My 400D mini review (aka initial findings :p)

**_Belial** · 28th September 2006

As many of you know, my 350D is busted, and as i'm off to copenhagen this weekend, I couldn't go without a camera, so ordered a 400D from these guys yesterday.

http://www.waltersphotovideo.co.uk/

Now i've never used them before but i'd recommend them to absolutely anybody, within minutes (literallym about 6 or 7 minutes) of ordering they had dispatched it, i had my tracking number and was eagerly awaiting today

So camera arrives, rip open the box, from the front, not really much to tell them apaprt, looks identical appart from the shutter button's black not silver this time.

Turn the camera around though and it's a whole new story, the tiny LCD and little lcd strip of the 350D are gone, and replaced with a super size (well ok not super-size, but much bigger

) LCD which contains all your shot information on there, believe me, it makes a welcome change. One very handy thing is that the LCD switches itself off once you put your eye to the eyepice, to save battery and I assume to stop any light leakage (i just hope i can find a button to switch the LCD off anyway during my long exposure shots).

Here's a pic of the rear, showing the new layout + LCD.

Spoiler:

All the other buttons are same as 350D, appart from one with a printer on it near the LCD, no idea what it's for (who reads manuals straight away?), assume it's some pictbridge thing. Oh one little thing which is ace, see at the back to the right/top of the lcd, it's rubber, an extra little grip for when you're holding the camera, nothing massive, but a nice touch.

OK, so aesthetics aside, everyone knows the differences technically between the 400D and 350D by now so i wont re-iterate them (go google), only to say the anti-dust feature is one of the main reasons i went for it, i'm forever getting dust on my sensor so i'm hoping this will end the days of swabbing, only time will tell!

The menu looks pretty much identical, same jump buttonsm, same options, appart from something called picture styles. I've not tested, but from waht i can see it's presets for taking black + white, sepia etc. etc. images, nothing you can't do with post-processing, but suppose if you dont have a pc, it's handy, but i'm still of the opinion that taking in full colour then converting leaves your options open!

So onto performance, tbh i thikn it's a wee bit slower than the 350D, this could be down to the higher megapixel rating or new sensor, or perhaps it's just me used to the 350D, but it's certainly slower at displaying your images after a shot, and in burst mode, i dont know, just "feels" a little slower, perhaps once i've had a fiddle properly i'll find some options that need disabling

Speaking of which, just fiddling with the options now and i see there's a new option under the "long exposure noise reduction" custom function for "Auto" now, sounds interesting (previously this custom function took another exposure, but with shutter closed, equalling the time of hte original exposure to reduce noise, a little cumbersome tbh), again not read manual yet so no idea what that does compared to On.

So onto the images, i was a little concerned after reading 1 review which seemed to me like the 400D was far superior in quality than the 350D (see other thread below). Well i'm glad to say it's just not the case. I setup a tripod and threw some random junk onto a windowsill, setup tripod and used the stock lens. Now as the 350D wont let me control apperture, both camera's were setup so that the lens wasn't on fully (the only way i can get a pic with my 350D now). So shots were taken in Manual mode, default everything and shutter speed at 1/40.

Here's the 350D result

Spoiler:

And the 400D on the same scene (although i did nudge the thing along a little when swapping the camera's on the tripod

)

Spoiler:

The 400D seems to expose a little darker than the 350D, but imho, this is a good thing, as you've that slightly less chance of loosing detail in bright scenes this way, but it's not too dark to have to compensate massivley at this stage. Of course the images above have both been scaled in photoshop, so expect some extra noise on them, and again the 400D had to be scaled down from a higher resolution as it's 2MP higher than the 350D.

Anyway, that's my initial impressions, glad i've got a camera again anyway which i can take away this weekend, and glad the 400D isn't in any way a letdown from the fabulous 350D

Hope this review proves usefull to someone out there as i've just the start of "Cheers" for this

**Mr Olympia** · 28th September 2006

Good review and glad you got sorted m8.

