Canon 40D Review

By Michael David
Taltos Photography


Let me begin with a disclaimer. As there are as many "professional" photographers in the neighborhood as Nikon and Canon makes cameras, I'm going to write this from my personal experience with the camera and not from any "professional" level.

That said, owning a Canon 5D and 1DMark II, one might ask why buy the 40D? Curiosity for the most part. I read a lot of reviews on the camera which seemed feature packed and was interested in the 14 bit images. I have taken a limited number of shots with it, but from what I have seen in Lightroom, it holds it's own with the other two cameras. As long as I get everything right on my end the 40D produced crisp images with color closer to the the actual subject than my 1D. I don't claim to be the smartest guy on the planet and in that I may not have the 1D set well. I also didn't notice a huge difference in image noise between the cameras. I spent quite a bit of time comparing shots taken at the same settings with all three cameras using the same lens, 24-70 f2.8 L and same subject.

The 6.5 fps rate is more than fast enough for what I do. The 5D is rated at 3 fps, so the 40D seems like a speed demon. At the 6.5 fps setting though, I found the write time to the CF card stopped me for a few seconds to finish its job. I wasn't using a fast card though and would want to if I had to shoot faster than the normal wedding moves.

I absolutely love the 3" LCD. Although I think the LCD on David's D300 is sharper and produces better color. It is far better in my eyes than the 5D's LCD, which I have never been impressed with.

The weather sealing Canon added to this one makes the body feel tight. Although slightly smaller than the 5D body, it has a real solid feel without being heavy.

I also like the mode dial having 3 custom settings options. I have one setting to shoot B&W right now and will explore different settings for the other two.

Live view seems to have gotten to be a big thing. I found it nice when taking a macro shot. Live view requires manual focus. I can hold the camera in a more comfortable position, achieve focus and get a great shot with it. If you push the magnify button, the image in the LCD blows up giving you a much better look at your focus. I haven't used Live View mounted on a tripod yet.

Oh yeah, AF. I found a couple of dark corners in the studio here. Low contrast, low light. I used One Shot, the center focus point on all three cameras and the same lens. The 5D hunted for a bit and finally found focus and locked. The 40D hunted, found focus, and locked maybe slightly faster then the 5D. At least it seemed that way to me. The 1D Mark II hunted and never did achieve focus.

It might seem that I'm slightly hard on the 1D Mark II. I really like it and have really enjoyed using it. It's fast, shoots great, and I'd be hard pressed to sell it. I think all three cameras have their strong points and their quirks.

There are other features to the 40D that I haven't gone into here. Having had it for a short time, I have only mentioned what I have experienced with it.

So, once I got over the stigma of the 40D being labeled a "Prosumer" camera and realized all the features packed into this thing along with the IQ, I think I'll keep it. For the money, I'm pleased.

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West Fork Portraits

My brother, Wes, and his family came out for a visit in October of 2007. While they were here, we went for a hike to the West Fork, one of Sedona's most acclaimed hiking trails. You can take a look at a few of the photos I shot by clicking here. The photo above is of me and my brother. It was taken by Wes's middle daughter, Kindra. I'm the brother on the right.

One last thing: the website showcasing some of the photos I shot at West Fork was created entirely in Lightroom. All the images were imported as raw files, edited, dropped into the website-creating portion of Lightroom, and then uploaded. I love that program!

Drobo: A Miracle Backup Solution?

If you're like me, you are always on the lookout for a better way to backup and archive all your photographs, videos, and other digital materials. Right now, I have 11 different external drives plugged into my desktop and laptop computers. 11! And I keep having to add more, with larger hard drives, as my backup and archival needs expand. That's a lot of extra drives to juggle and keep track of. Isn't there a simpler, more efficient way to handle this?

Looks like there might be. A company called "Data Robotics, Inc." has created an intelligent backup system called "Drobo". The idea is glorious: The system provides space for four different hard drives and makes all four hard drives function as one drive (like a RAID setup). If, however, one of these drives fail, Drobo lets you know and the other drives compensate allowing you time to replace the bad drive. No data is lost. You can change any hard drive any time you want without affecting any of your stored data. If, for example, you want to replace a 200 Gig drive for a 500 Gig drive, you simply remove the 200 Gig drive and insert the 500 Gig. The system formats the new drive and includes it in the backup system. The main advantages of this system are: 1. Any time a single hard drive fails, or prepares to fail, Drobo can protect your data; 2. The system can be constantly expanded as your storage needs expand. The main disadvantages are that the Drobo system is currently built around a USB 2.0 connection, so backup speeds (how fast data is transfered from your main computer to Drobo) may be an issue for some people. Also, if the unit fails, the only way to retrieve your data is to get a replacement.

