Little point and shoot digital cameras in decent light situations (i.e., outdoors) take great pictures in most circumstances. But they’re still slow, cannot do shallow depth of field, often don’t have a very wide angle field of view, and to me at least, are generally irritating (except for their size)! Once you’ve seen the quality of pictures and enjoyed the flexibility and range of options and control with an SLR, it’s hard to go back. I know, I tried. Got tired of lugging the Canon 20D and lenses around, sold the lot. But less than a year later, I was ready to throw my Canon point and shoot camera in a fire pit.

With my 20D though I felt EVERY photo file out of the camera needed some, and often a LOT, of post processing on the computer to look decent. I was often a little embarrassed to show people the shots out of the camera. “Yes I know it’s dark, but see how easy it is to fix?” “I know the color is kind of washed out, and it looks a bit out of focus, but see, upping the saturation and a little unsharp filter… makes all the difference… gee aren’t I clever?” I concluded, no Paul, you’re not clever, you’re just spending far too much time having to mess with shots many would consider boring no matter what, just to get something that I could print at 4×6 to stick on the refridgerator.

To get files out of the camera ready to use, that means JPEGs. RAW files can be converted but that’s an extra step. But the 40D lets you save a JPEG and a RAW for each shot, which is great for me. If the JPEG is good enough, use that. If not, use the RAW. The 40D also lets you save large, medium or small JPEG (small) at various quality (compression) levels, with a small or large RAW file. I use the RAW + high quality SMALL JPEG. ‘Small’ is STILL 1936×1288 pixels which is larger than most computer monitors and still a 1.5MB file!

Next is ‘Picture Styles’ which lets you tell the camera what sharpness, contrast, saturation, and color tone to apply to JPEGs. I set Sharpness to 6, Contrast to 0, Saturation to 1, and Color Tone to 0 and save that as a user defined picture style.

Next is exposure compensation. I think in order to protect against ‘blown highlights’ the camera (in my opinion) under exposes just about every shot. So I bump the exposure compensation by just 1/3 a stop.

Finally, I have turned on Highlight Tone Priority (Custom Function II: Image, setting 3, set to 1). This tells the camera to try to preserve some dynamic range (different shades) in bright regions of a picture by adjusting the interpretation of exposure and color. The only trade-off of this is it then makes ISO 200 the minumum ISO, but that’s never a problem for me with a fast lens (the amazing EF-S 17-55/2.8 IS).

Here’s an example of the results – this is unretouched, right out of the camera (click on this to see the actual picture):

Canon’s ‘digital rebel’ line is about to evolve once more with the new Canon XSi (or 450D as it is known in some parts of the world).

Just as the XTi leapfrogged in some ways the semi-pro 20D/30D with automatic sensor cleaning and more megapixels, the XSi brings features from the 40D plus some more into a smaller, more affordable package.

Canon’s optional bundled standard “kit” lens has also improved recently from the pretty weak EF-S 18-55 to the new EF-S 18-55 IS (the ‘IS’ means it is ‘image stabilized’ so you don’t have the be quite so steady in holding the camera).

One feature new to Canon’s DSLR’s is Auto Optimization. It adjusts exposure/brightness/contrast curves automatically to make for more ‘appealing’ looking images right out of the camera. Images from digital SLRs often look ‘flat’ or ‘dark’. Basic controls have existed to adjust contrast or saturation of all images but they’re too simple. Auto optimization appears to do a MUCH better job and will be a big win for those (like me!) who don’t like to spend HOURS editing images on the computer!

I have a 40D, which is a GREAT camera, but I’m wondering if I might prefer the XSi, perhaps with its optional grip to make it feel a bit more substantial. One thing holding me off though is that the 40D is a MUCH faster camera for burst shooting, doing 6.5 frames per second vs., I believe, 3. I don’t need this every day but for shooting horses jumping over fences, faster is better!

The 40D also has a glass pentaprism vs. the cheaper pentamirror in the XSi so the 40D should have a brighter viewfinder although I’ve not compared them yet.

The XSi is 12.2 megapixels (vs. 10.1 for the 40D) which will impress the easily impressed, but this is likely to be at the expense of a bit more noise in images at higher ISO settings.

Anyway, hat tip to Canon for delivering another EXCELLENT camera!

• The digital picture
• wlcastleman.com
• Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

One last piece of advice, if you’re going to get a nice digital SLR like the 40D or better, don’t put a cheap lens on it. Without a good eye the brain of the camera can hardly see a good picture!

I previously had a Canon 20D and sold that a year ago as I wasn’t using it so much and had grown tired of lugging it and the lenses I owned then around. But after 9 months or so without an SLR I couldn’t take it any more! Small point and shoot digital cameras are convenient but still have many disadvantages compared to an SLR. They don’t do well in poor light, the focus slowly, and can’t take multiple pictures quickly. The picture quality is also nowhere near what an SLR can do. Once you’ve had one you get spoiled!

The 40D improves on the 20D in many ways – it’s faster, has better auto focus, a bigger LCD on the back, new quick dial custom modes, auto dust removal, etc.

But none of this is what I’m really posting about! Digital cameras are still WAY too hard to use.

I’m a technical guy, and while I and others CAN cope with using a camera like the 40D or pretty much any other, that doesn’t mean it should be this complex. Not only is the camera hugely complex, but after you transfer images from the camera to your computer, and then more work begins. Digital SLR images almost always require ‘more work’ (editing) once they’re on the computer. Techies like this generally, but why shouldn’t a DSLR be able to produce great images right out of the camera?

Today it still seems that if you buy a digital SLR you can end up with GREAT pictures, but the effort is high. With ‘point and shoot’ cameras you can get decent pictures out of the camera, but there’s all the limitations I mentioned above.

When I’ve mentioned this complaint about SLRs to photographers they say I’m lazy or should just stick with a point and shoot. I think Nikon and Sony are beginning to get the message though, more than Canon. The new Nikon D300 and Sony a700 can produce excellent pictures right out of the camera. It looks like Canon may be catching up with the new XSi, their newest ‘entry’ digital SLR, which has automatic optimization for pictures which makes a dramatic difference. I recently e-mailed Canon begging that they put this feature in a firmware upgrade for the 40D I only just got!

Anyway, bottom line – if you get a digital SLR today and haven’t had one before, be prepared for a STEEP learning curve!