First look: Canon 400D D-SLR

Ben Mansill | Sep 7, 2006 5:37 PM
Canon | http://www.canon.com.au
First Look
RRP: $1499 (time of review)
Successor to the ubiquitous 350D, Canon's affordable yet powerful 400D D-SLR is a serious weapon whether an amateur or pro.
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Successor to the ubiquitous 350D, Canon's affordable yet powerful 400D D-SLR is a serious weapon whether an amateur or pro.
Canon’s wildly successful 350D digital SLR (D-SLR) dominates the market in the ‘prosumer’ segment. The 8 megapixel 350D (evolved from the 6 megapixel 300D) sold in huge numbers thanks to its professional image quality capabilities under full manual settings, or almost-as-good with a remarkably easy to use control set. Now its successor, the 400D, follows an evolutionary development, rather than departing far from what made the 350D so popular.
The 400D enters the market with an RRP of $1,299 for the camera alone, $1,499 for the body + EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 II lens and $1,649 for the camera and EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 II lens + EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 telephoto zoom lens.

The 400D improves ever so slightly, but perceptibly, in its form-factor. It’s now noticeably more comfortable to hold, with the controls falling under the right fingers of the right hand, and an overall sense of better weighting. The 350D wasn’t lacking in this dept, so it’s nice to see Canon improve an area that was so well regarded in the first place. While the form-factor changes are slight, they combine to make a nicer-to-hold camera. We liked the addition of small rubber strips where your thumb falls for better grip.

We also like the new silver model. While the 400D comes in black too, frankly, the ubiquitous black 350D and its black D-SLR brethren make the silver model especially attractive in an old-school film SLR kind of way.

The big spec bump is an all-new 10.1 megapixel CMOS sensor. It’s capable of delivering a maximum resolution of 3,888 x 2,592 pixels. A maximum res RAW shot takes approx. 9.8MB of space, while a Large Fine image will use 3.8MB. Canon claim lower overall noise from the new sensor.

Canon has taken the battle against dust to new heights, with the 400D. In its armoury is: a vibrator that shakes sensor dust loose on start-up and shutdown; an anti-static coating for the sensor itself; better overall construction and material selection to minimize dust attraction and adhesion; and a new Dust Delete Data application that maps the position of dust that just won’t budge, and eliminating its trace from images.

Improvements in image quality over the 300D and 350D are taken further with the integration of the 9-point Auto Focus sensor as used in the professional Canon 30D. It’s powered by Canon’s DiG!C II microprocessor and is impressively quick, near instantaneous, we found in testing. The DiG!C II was also used to power the 350D. Canon has moved on a generation, with DiG!C III now powering its latest compacts, but Canon has deemed the II to be sufficient for the 400D, and in the field we simply couldn’t imagine it being any faster or intuitive with the AF. The DiG! II brings new facial recognition sensors to the table, something better suited to the compact party cam market.

While both the 350D and 400D use the same DiG!C II, the 400D has faster processing overall. The big beneficiary here is burst mode. The 400D can fire off almost twice as many shots in burst mode before slowing down. It can sustain 3 frames per second for 27 jpeg images, or 10 RAW images, until it starts to choke.



Canon has dispensed with the 350D’s 2 x status LCDs, replacing it with a single large 2.5” LCD monitor. We found the layout of the camera’s status and setting info on the monitor to be extremely good. The camera has a proximity sensor that shuts the LCD down when your face is pressed against the eyepiece to prevent any distraction by the LCD’s light. After a shot is taken the LCD displays the photo briefly (default is 2 seconds, adjustable up to 8 seconds). Despite the larger screen, battery life is exemplary.

Canon has been introducing its ‘Picture Style’ feature across its camera range, and it’s no surprise that the 400D has it. These presets for colour setting and saturation settings offer modes for: Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral and Faithful. You can also create custom settings.

Up top, the Mode Dial allows selection through a range of either ‘Creative Zone’ settings: Program AE; Shutter-priority AE; Aperture-priority AE; Manual exposure and Automatic Depth-of-field. Just in front of this dial is the familiar secondary selection dial, where you can adjust the selected mode, aperture in aperture mode, for example.

The other half of the Main Dial is the ‘Image Zone’, which is Canon’s gift to keen beginners. Its presets do a superb job, taking control of the aperture, shutter and all colour setting for the modes: Portrait; Landscape; Close-up; Night portrait and Flash-off.