To find out more about Drobo, visit their website. Among other things, they have some great introductory videos and also support a growing community of Drobo fans. You can find a list of resellers on Drobo's website. You can also purchase one through Amazon, which currently lists 12 helpful customer reviews.

I ordered one yesterday and will let you know how Drobo works for me.

How To Read & Understand A Histogram

EXCERPT:

"A histogram is a useful tool for helping you analyze, at a glance, how the information and exposure data in a photograph is distributed. It shows the luminosity range of the image along with how it is distributed...

"The first thing we need to watch for is clipping. A warning sign of clipping is when you have anything resembling a peak at either end of the histogram. Remember: the taller the bar the more data is at a specific level of luminosity. Unless there are detail-free areas of black or white in significant size in the photograph it is likely that your exposure setting (aperture + shutter speed + ISO setting) is destroying ('clipping') the differences that define detail at the extremes of your exposure. That can be a problem for wedding photographers."

Read Complete Article.

A Review Of Scott Kelby’s 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3

By Jeremy Schultz


EXCERPT:

The whole book is focused on a seven-point system of Photoshop techniques that is all you need to make even the worst photographs look good:

- Adobe Camera Raw processing
- Curves
- Shadow/Highlight
- “Painting with Light,” basically introducing a darker or lighter version of the image and then masking parts of it
- Channels adjustments with Lab and Apply Image
- Layer blend modes and layer masks
- Sharpening

The book was the brainchild of Jeff Kelby, Scott’s brother, who saw how many of Scott’s best photos looked poor right out of the camera. The book was to show how crappy photos could be made great in a few simple steps, and as the book developed Scott realized he used a handful of techniques over and over again--which became the seven points above...

I almost never give a perfect ten, but Scott Kelby’s 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3 deserves it. There’s so many resources for Photoshop tips, printed or otherwise, but this is a rare instance of an author analyzing his Photoshop work in order to distill it to a system helpful to any Photoshop user. It’s ironic that a handful of basic Photoshop techniques is all you need to make photographs look great, but any advanced user will tell you it’s true. If I had to find fault with this book, I would cite the long title and the fact that it’s hard to pull keyboard shortcuts, menu items and main ideas from the text, but I think this book does so many things so well that those quibbles are very minor indeed.

Read The Complete Review

Buy The Book

Shutter Counts Followup

Looks like there are several software programs available that helps track shutter release counts:

Opanda (the program most often recommended)
PhotoMe
Preview Extractor (for Nikon cameras)

While I couldn't find any programs that were written for the Mac platform, all the PC versions can be used on an Intel Mac that has booted into Windows via Bootcamp or other Windows-emulating software.

And then there's brother Mel (Mel Russell, Captured Light Photography). He has offered to run a quick check on .jpg images that folks send him who would like a ballpark idea of how many times the shutters have been released on their cameras without going through the hassle of downloading, installing, and running Exif file programs (like those listed above). If you want Mel to do this for you, email him a low resolution .jpg image shot on the camera you want a shutter release count on.

Mel ran Opanda on two of my cameras, each of which is rated for 100,000 shutter releases:

My D80 = 7,401
My D200 = 28,192

Neither camera has ever been sent in for repairs, and I can't remember if I have updated the firmware on these cameras (remember Nikon says that trips to the repair shop and/or firmware updates can affect the accuracy of these counts). My D200 is about two years old. My D80 is about a year and a half old.

If you have any thoughts/resources that you would like to add to this discussion, click the "comments" link below.

The Kelby Training Program

Scott Kelby just announced a very promising new online training program. Here is an excerpt from his website:

OK, this is really, really, really big news; today we just launched a groundbreaking new online training program, featuring the best teachers on the planet, and it’s subscription-based so you get unlimited access to ALL of our online courses for an amazingly affordable price.

Here’s a Q&A with all the details:

Q. Before we get started; do I have to read all this stuff, or do you have a quick video clip that explains it all?

A. Yup, we sure do. Here’s the link.

Q. So what is subscription-based online training?

A. In the past, we’ve offered online training courses, and it was always “Pay as you go” (basically, you’d pay individually for each class you took). But now you can pay one annual subscription fee and then you have unlimited access to all our online classes.

