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| Brand: Canon
Category: Photography
List Price: $1,299.00
Buy New: $979.95
You Save: $319.05 (25%)
New (20) Used (4) Refurbished (2)
Avg. Customer Rating:  327 reviews
Sales Rank: 53
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Floppy Disk Drive: None
Includes Software: Yes
Optical Zoom: 4.8
Display Size: 3
Maximum Focal Length: 135
Minimum Focal Length: 28
Maximum Resolution: 10
Shipping Weight (lbs): 10
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 7.6 x 7
MPN: 40D Kit
Model: 40D Kit
UPC: 138030866607
EAN: 0013803086607
ASIN: B000V5QV4S
Release Date: August 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 so far, so very good October 28, 2007
2 out of 9 found this review helpful
I've had mine for not quite two weeks. While I've shot film SLR's, and a well used s3 IS (still love it for casual stuff in good light), this is my first DSLR.
I find the controls & menus very intuitive once you've spent a little time with the manual and mucking around with things a bit, just getting used to it.
I haven't had the chance to print anything yet, which is my final test for IQ, but the images are great. I'm still learning digital & PP, but with so little time (still, almost every free moment) to really delve deeper, I'm very pleased at this stage.
I get nearly 300 RAW shots on my 4G card, which I think is swell. Still learning the "personality" of the AF system, I find it very good when MY technique is solid (i.e. most problems are my fault/error) & the high speed shooting is great (didn't think I'd use it much, but it's come in handy already); I also like the slower 3 FPS rate, which I'm more likely to use.
All in all, I am super happy. The only reason I didn't give 5 stars is because I'm not 100% done learning it, so any minor (very minor) gripes at this point may be due to the learning curve, and not any real problems.
 A great camera - with room for improvement October 28, 2007
38 out of 41 found this review helpful
I'll start off by saying that yes, this really *is* a great camera. I bought it as body only, then added a Canon EF 100 f2.8 Macro USM lens. If you're not familiar with that lens, it is fairly heavy, and so the camera has felt heavy to me since day one. But it is the lens creating that impression.
The 40D starts up, shoots, and shuts down quickly; With the right lenses, it creates clear and consistent photographs; it is hugely flexible, pretty much to any degree you want to flex. Some of the things that have made themselves known to me by how well they work are, in no particular order, the great battery life... I use the LCD a lot, shoot a lot, and generally fuss continuously with the camera, and it just "keeps on going" which is enormously pleasing (this is with the stock battery and a BP-511A spare pack to swap in.) The feel of the camera - just a nice handful of goodness, it really suits my hands, which are large. The clarity of the viewfinder. I wear glasses, and after a little playing with the adjustment, it was *perfect*, first time ever with any camera. This thing is *fast*; it really can do 6 or so frames a second (depends on the shutter speed, of course) and the AF is also fast which makes for more images, and more good images. I love all the preset modes, and I've already had some fun in manual and a *lot* of fun in aperture priority, which pretty much suits the way I think. I particularly like the AF display and the way you can control it; I prefer a single central AF point so I can control focus at the half-press point, and the camera was perfectly agreeable to that. More points did some interesting things with depth of field, and I look forward to experimenting with that, too.
I would buy this camera body again in a heartbeat if something horrible happened to mine, like I dropped it down a well or larval (and soon to be deceased) human beings got hold of it and used it as a kickball. It also offers some optional features like wifi that sound like great fun, though I confess I can't speak to them as I've not tried them.
There are some things I think could have been done better, though, and since you're probably looking at the camera wondering what the downsides are, rather than looking for what made everyone happy, that's what I'm going to focus on.
o The worst problem, by far: The images that the camera uses to let you review your shots are FAR softer than the actual photos, to the point where you can't really tell if you got the focus nailed, or not. This is not a nitpick - this causes me to take extra shots because I literally can't tell if I've hit the mark, or not. I am hoping this can be fixed with a firmware update to the camera.
o That fabulous LCD, huge and bright and crisp, looks awful every time I look at it after shooting through the TTL viewfinder. This is because it has a huge NOSEPRINT on it. Has anyone at Canon ever taken a look at a human face? Placement of the monitor should be offsides and inset so that it isn't a grease magnet. Or do they expect me to wash my nose every time I snap a picture out in the field?
o While I'm harping on the camera's ergonomics, the power switch isn't very easy to manage. I have very short nails (I'm a guitarist and a martial artist, neither of which encourage nail growth) and getting that switch to swing on and off sometimes takes more than one try; that may, someday, lose me a photo I really wanted, especially considering how fast the camera starts up otherwise. I really wish it had a deeper pit for my finger and a more positive tractive surface to drag it on. It's too short and too smooth.