Combine these modes with the ‘Picture Style’ setting from the main menu and you have a powerful tool capable of creating stunning images even a rank amateur can knock out with ease. We did a lot of testing snapping away carelessly with the full-auto mode, an extraordinarily capable mode when combined with the 400D’s very fast processing power and fabulous 9-point AF, make for a deadly weapon in the hands of recent compact cam graduates. Full-auto will end up being used by many as a sole mode, we guess, it’s that capable.

The 400D now sits alongside the Nikon D80 and Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 in the 10 megapixel ‘affordable’ market. It has everything required to satisfy the desires of photographers wishing to purchase their first D-SLR, and is strong enough with the new features and refinements to warrant a serious degree of upgrade consideration from exiting 350D owners.

It’s great fun to use and, like the 350D, will bring many amateurs into photography, being easy enough for beginners and powerful enough to let them grow into advanced photography.




TECH SPECS

Image sensor:
10.1 Effective Megapixel CMOS sensor; 22.2 x 14.8mm effective size

Number of recording pixels:

Large / Fine: 3888 x 2592 pixels (approx. 10.1 Megapixels)
Medium / Fine: 2816 x 1880 pixels (approx. 5.3 Megapixels)
Small / Fine: 1936 x 1288 pixels (approx. 2.5 Megapixels)
RAW: 3888 x 2592 pixels (approx. 10.1 Megapixels)

Sensitivity (equivalent film speed):

ISO 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 (selectable via ISO Speed menu)

Image data storage:

Compact FlashT (CF) card Type I or Type II standard; 1 slot

Image compression:

Raw / Fine / Normal

Image compression level:

Still image: JPEG or RAW - simultaneous recording possible

Image storage capacity (with 512mb flash card):

Large / Fine: approx. 145 images
Large / Normal: approx. 279 images
Middle / Fine: approx. 245 images
Middle / Normal: approx. 466 images
Small / Fine: approx. 419 images
Small / Normal: approx. 790 images

Image storage capacity (with 128mb flash card):

RAW / Fine: approx. 58 images

Lens:

Canon EF and EF-S series, effective focal length 1.6x

Shutter:

Vertical-travel, mechanical, focal plane shutter with electronic control

Shutter speed:

1/4,000 sec. - 30 sec., Bulb; maximum flash sync at 1/200 sec.

Focusing method:

TTL-CT-SIR type. Wide area AF with 9 selectable focussing points.

Focusing modes:

Autofocus (One-shot AF, Predictive AI Servo AF, One-Shot /Predictive AI Servo AF switching) and Manual Focussing

Light metering method:

Evaluative, Partial, and Centre-weighted average metering

Metering range:

EV1-EV20

White balance control:

Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Flash and Custom

Shooting modes:

Program AE, Shutter-priority AE, Aperture priority AE, Depth-of-field AE, Full Auto, Programmed Image Control modes (6), Manual, E-TTL II autoflash Program AE

Continuous shooting speed:

3 frames per sec for up to 27 in a single burst

Self timer:

Yes - 10 seconds

Flash (built-in):

Auto pop-up, retractable, built-in flash in the pentaprism

Flash guide number (built-in):

13 at 100 ISO (m)

Flash (external):

Hot-shoe: X-sync contacts, with EX-series Speedlites: E-TTL II autoflash

Optical viewfinder:

Eye-level SLR (with fixed pentamirror)

Viewfinder adjustment:

-3 to +1 dpt

Viewfinder coverage:

95% (vertically and horizontally)

Monitor type:

2.5" TFT colour, liquid crystal monitor - 230,000 pixels

File format:

Complies to Design rule for Camera File standards

Interface:

Digital Terminal: USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
Video Output Terminal: NTSC / PAL
Remote Control Terminal: E3-type
Wireless Remote Control for RC-1 and RC-5

Direct printing:

Camera, compatible printer, dedicated cable

Power source:

Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery (type: NB-2LH), AC adapter (type: ACK-700)

Operating environment:

Temperature: 0° - 40° C; Humidity: 85% or lower

Dimensions (W x H x D):

126.5 x 94.2 x 65mm

Weight:

Approx. 510gms

Operating platforms - PC:

Windows 98 SE, 2000, ME, XP

Operating platforms - MAC:

Mac OS X 10.2 to 10.4