Q. You said this is amazingly affordable. OK, how affordable is it?

A. Our annual subscription is only $199, or you can pay $19.95 a month. By contrast our online classes used to be around $70.00 each. If you took just three classes, you were already paying more than our new subscription tuition. Now, you get unlimited access, all year long, for only $199. That’s just 55¢ a day, for unlimited access to the best Photoshop and photography teachers on the planet.

Q. What if I’m a NAPP member? Do I get a discount?

A. Absolutely! You get an annual subscription for just $179 (or only $17.99 a month).

Q. How many classes do you have online right now?

A. We just launched today, and we already have 34 classes up online, right now, with more waiting in the wings (and I mean literally waiting in the wings; including some amazing new classes going up next week!)

Q. What makes you guys different?

A. We knew we had to do something really special to stand out from the other online training options, so we asked ourselves what is the single most important aspect of any online course. Is it the topics? The price? The technology? The quantity? The look? What is it? We think the single most important thing is “The teacher.” It’s who you’re learning from, and their connection with the students. It’s their passion, their knowledge, their ability to communicate and share in a way that makes sense, that’s engaging, and even fun. That’s why we built our entire program around one thing; bringing you nothing but the very best teachers on the planet. Period.

Visit Kelby Training Website.

Shutter Counts

I received an email from Brother Mel (Mel Russell, Captured Light Photography) that pointed me in the direction of software that reportedly can tell you how many times the shutter on a particular camera has fired. The software is called Opanda and is available for download here. Unfortunately it only works on with Win98 / Me / 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista. Since I am Mac-based, this doesn't do me any good. So I did a little poking around trying to find a similar program that worked on a Mac. Eventually I arrived at Nikon's website and found this in the support section:

"Question: How many times has my Nikon camera released the shutter?

"Answer: There is no way to accurately tell the total number of times your camera shutter has released. While there are third party software applications designed to read a cameras shutter count, this number is not always accurate because the shutter release times may be reset by firmware updates, or reset in the Service Department if certain parts are replaced or other operations are performed."

That's unfortunate! Two of my cameras -- the D80 and D200 -- are rated for 100,000 shutter releases, while my D300 is rated for 150,000. That seems like an awful lot of shutter releases, but I noticed that the photographers in some forums were surprised at how many shutter releases they had racked up when they ran the software mentioned above. Seems like there should be a way to keep an eye on this. If you know of one, let me know...

D300 vs. D200 vs. D80 Shootout

Syndie & Scott's Wedding

Here are a few photos from a recent wedding I shot. What is notable about these particular photos is that they were shot with all three of my Nikons -- my D300, D200, and D80. Can you tell which camera took which photo?


Here's a quick list of which camera I used for each image. Don't cheat though. Visit the website first and see how good your guesses are.

I was shooting with Nikon's 18-200 mm f/3.5 -5.6 lens on the D300, Nikon's 10.5 mm f/2.8 fisheye on the D80, and Sigma's 15 mm f/3.5 fisheye on the D200.

Photo 1: D80, ISO 800, natural light
Photo 2: D80, ISO 800, natural light
Photo 3: D300, ISO 400, flash
Photo 4: D300, ISO 800, natural light
Photo 5: D300: ISO 800, flash
Photo 6: D200: ISO 800, flash
Photo 7: D80: ISO 800, flash
Photo 8: D300: ISO 800, flash
Photo 9: D300: ISO 800, flash
Photo 10: D300: ISO 800, flash
Photo 11: D300: ISO 800, flash
Photo 12: D80: ISO 800, flash

Kelby Promotes Joe McNally's New Book

I check Scott Kelby's Blog daily because it has the best, most clear, interesting and helpful information on photography of any blog I am aware of. In today's blog, Kelby promotes Joe McNally's new book, "The Moment It Clicks". Writes Kelby:

"The single most amazing photography I've ever read is just a few weeks away from being published. It's Joe McNally's, 'The Moment it Clicks: Photographer Secrets from one of the world's best shooters', and I can tell you, without a doubt, I've learned more about the art and craft of photography, from this one book, than any book I've read to date. Period! It's just that good. "Joe McNally, whose celebrated work has graced the pages of Sports Illustrated, Time, and National Geographic (to name a few), is amazing different because it actually blends the rich, stunning images and elegant layout of a coffee-table book with the invaluable training, no-nonsense insights, and photography secrets usually found only in those rare, best-of-breed educational and how-to books."

Based on what Kelby had to say, I ordered a copy. To find out more, I encourage you to visit Kelby's blog and also swing by McNally's website, which includes a video clip that introduces the book, along with some photos.