o When in Live View mode, meaning, you're presumably shooting using the LCD instead of the viewfinder (after cleaning your latest noseprints off of it, of course), autofocus doesn't work. But wait, it does. *If* you press a different button. Apparently the power budget of the camera is pushed a little too close to the edge if you use live view *and* autofocus because the mirror is locked in the up position. So they... moved AF to another button? Look, either let me do it, or don't let me do it, but quit changing what the controls do underneath my fingers. That's just poor interface design. Maybe you should have turned it off by default, then let us blatant power-spenders turn it back on, kind of like how ISO 3200 works on this camera (it's a menu option, not initially enabled. Requires RTFM or at least someone telling you what to do.) Anyway, I don't like how this works. At all. But it's a nitpick.
o When you're not in live view mode, the camera will display your shot in the LCD for 2 seconds, then blank (this time is adjustable, somewhat, in the menus. But 2 seconds is the shortest time for it to work at all.) You have to wait for the preview to go away (2 seconds) to enter play mode so you can really take a look at it. I think it should directly enter play when it is in that 2-second "grace" period after the shot; the fact that it doesn't costs me time, at least in some situations. And time, in photography, can mean lost shots.
o Print button - come on. I can think of a hundred things that would be more important to put on a button than "print." That's just... silly.
o I would have liked to have infrared remote firing of the camera. This is MUCH more flexible than the 2s or 10s delayed firing option it has now. You can go out and sit with a group and putter around indefinitely with infrared; even 10 seconds isn't a lot of time to get out there, regulate your breathing, meld into the group photo, and stop staring down your 3rd cousin Hotisha's bodice. Uh, not that I would do such a thing. No. Not me. Cough.
o It isn't easy (meaning, you have to use a deep menu) to clean out all the images on the CF card. Should have been, really. it *is* easy to delete images one at a time.
o The weather flap on the USB connection (and external fire, strobe, and video connectors) are a little difficult to grasp (I have essentially no nails, remember), and they really are just rubber flaps - I fully expect them to wear out, as they don't have proper hinges or otherwise use reasonable bearing surfaces. I *really* don't like having to struggle with the flap every time I want to grab pictures from the camera, which is several times a day on days when I'm *not* seriously shooting. I might *have* to buy that wifi accessory...
These are, in the end, mostly problems I would characterize as "nitpicks", and with the exception of the soft review images, certainly nothing to get in a frenzy over (well, maybe the placement of the LCD screen too... but that certainly isn't a problem only found in Canon products.) This is a fabulous camera; I can't imagine anyone actually regretting buying one unless they've been working with far, far more expensive gear than this. I gave it five stars, and that's just how I feel about it.
About me: I've been into photography since about 1965, my last camera was an Olympus E20, a 5 MP camera with an *excellent* all-occasion lens, macro to telephoto, and an insatiable appetite for batteries. Moving up to a 40D was a great experience for me. I'm not a pro, maybe semi-pro is fair, my experience with cameras includes both BW and color developing, all manner of large format boxes, several 35 mm cameras, and ten or eleven digital cameras from the 320x240 dawn of digital cameras to today. I am also an engineer (EE) and the author of a very extensive image processing software suite and several RAW processing plugins; consequently I am intimately familiar with how digital cameras actually work.
40D is terrific October 28, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Canon has really done it - the 40D is fast on autofocus, and Live View suits my needs (classroom camera demos and macro shooting) perfectly. Many other tiny improvements add up to an easier and better camera to use. I highly recommend it - especially for the price. It's cheaper than my 20D was!!
Canon Came up with the Perfect SLR digital camera. October 27, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Finally, an answer to all the earlier problems for digital SLR Cameras!
What we've all been waiting for: The built-in sensor cleaner---no more shipping your camera off to have the sensor cleaned. Other features are the shooting speed, which equals a film camera. There's over 10 million mega pixels, enough for all your professional work, a large LCD screen, and a built-in fill flash. I'm happy.
The price was right and included the shipping. thank you!
Canon EOS 40D 10.1MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only)
An EXCELLENT camera October 22, 2007
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
It's hard to write a meaningful review when I've barely begun to get familiar with my new 40D, but so far I am NOT disappointed. I have found no problems; all functions appear to work as advertised. One word of advice: if you're accustomed to viewing the shot via the LCD, it CAN be done with the 40D, but is awkward. Get used to using the optical (through-the-lens) viewfinder, like a film camera. You can still see what you've just shot on the LCD screen, with adjustable viewing time. Typical of Canon, this appears to be a fine camera, with features for the beginner through advanced photographers. You can start out with "point-and-shoot" (automatic everything), and advance to as many manual settings as you like. At this point, I recommend the 40D! Be sure to buy a lens to match the quality of the camera; I suggest an "L" series lens. Beware of "starter" lenses, which degrade the quality and which you will want to upgrade almost immediately.
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