Product Reviews

Canon's success at the lower end of the digital SLR market is hard to argue. The 300D and 350D were enormous successes, winning the hearts of keen amateurs everywhere. Disputing its ownership of the high end is equally tricky: the fringes of professional football pitches everywhere are dotted with the distinctive silver and black colour scheme of Canon's legendary L-series lenses.

But the mid-range of the market has proved more difficult. Not because Canon struggles to make decent thousand-pound cameras, but because Nikon makes such a decent fist of pro-amateur equipment. The Nikon D80 (Reviews, 15 September 2006, p31) for instance, costs under £700 including a lens, and the superb D200 (Reviews, 3 February 2006, p34) weighs in at about £1000, again with a lens. As good as the Eos 30D (Reviews, 26 April 2006, p32) was, it couldn't compete with either of Nikon's more competitive efforts.

But the 40D is a huge step up from Canon's entry-level Eos 400D (Reviews, 15 September 2006, p34), and the difference is obvious from the moment you lift it out of the box. Including the lens and battery, the 40D weighs in at 1.3kg, thanks to its magnesium-alloy skeleton. It feels incredibly tough, and whether you're a professional snapper or simply a clumsy amateur, the 40D's rugged body feels as if it will survive all kinds of calamities.

It has a 10.1 megapixel sensor. This isn't a headline feature - the 400D has exactly the same resolution, and it's good enough for 13 x 8in prints at 300dpi. As you'd reasonably expect from an expert such as Canon, image quality is near-perfect. Colours are reproduced accurately, and the resolution is high enough to make small details easily visible in the background. You shouldn't expect significantly better detail than you'd get from the 400D, though. Both sensors cram 10 million pixels into an area of just 22 x 15mm (w x h) across, and it's possible to spot unwanted noise creeping into shots at ISOs of just 400. It's nothing too destructive, and at most print sizes you won't notice

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the problem, but it does mean that those who already have a 400D need to find another excuse to upgrade.

Luckily, these are not in short supply, as the 40D offers more than just superior build quality compared with its lower-end counterparts. The 3in screen on the back is half an inch bigger than the 400D's, and the 40D also offers Live Preview. This allows you to preview what the Cmos sensor sees before taking the shot. In practice, this works in a completely different way than on compact cameras - there's no constant focusing, so you have to frame a shot before you focus it.

The rest of the body is superb. The lack of a secondary LCD screen on the 400D was disappointing, and its return, mounted on the top of the 40D, is very welcome. We also appreciate that you rarely have to dip into the camera's menu system to change shot settings. It's not that Canon's menu is tricky to navigate, but changing settings by holding down a button and flicking a scroll wheel is much easier - and, crucially, faster - than finding and changing the relevant menu setting. Drive mode, ISO, white balance and focus modes can all be changed without using the menu.

The 40D offers the best performance ever from a sub-£1000 camera. In five seconds we managed to shoot an incredible 34 shots in continuous drive mode. This translates to nearly 7fps. In Jpeg mode you can shoot almost indefinitely: with the 40D set to capture top-quality Jpegs we ran for 188 frames before the buffer filled up. Even in Raw mode, we managed 20 frames in about three seconds, which is again at 7fps. There are also some useful drive modes, such as a two-second timer for avoiding shutter shake (which was also included on the 400D but buried in the menus), and a slower continuous mode, which means you won't unintentionally take a couple of shots when one would do.

The 17-85mm lens included in the price is optically stabilised, which is a plus, and we found it sharp, fast to focus and pleasingly free of chromatic aberrations. It's well-built, too, making it an ideal all-purpose companion to the tough body.

The 40D is a worthy upgrade to the 400D. If you already have a selection of Canon lenses and equipment, you'll definitely appreciate the increased speed, better build-quality and the addition of a secondary LCD. But if you're simply in the market for a mid-range SLR, you should take note of the Nikon D80. It's a little slower and a little less tank-like in its construction, but it offers great build quality and, at £670 with a lens, is convincingly better value for money if you don't make your living from photography.