Joe McNally's Camera Gear

Joe McNally has been described as "perhaps the most versatile photojournalist working today," a distinction earned for his ability to capture compelling images in locations as diverse as an operating room, the top of the Empire State Building and the cockpit of a jet aircraft. Joe has won several journalism awards, including the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for outstanding magazine photography, and he's been honored by the World Press Photo Foundation and the Art Directors' Club. Constantly in demand as a speaker and lecturer, he has taken part in numerous workshops and presentations, including the Eddie Adams Workshop, National Geographic's Masters of Contemporary Photography, RIT workshops and the Maine Photographic Workshops.

What does he shoot with? Nikon. Here's a page on his Nikon website that lists his gear. I was especially interested in these items, which are prominently displayed: D3, AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED, AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 ED. I also noticed that McNally is a Mac guy (a 12" MacBook Pro is included in his gear).

All Things D3

The folks at Photography Bay have created a place for tracking all things related to Nikon's new D3 -- reviews, photos, interviews, etc. Click here to visit.


Excerpt:

"My first impressions, as expected, were mind blowing. To be brief, I’m stunned at how responsive this camera is and I didn’t believe there was much room for improvement to the way the D2xs handled. I was clearly wrong. The Focus, feel of the shutter, focus point selection, enormous LCD, auto white balance, dynamic range, color rendition, and a few other things have all been written about and touted, but nothing prepared me for the incredible quality of the files out of camera. In addition, the high ISO performance, which was also talked about, is nothing short of revolutionary. This camera literally changes the rules of photography and will simply allow me to capture things like never before." -- Cliff Mautner

Nicely Done Nikon D300 Tutorial

Includes Movies and Photos
Click Here

Scott Kelby Reviews D300

Excerpts:

"I’ve spent the past two weeks, many hours, had two meetings with Nikon Professional Services staff, and taken thousands of photos with my new Nikon D300 and I’m ready to spill the beans and let you know what’s hot (and what’s not) about Nikon’s new arrival. Here’s the straight scoop..."

"...the D300 is a much better, more fully featured update to the D200 than I had ever imagined it would be. How much so? Well, needless to say, I’m selling my D200, but I guess what I’m most shocked about is that I’m going to sell my Nikon D2Xs now, too. So, is my D300 actually replacing my D2Xs? Absolutely!"

"To me, the D300 doesn’t feel like an upgrade; it feels like a whole new camera from the ground up. The improvements are that significant."

Read Complete Review

The Power Of Pixels (More Are Better)

Excerpted from Allan Weitz's article "Getting the Most Bang for Your Bits"

"Pixel count aside, one of the more interesting advances coming to market in the wonderful world of digital imaging would have to be the jump to 14-bit color (up from 12-bit color) in several of the newer DSLRs. And if you do the math, you know this is more than a 2-bit improvement.

"In a break from the pack, Canon's EOS 1Ds Mark III, 1D Mark III, 40D, along with Nikon's D3 & D300 have the ability to capture 14-bit RAW image files, which have the potential to produce up to 16,384 shades of gray. Most all other 35mm-based DSLRs currently feature 12-bit capture, which can reproduce 'only' 4067 shades of gray, which in itself isn't too shabby if you consider JPEGs, at 8-bits, contain a maximum of 256 shades of gray regardless of how they were originally captured.

"These numbers can be misleading at first, because an 8-bit image can contain up to 256 shades of red, 256 shades of blue, and 256 shades of green. And when you multiply 256 x 256 x 256 you end up with a total of 16.7-million possible colors from your average JPEG. The newest Canon and Nikon DSLRs (along with Mamiya's ZD medium-format back), capture images in 14-bit color, which has the potential of reproducing up to 4-times the volume of tone of the average 8-bit file.

"And in case you're wondering what you get for a digital camera that costs as much as a tricked-out Mini Cooper S, Hasselblad's H3D-series medium-format cameras capture images at 16-bits, which works out to 65,536 shades of gray, which when multiplied by itself three times over (RGB) comes out to 281 trillion colors… give or take a few billion if it's overcast.

"Now the human eye can 'only' differentiate between about 500 shades of gray – or about 7 to 10 million colors - and the finest desktop printers cannot come anywhere near reproducing this volume of tone and color. Magazines? They're on par with entry-level laptop printers, which actually aren't all that bad nowadays. So at the end of the day, what's the big deal?

"Perhaps the big deal can best be illustrated by examining the histogram of the last JPEG you tweaked in Photoshop. What probably started off looking like a peaked mountaintop bordered by diminishing hills and valleys suddenly became a jagged, comb-like graph with major gaps of image data visibly missing as a result of diddling around with Curves, Levels, and other tonal adjustments.

