Jessops in the UK seem to have a pretty good deal on the 40D, so I now have one to replace the 10D I was using. Since I guess others may be contemplating this move, some first thoughts.
It's very responsive, starts at once, focuses my 100-400 about twice as fast, mirror much quicker. 6.5fps is pretty fast... Fortunately you can batch delete. Playback is effectively instant, no more waiting for the buffer to flush. Viewfinder is better, though still rather a porthole compared with my 100 film camera. ISO display in viewfinder means you can change it without lowering the camera. AF start button will be a real boon for sports. Menu system remembers where you last were within each submenu, making it easy to swap functions. Live view will be really fun: if you set the picture style to monochrome, that's what the vast lcd displays, and if you do a depth of field preview, the lens stops down but the lcd brightens back up, so you can actually see what's in focus. Gripes: still has the toy auto-depth mode, rather than the proper depth mode that helped me to decide to buy EOS to start with. Why it can't be at least switchable on a custom function, I can't imagine. Auto-ISO is a bit pointless, in any of the 'creative' modes, which is all that I ever use, it just ranges from 400-800. Would have been nice to have that programmable. And the switch for the quick control dial is integrated with the main power switch, so you have two clicks to switch on. Why is there a switch for the quick control anyhow? Does anyone routinely switch it off? Why? Off to take some pictures. Peter Sorry for rubbish below. -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind. * **** ******* *********************************************************** * For list instructions, including unsubscribe, see: * http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/eos_list.htm ***********************************************************