ppp wrote:

Has anyone already tried the new Canon D400?

Thanks.


My wife bought one as a backup, replacing a 10D (her main camera is a
1D Mark II). Arrived yesterday from B&H and we played with it a bit
already ... for her it's a nice 'walk-around' camera (the 1D weighs
almost 3 lbs, the 400d weighs about 20 ounces). She got it because of
the sensor dust removal and the 10 Mpix and because we have a big trip
to Africa in January and it's unlikely they'll bring out a replacement
for the other bodies with dust removal before out trip.

If I were getting a lighter body for myself I'd probably hold out for a
5D type body with dust removal or, if going 1.6x (which I don't like)
I'd probably wait for the 30D replacement with dust removal. The 400d
feels too small in my hands.

I shot a couple hundred frames with it figuring out the menus etc and
to me it feels very, very small but I also like the light weight (both
my cameras are the 44 oz bricks). Even with a fairly light lens like
the 24-105 f/4 L IS the camera feels over-balanced by the lens so I
think we'll have to look at getting her an EF-S zoom for it (we skipped
buying the kit lens).

I think that with a small, light quality zoom it would do fine, also
with smaller fixed focus lenses we have like the 24 f/2.8, 35 f/2 and
85 f/1.8 it will be OK.

I didn't really mind the menu displaying only on the back panel, which
some are bitching about. Also, it's nice having a small pop-up flash,
though most of our lenses will probably block it. If I read the
booklet right you can't do flash exposure compensation with the
on-camera flash, which to me is a big negative (I think it said you can
only do flash compensation with an add-on flash but may have misread
it).

Haven't converted any RAW shots yet and haven't checked for dust, two
things I want to do soon. We can convert RAW files with both the Canon
DPP (which still looks clunky to me) and with Capture One LE 3.7.5,
which I just downloaded.

Overall I think it's fine if you need something really light and can
put up with something that feels pretty flimsy but I personally think
it's best suited for the EF-S lenses, assuming these are smaller, less
bulky lenses (I've never actually laid eyes on one).

Bill