What is the best camera to take a quality photo with? The camera you have with you... but this should be the camera you have with you! It is easy to use and takes great photos. If you are interested in expanding your photography skills the camera can be used in manual mode or if you are just starting out there is an auto mode. This is an amazing camera and would recommend it to someone wanting to move out of the pocket point and shoot camera world, to a more advanced camera.

saralynn22

USA

My husband an I were one of the first to purchase the Canon Digital Rebel when it first came out. After many faithful years of service we decided to retire the Rebel and move up to the Canon 40D. The only thing that had gone bad on the Rebel was the shutter, and the 40D offered a shutter warrentee as well as a more sturdy body. It also has the new processor and many of the features that have come out in the years since the Rebel was first put on the market. The larger LCD screen for viewing images is great and I love the scroll wheel for navagating through pictures. The image quality is amazing. I am suprised at how easily I can pick out pictures taken from this camera versus pictures taken from my old Rebel or our more compact digital Minolta. I am also loving the fast fps rate. I always felt like I was missing important shots waiting on my Rebel to catch up. With the 40D, I am sure to capture every shot I want. I like the Canon brand and was able to use all of my existing lenses with the new camera. I am not a professional, but I would recommend the Canon 40D for anyone that loves photography and is willing to spend the money to get a great product.

Meyereh

Cincinnati, OH

Simply put, the dynamic Range on this body is awesome. Perhaps the deepest I've seen. Every single level of this camera blows me away. I am thrilled with auto sensor cleaning. In the field, it is hard not to pick up dust when you change lenses a lot. The cleaning system is a big plus, in my opinion. The other upgrades are nice including the larger LCD.

muddywaters

Florence, SC

This was my first DSLR. I purchased it about three years ago. Previous to that I had a Rebel XT. I took a photography class at my local community college to learn how to shoot in manual mode. This camera has a great manual, easy to read. The 40d was the camera I started my photography business with. I like that it is light weight, has the option to use other canon lenses. I had difficulty getting sharp images at an ISO above 1000, there was some grain. I couldn't figure out how to get the ISO above 1600 even after reading the manual...I gave up. Overall it is a great camera to start out with. I have used it professionally for two years, until recently upgrading to the canon 5d mark II. I will continue to use the 40d as my backup camera or to take with me on family vacations, etc.

lanad

Grand Rapids, MI

I have owned and used this for about 3 years now and still learning new things. It has many many great features for amatuer photographers. I like how I am able to use it with Aperature priority setting or shutter priority setting when the lighting conditions are constantly changing. When the lighting requires me to manually set the exposure, I can do so as well. I like the large LCD screen and the quality of the picture. I just wished the camera was able to handle a higher iso setting without too much grain on the photos. The camera is a decent weight, and can get a little heavy with a larger lens on or if you are shooting for a long period of time. But then again, you would run into this problem with any other dslr.

mapheew

Santa Ana, CA

After much, much research I decided on the Canon 40D digital SLR camera.  I have the kit lens EF 28-135 IS USM.  I am currently at the level of a hobbiest and working on moving up from a snapshot picture taker to a thought out photographer.  I wanted something that was more than just an entry level camera but not so professional that it would be very difficult to learn.  This is the camera I was looking for!  I had read so many excellent reviews on this camera.  The picture quality is great.  There are so many options and this camera is capable of so much. There is no way that I could list all of its capabilities on this review.  This camera can do it all.  The battery life is excellent. This camera is heavy compared to the Rebel cameras but I was aware of that when I bought it.  The body is made of a different material. I bought a smaller portrait lens as well and have no concerns.  If you have an interest of morethan just shooting smapshots then this is an excellent camera to buy!

TCPOC

Fort Worth, TX

Canon have advertised their association with sports photography for many years and it's not just marketing fluff. This is a semi professional camera with the heavy, but rugged magnesium alloy build to match. As with virtually all cameras of this class, the power on time is very quick. This model captures a maximum of 10.1 megapixels on it's aps-c sized CMOS sensor. This is about ideal for the sensor size and is enough to create professional quality size images. As with many semi professional cameras it will often be sold without a kit lens, so you will have the freedom to choose which you want. I have found that Canon lenses are generally less expensive than Nikon lenses. The thing that struck me the most about this camera was the speed. When you want to take sports action shots, just point and hold done the shutter. It is amazingly fast. The body has some moisture sealing, but certainly not enough to be submerged in liquid. Overall, this is a great camera which is very fast and takes good pictures.

usertwo000

Dallas, TX

We love this camera.  We use it for photographing stills of the family to fast moving sports action shots.  WIth a standard 50mm lens we can get a nice photo of our son with his prom date and the a 100 to 250 lens we get wonderful goal scoring shots of our daughter playing hockey.  This is a great camera for the home photo nut.  No point and click can give you the clear photos this camera can.  We created 16X20 photos of fast action that are clean and krisp.     

cathyvernham

Grosse Ile, MI

I'm a part time professional photographer, and have been for over 10 years - I shoot with two of these Canon 40D's, everything from high school seniors to weddings to babies and children, and they perform like champs. In about two years of usage each, I've had to replace the shutter or shutter assembly on each, but that's because I also use them to shoot middle school and high school sports for my newspaper, which can run up to 1,000 images per game. You can burn through a prosumer shutter pretty fast like that.   These new and especially used right now are in my opinion the best value in the camera market, which may be replaced by the 50D with its higher resolution LCD in the near future. But for now, this is the camera body I recommend when friends or students ask me what's the best dSLR to step into the field with.   Beautiful photos, makes gorgeous 20x30 prints and larger (have a couple of billboard shots for clients out on the highway), fast enough for sports and reliable enough for weddings. Great camera.

BanderaOutlaw

Bandera, TX

I am a professional photographer and the Canon 40D is one of my favorite bodies to use! I've worked with several camera's that include both crop and full frame sensors. As far as crop camera's, the 40D is absolutely excellent! It is more compact then some of the other DSLR's on the market, and yet produces far more stunning images! It has an excellent autofocus system with 10.1 megapixels. It is very user friendly, and if you've worked with any of Canon's DSLR's you will find it very easy to transition to. The features that I love most are the rapid shooting mode, the large LCD, and the automatic sensor cleaning. In previous Canon models, you had to manually clean the sensor or have it sent away to be cleaned. The 40D was built with an integrated cleaning system, which makes it much more convenient. The LCD screen has also improved from previous models, now being much more clearer and is 3.0 inches instead of 2.5. When I first got the 40D, I kept getting the "Error 99" message, until I did some research and discovered it has to deal with the kind of CF memory card being used. I quickly switched from a cheap memory card to a SanDisk Extreme Card and have had no issues what so ever! As long as you are using a quick CF card, you should have no problems. Overall, I highly recommend this camera to both professionals and amateurs alike!

Idelette

Arden, NC