**slartibartfast** · 28th September 2006

Nice review, and very quick seeing as you only got it this morning.

**_Belial** · 28th September 2006

Thanks guys, i'm just glad i've got a camera again! Will hopefully (weather permitting) get some nice shots at the weekend and add to the review once i've had a proper fiddle.

**zoltexuk** · 30th September 2006

Nice one Bud, that answrs the 350 or 400D question I have

**_Belial** · 2nd October 2006

Right then,

After spending a weekend with the camera out and about in copenhagen i've got to say, i like it. The big LCD is lovely, and a real nice addition, but as for the CCD cleaning, it must be said, it's not all that. A few of the shots i took had some dust on them, then again, a few did not either so guess at some point (perhaps after a few cycles) it got rid of the dust.

Also it takes a lot of getting used to, after being with the 350D for so long, that all images seem to be underexposed compared to teh 350D. So settings for shutter + apperture that you're used to using just don't cut it anymore, you're gonna have to compensate or adjust your settings.

Unfortuantley I took the stock lens with me to copenhagen so can't really get a fair comparison as i'm used to my sigma lens, so a few of my photos do suffer a bit from chromatic aberations and vignetting.

But in all fairness, it's a cracking camera, and the LCD alone (and even if hte dust removal doesnt work every time, it works, sometimes) makes it a worthwhile camera, as for is it a worthy upgrade for 350D owners, if you can sell your 350D then yep go for it, but if you're gonna have to spend the cash again and buy the 400D it's a little harder to recommend.

**crazyal** · 2nd October 2006

Here's poor old me on a 300D and a 70-300.

I just wish technology would sit still for 5 minutes!

Great review _Belial. Thanks for the sample pictures (both of which are cracking and I see what you mean about the exposure on the 400D being *slightly* darker. I agree that could be a good thing though. It just means you getting used to the quirks of the 400D, just like you did orginally with the 350D, no great shakes (pardon the pun) in my opinion.

I'd especially like to see a couple of macro shots on the 400D at some point.

Cheers.

**_Belial** · 4th October 2006

Well I tried some low-light, long exposure shots tonight on the 400D to compare with the 350D. One thing that immediatley made me smile, was when shooting in bulb mode, instead of just counting up in seconds (with only 3 digits available on the 350D btw) you now actually get a minutes + seconds timer, about time tbh, but it did really bug me on the 350D that the camera couldnt display how long the exposure was for me.

However... the down side is that the LCD stays on to display the time, yep so expect long-exposure shots to drain battery like mad as you've got to keep the LCD on, or put some blu-tak over the sensor, which i'll try next time to see if it switches it off.

One thing i did notice though, is that at low-iso's in darkness i'm sure there's more noise than the 350D. I took a couple of longish (5 mins) exposures tonight at iso 100 as it was pretty light because of the moon, and one of hte shots had lots of little dots all over it. I've not had a play with the new noise reduction custom functions yet so they may fix some things, but worth noticing anyway.

**crazyal** · 9th October 2006

"Let there be light" is my new wallpaper - superb shot.

**_Belial** · 16th October 2006

Just adding to the review as i find new stuff

Last night was trying a long exposure, only 2hrs was the plan, something i'd achieved fine with the 350D, but when i went out to the 400D to finish it off, battery had run flat

( I put a new one in immediatley hoping (clutching at straws) it'd save it, but alas, 2 hours of work gone

So for anyone planning very long exposure work with a 400D, get a battery grip!

**_Belial** · 18th October 2006

Ah i've just found the low battery fault above could be down to a dodgy battery. The battery in question won't charge atm, whereas my other batteries charge fine, so i'll try a very long exposure again with a differnet battery and report here.

**Bilbo_baggin** · 18th October 2006

Just ordered the 400D Black from Jessops. Working for them means I get a small discount, but I won't have the money until after the weekend at the earliest, so I'm feeling impatient already !!!

Bilbo.