Canon EOS 40D Digital SLR - Features

Canon EOS 40D Picture Style

Picture Style pre-sets simplify in-camera control over image qualities. Picture Style pre-sets can be likened to different film types -- each one offering a different color response. Within each selectable pre-set, photographers have control over sharpness, contrast, colour tone and saturation. The camera's factory default configuration is set to deliver immediately-usable JPEG images without need for additional menu settings. Picture Style pre-sets applied to a RAW image can be revised with Canon's Digital Photo Professional software.

Standard:: Default setting; vivid, contrasting images; usable in a wide variety of conditions; optimal for direct printing without further editing
Portrait:: Optimizes color tone and saturation and weakens sharpening to achieve attractive skin tones
Landscape:: Sharp images with particularly vivid results for blue skies and green hues; for punchier greens and blues with stronger sharpening to give a crisp edge to mountain, tree and building outlines
Neutral:: Matches previous EOS Digital SLRs; low contrast and slight in-camera sharpening; ideal for post-processing
Faithful:: Accurate reproduction of the subject's colors based on colorimetric data
Monochrome:: The EOS 40D's black and white mode; similar to silver halide film in black and white; also allows filter (yellow, orange, red and green) and toning (sepia, blue, purple and green) effects
User-defined (1-3):: Application of the user's own sharpness, contrast, saturation and color tone settings (±4 stops in 1-stop increments) to a preset Picture Style setting

The User Defined Picture Style can be used to store up to three customized pre-sets, or any of the pre-sets available for download from Canon's web site. Additionally, users can create their own custom Picture Style pre-sets using the supplied Picture Style Editor software.

Canon EOS 40D Color Management

At every step of the design and manufacturing process, Canon ensures that your SLR, lens, and computer will work together seamlessly, resulting in color that is both sharp, accurate, and pleasing to the eye. Canon's proprietary image-rendering processes utilize numerous data for color rendition. The sensor captures an even wider gamut of colors than your computer is capable of recognizing, and through complex operations, the processor ensures that whether you're shooting in sRGB for the Web, or in Adobe RGB color space for commercial applications, your colors will turn out just right. Advanced users can set their own white balance, color temperature, saturation and much more.

.CR2 Raw Format and sRAW Recording Format

The Canon EOS 40D digital SLR incorporates the same new RAW format featured in Canon digital cameras from the EOS-1D Mark II model onward. The file extension is .CR2 (Canon RAW, 2nd edition). The RAW data records the white balance data, processing parameters, and other settings. All these settings can be edited freely with compatible RAW file conversion software such as Canon's EOS Viewer Utility and Digital Photo Professional software, which are supplied with the camera.

In addition to retaining the RAW image capture capabilities of its predecessors, the EOS 40D SLR now offers a more manageable sRAW recording format. In sRAW mode, the number of pixels is reduced to one-fourth that of a standard RAW image and the file size is cut in half, while retaining all of the flexibility and creative possibilities associated with full-size, conventional RAW images.

Exif 2.21 Metadata and Adobe Color Space

There is no need to worry about color space. The EOS 40D complies with DCF 2.0, revised to support Adobe RGB, and Exif 2.21. Images taken in Adobe RGB will have the Adobe RGB color space information, not the ICC profile, appended to the Exif information. (If Adobe RGB is selected from the 40D digital camera's Color Space menu, all processing parameters are available.) Therefore, applications and devices compatible with DCF 2.0 and Exif 2.21 will be able to handle Adobe RGB in the same way as sRGB. When software compatible with Exif 2.21 is used, images captured with the EOS 40D will open automatically in the Adobe RGB color space. When a printer that complies with Exif 2.21 is used, the printer will adjust the color saturation of the print suitably.

Digital Photo Professional Software

Digital Photo Professional software provides high speed, high quality processing of lossless RAW images. Processing with Digital Photo Professional allows real-time display and the immediate application of image adjustments, giving control over RAW image variables such as white balance, dynamic range, exposure compensation and colour tone. Images can be recorded in camera with sRGB or Adobe RGB colour space. Digital Photo Professional supports sRGB, Adobe RGB, ColorMatch RGB, Apple RGB and Wide Gamut RGB colour spaces.

ICC (International Colour Consortium) profiles can be attached to TIFF or JPEG images when converted from RAW. This allows faithful reproduction of colours in software applications that support ICC profiles, such as Adobe Photoshop. For improved efficiency, a set of image adjustments can be saved as a combination and applied.

Improvements in the latest version of Digital Photo Professional include three times faster image previews, an enhanced Noise Reduction tool and simultaneous batch processing of TIFF and JPEG images.

Canon EOS 40D Feature-Laden White Balance

The EOS 40D camera has professional level white balance controls. In addition to Auto, it has six presets, a Custom setting, plus manual and user-specified color temperature from 2,000K to 10,000K.

To fine-tune white balance, the EOS 40D also features white balance compensation and a number of different white balance bracketing options for spot-on color in any number of lighting situations.

White Balance Bracketing

Even experienced photographers can find it difficult to judge the appropriate white balance setting. The EOS 40D's White Balance Bracketing system ensures success by capturing a series of 3 files varying white balance from magenta to green or blue to amber, depending on the lighting situation.

White Balance Modes and Presets for Every Situation

No matter what the light source, EOS 40D makes the proper white balance achievable. Settings include Auto, Daylight, Shade, Overcast, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Flash, Manual Color Temperature Settings and Custom.

Auto (3,000-7,000K): The camera uses the CMOS sensor and an external sensor to determine the ideal color temperature.
Daylight: For sunny outdoor shots, approx. 5,200K.
Shade: New for the EOS 40D, counters strong blue tones typical in open shade on sunny days, approx. 7,000K.
Cloudy: For overcast days, dusk and dawn, approx. 6,000K.
Tungsten: Perfect for studio "hot lights" and conventional household lamps, approx. 3,200K.
Fluorescent: 4,000K eliminates green "spike" of fluorescent tubes.
Flash: The proper starting point for many studio strobes and Canon Speedlites, approx. 6,000K.
Custom: Highly precise and perfect for unusual or mixed-light situations. The photographer shoots a white object in the given lighting, then locks in the proper WB on the LCD screen based on that image.

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