For whatever it was, I was gifted with a beat-up and what looked like a run-down Canon EOS 400D by close family kin recently, with the LCD screen frosted to almost a no-go with its display, and showing other ailments in need of TLC. The camera came with an attached BG-E3 battery grip, sans the pair of batteries it needs to run, no charger, and an off-brand monster of a 70-300mm lens, which turned out later to be non-functional and was kept aside.
It was another week of waiting for a pair of replacement batteries and charger to arrive, so the camera could be tested to see if it was running. With the batteries, an alternative lens (an EF-S 24mm 1:2.8 STM), and a CF card installed, the camera sputtered back to life and showed all the signs, except for the LCD display, of a perfectly working unit, which it is.
The entry-level Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi in North America, EOS Kiss Digital X in Japan) digital SLR camera, a relatively compact and lightweight successor of the Canon EOS 350D, was launched by Canon in 2006. The camera, great for travel and a light-pack need, has a 10.1MP CMOS APS-C sensor, a nine-point autofocus system, a deeper and more comfortable grip than the 350D, a retractable auto pop-up flash, and on the display system, a wide-viewing angle 230,00 pixel 2.5-inch LCD screen sans the top status screen as seen on previous models. The 400D uses the same NB-2LH Lithium battery pack as the 350D.
Technical specs for the camera include an electronically-controlled focal plane shutter with a speed range from 30 to 1/4000 second, soft-touch electromagnetic shutter, ISO sensitivity at 100 to 400 in Basis Zone mode, and from 100 to 1600 in Creative Zone mode, 35-zone full aperture TTL metering with Evaluative, Partial, and Center-weighted options, a 10-second delay self-timer, and as with the 350D, the 400D is also endowed with Canon's EOS Integrated Cleaning System which incorporates an ultrasonic self-cleaning sensor unit. The EOS 400D was succeeded by the 450D (Rebel XSi in North America, EOS Kiss X2 in Japan) in 2008.
The functions and feature sets on the 400D are easy to use even for new users and the camera also offers creative freedom for serious users. Exposure modes include Program AE (Full Auto, Portrait, Landscape, Close-up, Sports, Night Portrait, Flash Off, Program), Shutter-Priority AE, Aperture-Priority AE, Depth-of-Field AE, Manual Exposure, and E-TTL II Autoflash. The 400D also has a picture style selection for image render pre-sets for Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Faithful, and Monochrome emulations.
Back to the camera in hand, I resorted to using it the way SLR film cameras before the onset of the digitals were used - set the mode dial to Program AE (sounds familiar?), frame the scene, release the shutter, wish for the best, and move on to the frame. No 'chimping (the habit of checking the image on the camera LCD after every shot is taken)' either, the word has not been invented in the film photography world and is not part of the vocabulary. The habit does not exist when shooting film, images are only viewable after the negative film has been sent to the lab for processing.
Though the try-out was done half-heartedly, a dry run to see if the camera was still capable of doing what it was supposed to, the images (as seen here) on the 10.1MP CMOS sensor, post-edited and framed on the desktop to the 4:5 and 5:4 image aspects, are excellent, true to the claim of what the EOS 400D is capable of. A fully working unit of the model could very well be the recommended choice for vintage enthusiasts looking at the low end of the auction market to acquire themselves into the genre.
Enough said, I might come back to the EOS 400D at a later date, and do a real film photography style street shoot, or any other genre I am working in, with it. In the meantime, I have another vintage enthusiast's pick, the Canon EOS 500D (EOS Rebel T1i, EOS Kiss X3) to enjoy the time with.
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