Canon’s EOS 400D is a slightly older camera than the rest. It followed the EOS 350D and is well known as a cheaper version of the EOS 450D.
The 18 — 55 mm autofocus lens that comes with the camera is average. It’s not going to be particularly useful when you go out on hiking trips or for wildlife photography. The lens does not provide sufficient zoom for that kind of photography, but for casual photographs portrait and closed ranged photography, it will do.
The buttons are small and the jog dial is a little hard to roll. A single jog dial is used to cycle the settings and a button is used together with the jog dial when combinations are required. All the settings expected from an entry-level dSLR are present. There are no limitations with this camera in terms of features.
Taking close-up shots is difficult with the standard shooting modes. The flash unit isn’t particularly good either. It’s bright enough for close areas and is too focussed on a narrow area. The build quality of the hinge and the flash unit isn’t very good.
Although this was a good entry-level Canon dSLR prior to the release of the EOS 1000D, in comparison, using it isn’t a very simple task, given its user interface. The menus are basic and sketchy. Using it with the Auto shooting mode gives decent results though.
Getting good shots in low-light situations can be a little difficult. It often requires you to increase the aperture size by a significant amount and also set the ISO to its maximum — 1600 to use a 1/30 second shot. Fortunately, the amount of grain at higher ISO levels is low and manageable and image adjustments can fix this.
The camera uses CompactFlash memory. The EOS 500D has just been launched and so the EOS 400D will slowly be phased out. Availability might soon be a problem, but at the same time, it’s also interesting to find low prices for the EOS 400D.
