thoughts on upgrade to 40D from Rebel XT

[Garrett-Grimsley]

I currently use a XT, and have been for the past two years. I don't own any other digital bodies, but I just want to throw out what I'm frustrated with and reason why I would upgrade to a X0D body.


- First off is AF accuracy for me. I shot almost wide open all the time with my 85mm f/1.8, and the XT's miss-focus rate is far too high for me. I've missed out on tons of potentialy great potrait shots, lost because the camera front of back focused a bit.


- Secondly is the LCD. The size of the XT's LCD often throws me off, and this goes hand-in-hand with the AF issue, because the screen is so small I can hardly tell if a image didn't focus right until I see it full view on my PC, AFTER the shoot. Very frustrating.


- And thirdly the size of the body. I have somewhat huge hands and it was nearly impossible to use the XT without the battery grip.


ISO performance, and FPS are also small issues, but not enough for me to complain, as I can fix noise in post processing, and I don't regularly shoot anything that requires a fast FPS.


And may I note that the XT isn't exactly a intimidating camera either. It almost looks like a big P&S with the 50mm f/1.8 mounted.





So other than what's noted above I absolutely love the XT. Here's a couple photo's from NY I took last week with the XT. The night ones were taken at ISO800-1600, and look at how clean they look after post processing; you'd never know these were taken with a XT and non-L glass lenses. View them full sized to see em' better.

[Cozen]

I'd have to agree with you. the XT is a great camera that you can get great results from. Like you, the small LCd and missed focus was frustrating me as well. I'd go home after a long day shooting all excited just to find out half the pictures were out of focus. I'm hoping the larger screen on the 40D will help prevent that for me now.


Those are some nice shots. What kind of lens are you using?


I'm thinking of now saving up for a 70-200 f4 non IS. I like IS, but $500 more for IS is a bit steep.


On a side note, I sometimes see 100% crops that are near crystal clear. Usually to make a shot appear more macro like. Is that from the lens used? I can never get the type of clarity on my 28-135 IS.

[DavidEccleston]

Based on Bryan's magic mouse-over comparison pages, yes, the lens can make a huge difference in quality of 100% crops.


Your lens vs. 70-200 f4 L ISboth at f/4 on a 1Ds II.

[Cozen]

I agree. I checked the comparisons before. My lens at f8 and 135mm seems quite sharp tho.

[DavidEccleston]

At 70mm f/8, the square has lots of chromatic aberation. The horizontal lines leading into it are a bit blurred, and the vertical lines are fairly blurred. The numbers are blurry too. The diagonal stripes are blurred. The 70-200 F4 IS blows it away, even at F4.


At 135mm f/8, the top circle and numbers, and the middle section are sharper, but still not as sharp as the 70-200. The bottom part of the image still has all the blurriness issues 70mm has, and going up to f/11 or f/16 doesn't completely clear it up.


So, yeah, for 100% crops, which is good for birds, etc. that you can't get too close to, certain lens will produce much cleaner images. I'm sure the 28-135 lens is great for general use, but if you're interested in 100% crops, it's not the best of lenses.

[Garrett-Grimsley]

Those are some nice shots. What kind of lens are you using?
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Those were taken with the Canon 85mm f/1.8 USM and the Sigma 15-30mm f/3.5-4.5 lenses.