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40D Hands-On Report on LL

J

John Sheehy

New member
Marc Hankins said:
Just spotted out the new preview/mini-review article on Luminous Landscape for the 40D. What piqued my interest is that the writer claims the 40D rivals the 5D in picture quality. Maybe we should do some direct comparisons?
Click to expand...

I have a couple ISO 100 RAWs from the 40D; they seem to have no visible line-noise (banding) even when pushed to extremes, and pixel read noise is lower (1.38 ADU in 12-bit, as compared to 2.0 for the 5D and 2.07 for the 20D) than any previous Canons except the 1Dmk2/3 and 1Dsmk2 (just a hair more noise than those). Looks like a much better camera for ISO 100 shadows than the predecessors.
 
Doug Kerr

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, John,
John Sheehy said:
I have a couple ISO 100 RAWs from the 40D . . . and pixel read noise is lower (1.38 ADU in 12-bit . . .)
Click to expand...

What do you mean by that? I assume the sensel outputs in the raw file are in 14-bit form. Would "1.38 ADU in 12 bit" mean "5.52 ADU in 14 bit", or what?

Thanks.

Best regards,

Doug
 
B

Ben Rubinstein

pro member
There is more to IQ than just noise. Especially when we don't know whether said noise reduction is at the cost of detail. The bigger pixels will still give better DR and latitude.
 
J

John Sheehy

New member
Doug_Kerr said:
Hi, John,
What do you mean by that? I assume the sensel outputs in the raw file are in 14-bit form. Would "1.38 ADU in 12 bit" mean "5.52 ADU in 14 bit", or what?
Click to expand...

5.49 to be exact, of a rectanglular area of the masked pixels on the left. This is compared to the 1Dmk3's 4.9. The black mean is also 1024 in the 40D.
 
J

John Sheehy

New member
Ben Rubinstein said:
There is more to IQ than just noise.
Click to expand...

Yes, but not much. Noise is a pixel differing from what it should be, optically. Adjusting contrast, hue shift, etc, are all much easier than trying to do software NR without losing detail.

Especially when we don't know whether said noise reduction is at the cost of detail. The bigger pixels will still give better DR and latitude.
Click to expand...

Canon has never used detail-reducing NR in their DSLRs.

Bigger pixels only give greater DR and latitude when you alter the sensor size to match the pixel size. Smaller pixels binned to the size of bigger pixels give the same shot noise, and less read noise, AOTBE. The 2 micron pixels of the Panasonic FZ50 have less noise in the deepest shadows than many Nikon DSLRs do.

The wonders of The Big Pixel are a big lie, IMO. There is little a big pixel can do that a bunch of smaller pixels can't do better.
 
Doug Kerr

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, John,

John Sheehy said:
5.49 to be exact, of a rectanglular area of the masked pixels on the left. This is compared to the 1Dmk3's 4.9. The black mean is also 1024 in the 40D.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, I don't follow at all. Could you elucidate a little further?

Thanks.

Best regards,

Doug
 
J

Jack Joseph Jr

New member
Marc Hankins said:
Just spotted out the new preview/mini-review article on Luminous Landscape for the 40D. What piqued my interest is that the writer claims the 40D rivals the 5D in picture quality. Maybe we should do some direct comparisons?

I had a chance to shoot a 40D last weekend. It has a nice, solid feel to it. We made some comparison shots between it and a 5D and a 1D2N. Looking at the shadows at ISO 1600 the 40D impressed me as having slightly more noise than my 5D but less than my 1D2N

In limited tests the auto focus system on servo was best on the 1D2N (big surprise), pretty good on the 40D and crummy on the 5D (another surprise:).

The 40D's shadows were much smoother than the 1D2N's.

We shot a Diet Coke can under interior ceiling lighting. Of interest was where the white band on the gold can goes over the bend at the top of the can just under the crimp. The lights were reflecting off of that area. The 1D2N was barely able to show the difference between the white and the gold. The 40D on highlight priority produced images that easly distinguished the white from the gold.

Time marches on.
Click to expand...
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Jack Joseph Jr said:
Just spotted out the new preview/mini-review article on Luminous Landscape for the 40D. What piqued my interest is that the writer claims the 40D rivals the 5D in picture quality. Maybe we should do some direct comparisons?

I had a chance to shoot a 40D last weekend. It has a nice, solid feel to it. We made some comparison shots between it and a 5D and a 1D2N. Looking at the shadows at ISO 1600 the 40D impressed me as having slightly more noise than my 5D but less than my 1D2N

In limited tests the auto focus system on servo was best on the 1D2N (big surprise), pretty good on the 40D and crummy on the 5D (another surprise:).

The 40D's shadows were much smoother than the 1D2N's.

We shot a Diet Coke can under interior ceiling lighting. Of interest was where the white band on the gold can goes over the bend at the top of the can just under the crimp. The lights were reflecting off of that area. The 1D2N was barely able to show the difference between the white and the gold. The 40D on highlight priority produced images that easly distinguished the white from the gold.

Time marches on.
Click to expand...

Jack, the poorer focus of the 5D is no surprise. They needed to put a lower quality autofocus in it to prevent it killing the 1DsII before the 1DsIII was ready!

Could we see examples of the tests quoted above?

Thanks for your post on the 40D. It looks like a winner, however, almost all new things are wonderful. but whether they are truely better or just adjusted differently out of the camera remains to be seen!

Will you buy one is the test!

Asher
 
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J

Jack Joseph Jr

New member
Asher Kelman said:
Could we see examples of the tests quoted above?

Thanks for your post on the 40D. It looks like a winner, however, almost all new things are wonderful. but whether they are truely better or just adjusted differently out of the camera remains to be seen!

Will you buy one is the test!

Asher
Click to expand...

Asher, no way to get them up on the net. We threw away most of what we shot. I really hate looking at tests and comparisons that are not taken under rigorous testing conditions. We were just fiddling around. Should Dpreview ever get around to publishing a 40D test it will be much better done than ours was.

OTOH I'm equally turned off by graphs, charts and statistical mumbo-jumbo. To me a camera's images are to be judged by human eyes and camera operation is to be judged by how well it feels in a photographer's hands. Based on that, I liked the 40D a lot.

Will I buy one? Not a chance. Owning my 5D, real 35mm camera, has convinced me that FF is the only way to go. I use 1D2N for sports and action because it just better at that type of shooting even though the IQ isn't as high as that of the 5D. I'm looking for the 5D's replacement. If it is nothing more than a 40D with a FF sensor and a couple of additional features I'm in.

If, like many people, I was shooting sports with a 20D or 30D I would get a 40D.
 
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