a full refund.
My advice is: always stick to the major dealers, and don't trust a
seller just because he/she is an Amazon Merchant. Adorama and
B&H (linked below) should be preferred over all others, in my
opinion, due to their honesty and their very flexible return
policies (especially Adorama). When ordering through Amazon.com,
check to see that the
product listing says "In Stock -- ships from and sold by Amazon.com"
rather than "In stock -- ships from and sold by
ShadyDealerXYZ.com". Unless you're desperate to have the item
ASAP in any
condition, it's just not worth dealing with the desperate second-tier
NYC camera shops; I don't recommend eBay either (except for selling
your old equipment --- and even then it's possible to be scammed, so
watch out!).
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