We have recently had the new Canon 40d added to our fleet, and so far so good…
I used the camera for the first time photographing junior football training for the Times, shot at 1600 iso under floodlights. I used the 40d on the 80-200, the IDS Mk2 on the 24-70 and the 1dMk2 on the 400DO.
All the cameras were set up at the same exposure and colour balance.
The 40d was the fastest on the AF, aquiring images faster and holding them better than either of the other two cameras, I felt that the AF sensors were more sensitive than those on the 1dmk2. (However the lens was a 2.8 versus the f4 on the 1d…)
The 6.5 fps seemed more than adequate, and with the faster af I felt that the camera was better in those circumstances than the 1d, certainly I had more/better pics from the 40d than the 1d.
Noise seemed comparable, with the 1ds slightly ahead.. and the 1d slightly behind.
Colour was excellent, with the Highlight priority on, the whites and highlights held up better on the 40d than the 1d.
So, very pleased, and excellent value for money… Certainly I would not hesitate to say that the camera is entirely adequate for all the sports that we do, We still have not seen what it is like in ideal circumstances, but for high ISO work, it seems to meet or exceed the expectations that I had. As a news/sport camera it looks great, and I think that we will have to think hard about justifying the extra money for 1dmk3 for that sort of work .
Overall its a great little machine, light, reponsive, well screwed together, feels good in the hand. Ive bolted on the grip from my 20d, and it works fine. There is a glitch with Adobe not seeing the raw files, but DPP works fine, and there appears to be firmware update on the way.
Overall , very pleased.
