[John Bennett]

I use the 400 f5.6L for wildlife Eric although,  I had and used the 100-400L for awhile before switching to the prime. The 30D ( which I used until Sept) and 100-400L is a great combo for it and you should be able to get some great shots.

As for settings I us center point af and AI servo always and typically with spot metering. The 30D AI servo is pretty good Ive got tons of good shots with it and the 40Ds is in exactly the same, atleast that was my improession during the short period I owned one. It is a bit faster to acquire initial focus.
That said, its still limited. Its hard to put into words but with med sized birds at reasonable distances its fine, smaller faster birds and at closer distances it can struggle. I got into the habit of using short 3 frame burst and then reaquiring focu lock.

The 100-400 can be a bit slow to focus for birds in flight but is fanatastic for stationary birds. I did find on my copy that it was sharpest at f8 and at 370mm. Also found that its “sweet” spot was anywhere from the MFD out to 40feet. Beyond that it could struggle to resolve. Not something youd notice on a FF shot but if/when you start to crop those kinds of shots the keeper rate went down.

As to the 40D, I dont know if it offers enough to universally say its worth the upgrade from the 30D.
While I did do just that, it helped that I had a good deal , if I had to swallow the full cost I dont know if Id have done it.

That said the 40D does have some imporvements over the 30D. It really is alot of camera for the buck. As mentioned one thing I noticed right away was that the files had a certain quality in tonality thats hard to put into words and quantify that I didnt see with my 30D.

[John Bennett]

IM not so HO, get the 40D and dont look back. For $500.00 your getting tons of features and better IQ.
I’ll try to explain some of the differences briefly but thats a task for me 🙂

6.0 fps vs 3.5 and the increased buffer size to hadle them
Canon says 6.5 but test have shown it to be closer to 6. Either way if you shoot sports or action higher FPS can mean the difference between some good shots ad getting the 1 shot in the sequence thats spectacular.

Digic III processor vs the Digic II and 14bit depth.
Bottom line te files the 40D produces have a richness in tones I didnt see with either my XT or 30D.

Better NR.
the 30 and 40D both have better NR than the XTs.

1/3 stop ISO increments:
In the XT/XTIs you only get full stop ISOs increments. Meaning 100, 200, 400, 800,1600 (dont bother using expanded 3200 imo ). In the 40D you get 1/3 stop (interpolated) ISOs. Meaning say you want just a little bit more SS for any given shot and your at ISO 400 or ISO 800. Well in the XTI youd have to increase ISO ( and noise) by a FULL stop. With the 40D you can bump it 1/3 or 2/3s. While its an interpolated adjustment and not true 1/3 increments it and and does save you from not having the choice.

Better AF and better AI servo.
Waaaaaaaaaay better. While not on par with the 1D bodies the AF/AI servo is to the XTI what the 1D’s are to the 30/40D

High precision center at f5.6. (read low light focusing)
In fact at f2.8 or faster the 40D offers the only center point on the market currently that offers a diagonal AF sensors on top of the traditional + points.

Better build and some limited weather sealing.
Again not on par with 1D’s but its better than the XTIs.

Live view.
Really nice feature to have when manually foucsing………Like macro shooting. Long story short. Rather than trying to nail critical focus manually through the viewfinder, you can use live view which not only offeres the advantage of the using the larger LCD you can then magnify the image 5x or 10x. Which when your using a 1:1 macro and azor thin DoFs is a godsend.

and on and on.

If its in your budget, even if you hav to stretch your budget I strongly recommend you get the 40D over the XTI.

Few sample images for you.
All shot with the 40D

[John Bennett]

I don’t disagree there or with the sentiment and I understand that in most of your post.

What I was mainly referring to was crediting a fish to a rod. You can make good arguements that a fish caught on a $1,000 custom boo would still be the same fish caught on a $50.00 special and that you cant really credit particular catches/success to your gear.

That doesnt hold true for photography.
There are large differences in what money buys starting with bodies and into glass. Thats not to say you cant do well with entry level, you can but the reality is that the more $ you put into your gear, the better the output *and* types of photos you can get. The blue jay was just to illustrate it. Using the same 400mm f5.6 L on a 30D and 40D I probably deleted hundreds and hundreds of attempts over 2 years. They just dont AF fast enough or accurately enough, especially at that distance. The 1DmkiiN with its two chips can and does.