"The same image captured in 14 or 16-bit color, which starts out packing far more image data than the 8-bit economy model, can survive most any adjustments you make and come out the other end with nary a hint of data loss on the resulting histogram. Even after conversion to 8-bit color, the resulting image remains far more robust with smoother tonal transitions than a comparable file that started out in an 8-bit color space."

Lightroom Resource Center

From the website: "If you’re a serious photographer who works with a lot of images every day, Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom software can help streamline your workflow, enabling you to get more done, faster. Whether you’re just learning Lightroom for the first time or looking for pro-level tips to help you do more, better, we’ve got the resources to help. On this page, you’ll find excerpts from our latest books as well as free articles, interviews, podcasts, and downloads from today’s leading Photoshop and Lightroom instructors."

Visit Website

Moose Peterson On D3

Moose Peterson Writes:

"We're stepping into a new evolution of digital photography with the D3. The craft of photography is being redefined by the high standard the D3 brings to our photography. Is your photography up to the quality the D3 delivers?

"What's presented here is simply what I've found works for me to date. This is without the aid of an instruction book. The information here is just from using the D3. I know when I have an instruction book and more shooting time with the D3, I'll have more to post. In the meantime, check out the D3 Gallery to see where the D3 has taken me so far. While I know I'll be refining my own D3 application, hope this helps you get a jump start on your photographic pursuits."

Visit Peterson's D3 Website

John Harrington: Nikon D3 Vs. Canon Mark III

Excerpt:

"I feel that the Megapixel race is over, and that it's no longer about chip sizes, especially since Nikon has essentially returned to Full-frame with their FX sensor. It's going to be clarity and fidelity and bit-depth moving forward..."

"For large commercial jobs, where I am thinking I want a higher native resolution, it'll be the Canon I reach for. For low light situations, which are all too common, it will, without a doubt, be Nikon. In fact, with the noise issue out of the way, and most client deliverables needing to be down-rezzed anyway, I can see that the Nikon not only would be a better solution to speeding up my post-production process, but moreover, storing the RAW/DNG files will save me significant hard-drive space in my archives over the larger Canon files.

"Will the Mark III have issues it's earlier Mark III siblings had? I hope not. Will Nikon have an as-yet-unknown issue? Who knows. We're all their guinea pigs, shelling out thousands to fuel their R&D, with the consumers being the beneficiaries.

"Advantage? Photo Finish - Nikon by a nose, for what I do."

Read Complete Review

Popular Photography's Top Camera Picks

Visit Popular Photography's Website

Canon 1Ds MKIII Vs. Nikon D3, D300

I've been wondering how Canon's 1Ds MKIII compared to Nikon's recently released D3 and D300 (which I recently bought and love). An interesting comparison can be found here. This photographer's conclusion: "Based on initial impressions of the D300, and now their first full-frame CMOS camera, the D3, Nikon is now back in the IQ game. Canon has enjoyed a deserved reputation for high image quality, especially at high ISO. But now with the D3 Nikon has upped the ante, producing a camera that appears to offer lower noise than Canon (at least against the flagship 1Ds MKIII), and higher available speeds as well."

My Camera Gear

Cameras:
1 - Nikon D7000
2 - Nikon D90
1 - Nikon D300

Lenses:
Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 G ED DX
Nikon AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.8
Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm 1:1.4D
Nikon AF Nikkor 10.5mm 1:2.8G ED (Fisheye Lens)
Tokina SD 12-24 f4 DX (Wide Angle Lens)
Lensbaby 2.0

Accessories:
2 Nikon SB-800 Flashes
1 Quantum Turbo 2x2 Battery Pack
8 4 GB Compact Flash Cards
A bunch of 32, 16, and 8 GB SDHC cards

Software:
Photoshop CS5 (for finished image processing and website graphics)
onOne Plugin: PhotoTools (for adding special effects to images)
onOne Plugin: Focal Point (for adding focus effects to images)
Lightroom 3 (for raw image file processing and lightning fast photo website creation)
iPhoto (for family photos)

Printers:
1 Canon MP560 (for printing labels and packaging)
1 Canon MX850 (for general printing)

Photo Labs:
Pictage

Computers:
24" iMac 2.33 GHz Intel Core-Dual 3 GB Ram
17" MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 2 GB Ram
16 External Backup Drives (for system/document backup and photo archives)
iPad 2

Wish List:
Two more Nikon D7000 cameras