Phil Davis
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I just received my 40D from Ritz (1299 + free ship) which seems average for the legit sites). My long suffering 20D is in the shop for a new shutter & PCB (150-200K exposures, easy) and a soccer tournament next weekend seemed a pretty good excuse to upgrade (!). I've been taking my time handling the camera, and taking crap exposures, so nothing I want to post now, but can offer comparisons to the 20D and a good friend's 30D. Right off the bat, it feels slightly chunkier in hand than the 20D, and a little less palm friendly, but that's a nit.
The auto focus is fast and effective and has more mode flexibility in the custom menus settings. There are some new manual=> auto settings that look like they will be useful in sports (what I do most). It couples and drives easily both my Canon and non-Canon EF and EF-S lenses, with and without the 1.4X and 2X teleconverters. The AF stop, lock and other functions work well.
Shutter sounds are similar to the other "D's", perhaps a shade quieter, but nothing to write home about. The slow and fast burst modes are new to me, though I doubt I'll have much need for the slow one. It's too soon to tell whether the difference between the rated 6.5 fps and 5 fps is real and noticeable. Sonically, the camera appears to wait a touch longer between the first and second shots, then blazes away from the 2nd and on. I'll have to keep an eye on that.
All my 20D accessories fit and work properly, which is nice. The flash bracket mount is unpainted, so it'll likely show less wear, and the 40D menu and display can control the 580EX flash.
The menus strike me as much more user friendly and far better organized and faster to use in the field. Of course the giant 3" LCD is quite a nice change from the tiny one on the 20D. The disadvantage is that all the buttons are moved to the bottom edge of the camera body. This will take getting used to as I have years of habits formed around the old camera. One really nice feature is the dedicated AF button. I like to disable the AF from the shutter, and it's nice to have a separate button for this (it controls the AF even with the shutter AF enabled).
The menus have more flexibility in customizing the camera for the way you use it, and you can register groups of settings for different purposes, including swapping functions for some buttons. Even so, the body will feel very familiar to those with other Canon bodies.
There is more in camera processing available with respect to noise abatement and highlight treatment. However all these have a penalty in terms of burst speed or shadow noise. I have not seen any noise issues with early shots, but haven't done any high ISO shots yet. I think I'm still likely to "go native" in the camera and use PS for post adjusting. There is a RAW plug in for CS3 for the 40D. The 40D also read earlier images on a CF card taken with my 20D and rendered them properly on the LCD.
The box comes with all the same stuff you're used to. I've never used the software from the 20D, and the disks for the 40D look like the same programs.
Live View is kind of interesting, but probably useful mainly for portraits (I don't do a lot of that) and perhaps landscapes. The manual recommends using a tripod for it. I agree as holding this body and a lens far enough away to use the LCD is a recipe for camera shake. LV does not support AF directly, though AF can be invoked by briefly interrupting LV. However, LV does offer 5X and 10X magnification functions for more precise focus on a specific point. LV does NOT make the 40D a suitable alternative for a true P&S camera.
Too early to tell if the Digic III and extra megapixels make a difference. That'll have to wait for next weekend. The sensor's new auto clean function works on start up and shut down and can be used manually as well. There also seems to be a "learning mode" optionally enabled, that teaches the camera where intractable dust spots are and allows it to remove those spots (by processing, not physically). I'm looking forward to this, as dust was a small, but irritating issue with the 20D. It'll be interesting to compare the images with my newly refreshed 20D.
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