While you still need to put the center point on target which is no small feat given the target size, speed and distance (about 20 feet). Its like hitting a tennis ball with a scoped hunting rifle. I still owe the shot to the hardware theres just no getting around that.

The ISO shots again were just for illustrative purposes and I think its more of a subjective arguement.
I shoot a ton at ISO 800 and almost aways at 1,000 and higher when doing my girls Gymnastic and Volleybal. “Defining” whats useable is subjective. Whats unacceptable to me may be acceptable to others. Again I know some people who hate shooting over 400 but is it really all that??

Different makes/models are better at high ISOs.
My first year with a XT I couldnt shoot my girls sports. The lighting is brutal and in order to get high enough SS to freeze them that meant iso 1,000 or more. The second year I could with the 30D, they arent good at ISO 1,000+ but they are usueable with alight touch of noise reduction. I strongly considered a 5D but know its AF and fps would hinder my wildlife shooting. So Ive known for a long time Id be a 1D owner at some point. The point is, the differences at reducing noise at those isos is again due purely to he hardware. It has absolutely nothing to do with whos driving the camera.

No one in the camera stores filled me in on that stuff when I was first shopping 🙂

We’re just scracthinghe surface really. Whether its 30Ds, D70s or D40s, XTs and their equivelants.I think Rusty should take everything hes reading and then go a store with 3 cards and shoot the systems being talked about.

No-ones mentioned flash systems yet 😉

[John Bennett]

Well truth be told I dont enough of Pentax or Sony to fairly comment on, hence why i wont recommedn or offer comments on them. They could pay off I don know 🙂

I think the biggest mistake anyone can make is suffering buyers remorse. All the bodies can take good pictures. So your not “out” or stuck with a lemon..You might just have something you question. I know I did. Like I said Im on my 4th body 🙂

glass before body.
Yep. Absolutly. While ive changed bodies because I outgrew them faster than I was expecting and or opporunity to get a good deal popped up Ive yet to change any of my lenses. My glass is my investment and will last me years and years if I take care of it…..My bodies wont, nor have they.

I think what anyone should do no matter their budget is compare apples to apples.
Goto a store with a couple cards and take shots with similiar setups with a 30D, a Nikon D70 and a Pentax XXx or whatevers closest.

*me* because I shoot so much in low light at high isos would look hard at the comparative noise at ISO 800 and might even print 8x11s to better determine. I know from having owned a 30D for a year that ISO 800 was ok, if not good and shot there alot. A couple friends with D200s feel its unuseable there. But that me…noise to me is important to others it may not be. After that things like shutter lag, fps, iq come into the equation.

/edit
Thanks for he comments. I am trying to determine what todo with the Blue Jay shot. For now its a enlargement on my wall 🙂

[John Bennett]

Kendall, Thats realtive to the type of shooting you anticpate doing though.

For example at one end of the sprectrum.
Sports/Action/alot of wildlife shooting.

You will end up frustrated if your system isnt AFing fast enough.

Take the Blue Jay for example. Theres no way you can get that shot or similiar w/o the fastest focusing body/lenses.

Your kid scores the winning goal in overtime?
Would feel terrible missing that because the body/lens couldnt af fast enough in low light.

If sports/action arent important than its somewhat immaterial. If they are than AF is critical.

[John Bennett]

Ryan I have to dissagree somewhat.

In photography, hardware makes a huge difference.
Im on my fourth body now having started with a Canon Rebel XT and each time I upgraded my body, my picture quality improved as did the kinds of photos I could capture.

I tried for 2 years to get decent shots of Blue Jays in flight. In two years I did not have 1 keeper.
In the first two hours of owning my 1DmkIIn I got this.

virtually impossible without the right hardware.

I mentioned “noise” earlier. Different makers handle noise at high ISOs differently.
I cant and wont speak to the name brands I dont use or know well of but I will say that certain brands/models are not very good *comparatively* speaking.

ISO 800. On certain brands/models many consider output to be unuseable.

ISO 1600

ISO 1600

ISO 800

Now, thats not to say other brands/models cant take good pictures but I know from painful, expensive experience that hardware makes a huge difference and regardless of your budget its all relative.

[John Bennett]

Something that I am ashamed of telling is, it will take me 8-10 months for me to decide on this.

