40D quick test

[graham catley]

well it seems to have such rave reviews I though I might as well try one;
read th ebook in about an hour and took it out this afternoon with 300 2.8 and 1.4x attached---first pics 400ISO then put the 2x on the 300 and upped the ISO to 800---as the light went did some shots at ISO 1600 and some at 1000 in sunlight----the noise levels seem pretty impressive on all pics especially at 800ISO; as to BIF the AF seemed to be pretty good but with odd quirks when it seemed not to want to move at all but that was when I had caught the AF switch on the lens! mostly it picked things up pretty well and stuck with moving targets but odd shots were not sharp in some sequneces which seemed a bit off---anyway it looks good even if just for the ISO and lack of noise plus the nice colour balance, have not altered anything as yet; a few examples attached
BHG2 coming into land towards the camera ISO400 300 2.8 and 1.4x
BHG 800 2x as it says ISO 800 300 2.8 with 2x converter
BHG 800 2x nil straight off the camera as a JPeg 300 2.8, 2x and ISO 800
CG 300 2.8 with 1.4x and ISO 400 (an odd artefact of the camera turning birds heads upside down)
MG2 Magpie flight 300 2.8 + 1.4x 400ISO
Snipe I underexposed this so used shadows and highlights which has increased the noise a bit but still pretty good for 400ISO with some unsharp mask
MA3 800 Mallard 300 2.8 + 1.4x at 800ISO
MA 1600 ISO 1600 when the light had gone 300 2.8 with 1.4x

[graham catley]

+ Coot at 1000 ISO

[Keith Reeder]

Ooh, I like some of those, Graham! The first BHG, the mallard drake and the common gull are top-notch..!

[alexf]

Hmmm, I was going to wait for January to see if the price changed but these photos are ruining my plans now! *looks for credit card*;)

[graham catley]

I tool RAW and large JPegs and just went to have a go at the RAWs and realised that neither Capture 1 nor Rawshooter support the 40D RAW format? anyone know if there are any downloads available for either programme?

[Latho]

Graham,

I used Rawshooter previously but now use Adobe Lightroom v1.2, which is basically Rawshooter packaged in a new Adobe product. I personally think it works great and v1.2 is compatible with 40D pics.

I love my new 40D and have been very impressed with shots at ISO800. The colour, auto white balance and exposure seem a lot more accurate than my old 30D. Really like the Mallard shot by the way.

Cheers
Matt

[mjmw]

I used Rawshooter previously but now use Adobe Lightroom v1.2, which is basically Rawshooter packaged in a new Adobe product. I personally think it works great.


Hi Matt, some people are debating this, see this thread (http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=99861) towards the end. I'd be interested in your thoughts as a Rawshooter to Lightroom convert ;)

[graham catley]

I just downloaded Lightroom 1.2 and so I can convert the 40D files but I have looked at LR before and it seems so complex that I just did not work out how to do a basic job on a RAW file without including too many adjustments and complications; maybe I should put aside a week and read the notes!

[graham catley]

I must have too much time! I browsed through the Capture One forums to read that 40D RAWs are still not supported by CO and everyone who had paid for the software was moaning like mad; the official line was that they were still working on it; by chance I had already started a trial download of CO 4 Beta which I opened up and tried to import the 40D files and guess what? yes they open and work perfectly and the software also looks pretty useful and user friendly except that it seems to take an absolute age to import pictures originally; attached a nice little bunting I did this afternoon and a converted RAW of the same Common Gull as above, the former done from a large JPeg this from RAW with CO Beta 4

[graham catley]

Keith
I was using RS Pro 2006 which I paid for (madly) and when I looked at the exe file I just got totally confused; couln't find any symbol which looked like a 10D to me! maybe I did it wrong

[mark f]

im now getting started with my 40d. Cant i shoot in raw and download to photoshop. What do these other programs allow ?

[graham catley]

well so much for the Capture One 4 Beta--- it worked for about 3 hours last night then when I tried to load it today it failed completely; this evening I received an email from Phase One asking me to try out Beta 4 so I removed the crashed version and re-installed the attached from the email which also crashed and failed to load up again!
anyone else downloaded it and tried to get it to work?