40D image quality (5 Viewers)

[Mick Johnson]

I had the 20d for 21/2 years and have now had the 40d for over a year.

I find the noise about the same as the 20d to be honest, no beter, no worse.

I must say though, that I find the colours much better and more accurate on the 40d.

Colours will vary anyway depending on what lens is used.

 

[djprest]

See my post above re the 40D and BIF - IMO the 40D is far better in AI servo than the 30D. As a matter of fact I use AI Servo all the time, even for perched birds. The 40D is a great Camera IMO.
See my web site below, all the bird shots over the past year has been taken with the 40D in AI Servo mode.

i only ever use AI servo for bif,using AI servo for perched birds is a no no for me.

 

[Roy C]

i only ever use AI servo for bif,using AI servo for perched birds is a no no for me.

Yes but do you focus with the shutter button or the AF-ON button?. Using the AF-ON button to focus gives you advantages if you use AI servo mode all the time. I think you will find that this method is being adopted by an ever increasing number of people. Many bird photographers (far better than me) advocate this method.

 

[Julian H]

40D Image Quality

Thanks guys for the input.

A few things to address a few points.

1.I did a focus test with a scale at 45 degrees and 5 dollar bill square on to my camera. Shooting wide open with flash it seems that my AF is not back or front focussing so no calibration is in order.o

I believe that I may need to get used to the different files and adjust my expectations as necessary. I do believe I had the same issues with my 10D first so it's probably paranoia.

As for BIF, I shot rpators last year and murdered Merlins in flight with the 20d (no mean feat with those devils) and a Swallow-tailed kite (400, 5.6 400 ISO) - the AI SERVO gave me good success most of the time.

2. I think the centre point sensitivity may be something I have to get used to
and adjust my reflexes to try and keep the centre-focus on the bird. The 20D seemed to be more forgiving?
I use the AF-On button tapped once for focus-lock so I can recompose and shoot..holding down the AF-ON gives me AI SERVO again at the touch of a button. Due to the lost focus problem if the centre focus point moves off the bird slightly, vave other found any more success for BIF with using the "ring of fire" - all nine points selected as AF points

3. After ACR processing I saw some artefacts in some areas that had some "mosaicing", looking a little like bacteria under a microscope, obvious when i had applied USM??? Noise is one thing, but this pattern was nasty-looking.

4. The noise I'm looking at may be normal and that I'm just "pixel-peeping" too much!|:S|


As for histogram/exposing to the right, if we're shooting RAW, then I believe the LCD is rather pessimistic about clipping highlights since the image is generated from the embedded JPEG data. If you are shooting JPEG and have in-camera parameters set (Contrast, sharpening etc) this may affect the sensitivity of the LCD to show "blinkies". Eg. you may show clipping on the LCD screen yet find, once opened that the data isn't clipped in the histogram in the Raw converter.
I prefer to expose to the right as much as possible for the reasons mentioned by others above, that the most "tonal info" is captured in the right 2/3 rds of the histogram. It's easier to adjust a slightly light image with all the data using black point/white points in curves, than it is to lighten shadow areas since that will exacerbate noise most of the time.

Thanks for the response and good shooting!

JRH

 

[screaming piha]

Roy: went for a cup of tea between writing and pressing the button so no I didn't see. No offense intended.

Julian: Glorious kite pic. Perhaps your nasty pattern problem means going back to scratch with USM settings. I'm adding slight sharpening in Lightroom (30-40) and not seen anything odd. I agree with your settings advice; I keep contrast at minimum to get closest to seeing when clipping actually occurs, not only is the RAW histogram often not clipped but also there is often more detail to pull back in from beyond the right-hand edge.

I was intrigued by the more or less noise & looked back at a few reviews to find that the consensus was that noise levels are the same between 20D & 40D. Whatever, I don't find noise an issue with current SLRs. My impression from the files is along the lines of Mick's comment rather than noise worries.

 

[Julian H]

JDJ,

Thanks for the comments..a rarity in my home state, and a bird that performed better than any others I've seen in Florida or Central America..truly exceptional and I managed a few nice shots!

I'll just keep on shooting and playing around and get used to stuff..if there's nothing wrong with the camera focus based on my test shots then it's me, ain't it.

Best to all,

JRH

 

[Clive Watson]

As for histogram/exposing to the right, if we're shooting RAW, then I believe the LCD is rather pessimistic about clipping highlights since the image is generated from the embedded JPEG data. If you are shooting JPEG and have in-camera parameters set (Contrast, sharpening etc) this may affect the sensitivity of the LCD to show "blinkies". Eg. you may show clipping on the LCD screen yet find, once opened that the data isn't clipped in the histogram in the Raw converter.

You may well be right. I normally find that I can recover highlights even if they are 'blinking'.

I also agree about the noise of the 40D being pretty much the same as the 20D (the only two digital bodies I've ever owned).

I can't comment on the 20D vs. 40D for birds in flight since I've only recently purchased a 400mm f5.6 and I've only ever used it with the 40D. Perhaps I'll have to try a little comparison test.