[John Bennett]

Buried a six inch rapala in my hand years ago, two of the hooks were well past the barb. That hurt.

After stopping at the local watering hole, rapala dangling like a tree ornament to calm down it was time for the hooks to come out. Doc gave me a local only to walk away and return about 20 minutes later. I don’t know if the local wore off or not, but him pushing both hooks back out until the barbs cleared flesh enough to cut through and then reverse hurt alot more.

Been barbless on everything pretty much ever since.

[John Bennett]

I’ve yet to try a pec-pad and solution, it kind of gives me the willies.

I do use an artic butterfly though and I am impressed with results. Prior to picking it up I found blowers to be unreliable. Sometimes they’d get most of the dust, sometimes it would add dust…….after all your only blowing dust around the inside of the box upside down or not.

1 sweep with the AB and virtualy all the dust is gone.

That said I dont think the AB is capable of removing a caked on spec. For that a solution is needed. Thankfully I dont have any caked on dust and because the AB is a) easy and b) effective I clean every couple of weeks and so dont expect to get any caked on.

J

[John Bennett]

Very nice Kendall, a man after my own heart (wildlife photography).
How do you find the yaks for it? I use my toon occasionally to access marshes and small lakes for Osprey, ducks etc occassionally. While I love the toons stability and it makes for whats probably the best shooting platform, its painfully slow getting from point A to point B and sometimes I have alot of ground I need to cover.

So Im toying with the idea of getting a yak, but at the same time Im concerned about sending several Gs worth of gear to Davy Jones locker. Insurance is nice and all but Id rather not ever have to call my broker.

In 30+ years Ive only spilled my canoe once and that because my friend stood up when I wasnt prepared for it so Im Im not overly concerned, Im good in a canoe but strange thigns have

[John Bennett]

As Scott said if your concerned about people using the images upload low res images.

As for watermarking the images I use “actions” in PS, which are basically recorded macros. I “record” two sets for each corner of an image one in black and one in white. The process itself is pretty simple but its repetitive so.

Assuming you use PS.

Choose the text tool, choose your font, choose your colour. Click on the location you want to embed the text, type away, flatten layers.

Activating the pre recorded “Action” for whichever corner of the image and in which colour is a mere click an then the macro runs through the process in about1 second.

[John Bennett]

Most of my cold weather activty is photography based as we dont really have winter seasons here in Ontario.

Merino socks
Under Armor Expedition bottoms
Halley Hansen top
Under Armor glove liners
Under Armor Expedition mock zip or a heavy fleece mock zip

Outer Layer
Irish Settter 800 gram thinsulate w/ 1inch sole boots. The thick sole insulates against standing on ice
Thinsulate gloves
A hunting inner/outer parka with more thinsulate on the sleeves a body etc
Rip Zone Snow boarding pants: I love these, one of the best investments Ive made

Ive been out when its -20+chasing owls and with the exception of my hands have remained comfortable. I’ve yet to find a system t prortect my hands thats “perfect”. You can layer and bulk up but that reduces functionality.
/sigh

[John Bennett]

In time you’ll probably sour on dpreview.

[John Bennett]

At the end of the day it depends on how the photo is going to be used.

I removed somewhere between 30 and 50 people from this picture of Peggy’s Cove.

Its amost imposible to take a picture here without including the tourist that all over the place. Theres literally bus loads being dropped every 10-15 minutes. Theres nothing at all “wrong” with that imo, nor do I think there’d be anything wrong with it were it used for marketing and advertising purposes, in travel magazines. In fact Id be extremely surprised to discover that Post Cards and travel brochues that use images of the Peggys Cove Lighthouse didnt do just that.? Not at all imo.

I dont think thers been a “product” shot in the last 30 years that on some level wasn’t false advertiing. I dont know about you but Ive never received a Burger that look as good as the ones I see in adds 🙂

I think theres really only two area’s where creative editing should be taboo and intolerated. One is contest (unless specifcaly open to digital creations), two and most importantly “photo-journalism”. You don’ have to look hard to find examples of Photographers who ha lost their jobs and credibility for doctoring images that were destined for editorial content etc.

[John Bennett]

As already noted it really will come down to how you anticipate using the lens. I think all Canon shooters should at some point seriously consider getting one of Canons four 70-200s. The question then becomes which one. I plan on adding one of them hopefully within the year and currently Im leaning towards the 70-200 f2.8 non is.

As Eric noted I think the primary consideration is wether or not you anticipate using for stationary or action shots. Second to that Id add indoors/outdoors and finally whether or not theres any advantage/disadvantage to the

[John Bennett]

Im strictly Raw. The benefits ( non destructive adjustments) outweigh the extra work and storage space for me. It took a little while to adjust to raw, mostly due to the camera doing alot of processing with jpegs (sharpening etc) but I wont go back to jpeg, except when I’m really pushed for space on extending outings. In terms of file size, I could get 210 frames on 2gig cards with the 30D and about 150 now on the 10mp 40D. So the only time I really need to consder using jpegs to save space is when on vacation

[John Bennett]

Hi Don.
Adobe added support for the 40D on Sept 14th or so. I could be wrong but I suspect the problem for you is CS2, which Adobe may not support anymore.

Once I picked up the 40D I lost Raw Shooter as my converter. I dont really feel like shelling out for CS3 but do need to find a new raw converter, so when I saw that Adobe added support for the 40D I bought Elements 5.0 and am using ACR 4.2. Once I have a feel for it ( and so far I like it) Im going to get CS3.

[John Bennett]

thanks Eric.
Give Canons DPP a good try. The interface isnt great but it does do the best job (according to popular opinoin) of reproducing colours. Jpegs will always seem *better* off the bat but once you find a converter you like its hard to shoot anything but raw…atleast for me.

[John Bennett]

Im using ACR 4.2 as a precursor to getting CS3, sort of a trial run fro me to get used to it. Coming from Raw Shooter which wont support the 40D, so far Im very impressed with it. With regards to colour DPP is widely regarded as the best converter.

The downside is DPP is its regarded as the weak in most all other respects. I personally cant stand the interface, and in most other respects I dont think its stands up to RS. Eric if you use DPP the RAW files will look a bit flat when compared to jpegs which have a fair amount of in camera processing done to them. However the colours will come out closer. As mentioned though its not as strong an application in other areas.

So far Im more than impressed with the colours and tones Im seeing from the 40Ds files as converted in ACR 4.2.

[John Bennett]

Hi Mike. Don’t worry about asking Zack or David, I’d defer to their experience each time to 🙂

Couple things to add in response to your latest.
Sony, Nikon, Canon……I don’t know if theres a right answer. I have a hard time keeping Canons lineup straight :). Each maker has some strengths ans weaknesses both in the body lines and their lens line. Sony, what little I know of it is seems to be coming along and if there was an area of weakness it was their lens lineup. Alot of that unless Im mistaken can be attributed to their relative short time in the DSLR market. Its hard to compete with Nikon/Canon in that regard.

I dont even want to hint a suggestion as to what you should do. If Sony is coming out with lenses and filling gaps then I might wait it out a bit, their bodies do seem promising. Switching systems is prohibitive especially once you start adding some glass.

As for some 3rd parrty Lenses. Both Sigma and Tamron make some really good lenses. You might need to do some more digging and research to find themas they dont get as much press as the nikon and Canon propietary lenses but they exist. A few Im aware are

WA
Tamron 17-50 f2.8 is highly regarded. As an added bonus you get a pretty fast lens at f.28.

Macros
I own Tamrons 180mm f3.5, if I didnt have that one Id get the Sigma 150 f2.8. The main differential with reards to macro lenses is mostly their focal length which ulitimately translates into working distance. The more focal length the more working distance you get. Sigma also makes a nice 105 f2.8 1:1 macro.

Super Teles.
I tested Sigmas 50-500 (Bigma) and Tamrons 200-500 when I was shopping for my super tele. Both have good IQ and if theres a drawback to them its their focus speed. They are slower than some others and for *me* that as important . If you arent a big bird shooter or bird in flight thats likely not a big issue. Other considerations in this category are their 300 f4s.

When it comes to glass there are almost endless possibilities. I think the key is to identify which “discipline” of photography be it WA, Macro, Portrait, mid tele for sports or super tele (wildlife) interest you the most. Once you have that identified you can target where to invest heavily initially.

for example.
If WA isnt *really* your main interest I might keep the standard kit and add a nice 70-200 or 100 f2.8 macro to complement it. A nice 50 or 85 f.18 can be had for portrait etc.

Hope that helps some.
J

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