EOS 50D - Reviews by PhotoCamel Members

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Canon EOS 50D

Reviews	Views	Date of last review
3	3360	Sat October 10, 2009

Recommended By	Average Price	Average Rating
100% of reviewers	$1,299.67	6.3

supersize

Description:

Canon's new EOS 50D bridges the gap between the novice and the seasoned pro with a perfect combination of high-speed and quality. It features an APS-C sized 15.1-megapixel CMOS sensor for tremendous images, new DIGIC 4 Image Processor for fine detail and superior color reproduction, and improved ISO capabilities up to 12800 for uncompromised shooting even in the dimmest situations. It features a refined 3.0-inch Clear View LCD (920,000 dots) monitor, supercharged Live View Function with Face Detection Live mode, plus a number of new automatic Image Correction settings and HDMI output for viewing images on an HDTV.

Suggested Retail Price: $1099.00

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Canon EOS 50D

Author

Foto Cowboy
Alpaca

Registered: August 2008
Location: Kansas
Posts: 27

Review Date: Sat October 25, 2008

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: $1,399.00 | Rating: 1

Pros:	Great at 12800 iso
Cons:	Error 99 issues

I purchased the camera and haven't had it a week. I have had Canon for over 35 years. This is the first camera that to me was/is a problem child. Error 99 lock ups. Wouldnt accept cards less than 4 gig. Locks up during photos. Same card works in all other Canon Cameras but wont in this one. Wont format or acknowledge the card. Wouldnt work with the 580 EX Flash, would with the 430 EX and 430 EXII
Uses Batteries. I shot 430 pictures at the game, ( I dont chimp) batteries were gone at the end of the game, 70-200 2.8 lens NON IS.

Pros I found out when it was working, Great on focusing at football games in low light. easy to find buttons. When it works works well, but cant be trusted for any important photo shoots at this time. Got a replacement camera today. So far so good, It does sound different than the other one when taking pictures. Hope they get the bugs worked out. IF they want to keep me as a Canon User

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Foto Cowboy
Foto Cowboy Capturing Life's Experiences For Over 32 Years With Canon
My Web site http://fotocowboy.com

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HuBBaTheMan
Llama

Registered: June 2007
Location: Borås, Sweden
Posts: 514

Review Date: Sun November 2, 2008

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: $1,200.00 | Rating: 9

Pros:	Fast. Great display. High resolution. Live view.
Cons:	Odd behaviour with the peripheral luminance compensation.

Well this wont be a technical review, but rather a hands on "what i use this for" kind of review.

I purchased it about a week ago as a upgrade and companion to my existing 40D. Now i know a lot of you will shout "but why upgrade!" but there are a few points that made me decide to do that upgrade. First off the resolution. The 15MP files does work better for me than the 10MP as it gives me more detail and margin of error when shooting. And that brings us to the second reason, the microadjustment autofocus. With the 40D and my 70-200 F4L i constantly got front focus but so far the 50D have been spot on. And if i ever need it, i can adjust the 50D's autofocus slightly. All in all, i needed a 2nd camera and didn't want to wait for the 5D mk2 so i got the 50D.

Now to my first week with it. I got it on friday and after just checking that everythign worked i started off with a product shoot on saturday. Now it would have been a bit daft to take only the 50D on a client assignment but since i had my 40D as backup i felt pretty secure that it would be fine.

Luckily the Breezesys guy had just released a beta version of the DSLR Remote software which supported 50D tethering so i could shoot with my normal workflow. Initially i had a few odd quirks where the camera lost connection with the laptop and refused to shut down because it wanted to save images that had already been saved. After removing the battery and so it worked again. After that it worked flawlessly.

Here are a few shots from that:

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_0129.jpg

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_0248.jpg

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_0261.jpg

All in all i shot about 80 different products and it worked well throughout. All shots were ofcourse set up with the Live view and usually fired remotely with the DSLR Remote software.

The next day i had a fashion shoot to do. This time it would be a bit more of a challenge as i would be shooting tethered and handheld. The tethering worked very well but i did notice some weird lighting behaviour. It seems it toned down one side of the sensor for some odd reason and first i thought "hey i have just lit the background unevenly" but after checking it a bit more i just couldnt' find how. And even when i went in for a closeup (thus not really showing the background) the fading was still there. I didn't resolve that during the shoot but instead used the back display to show the model and designer how the images were going to look.

Here are one frame from this shoot:

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_0339.jpg

and the same frame with some color & contrast fixed (aswell as a small sore she had on her nose)

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_0339-2.jpg

I was very impressed with the quality of the resulting images and they felt much more sharper and detailed than my 40D ever could produce. This i personally think is more due to the fact that my 40D was probably not properly calibrated with the 70-200 F4L lens. Still, the results are what counts and these blew me away.

Two days later i had a shoot again, this time with some corporate portraits. Same weird shading side reared its ugly head and now the lighting was ofcourse completely different so i resorted to use the rear display again. I did notice that the viewing angle of the read lcd is MUCH improved now. I can't show any frames from this shoot however since they are not released yet =)

On wednesday it was time for a product shoot again. Also for a webshop (different one this time

and it was jewelry time. Very expensive jewelry. The shoot worked fine and allthough i did see the shaded banding on one side of the sensor, i shot more towards the middle knowing that the crop wouldn't be a problem and the end image was going for web anyway. This did concern me though a lot and i did try to find info on the net if anyone else have had this issue but i guess the camera was just too new.

Here are a few shots from this session (cropped though so the banding isn't evident) :

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_0560.jpg

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_0563.jpg

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_0565.jpg

Well this banding issue was a great concern to me and i did consider returning the camera for a checkup and using my 40D instead for the following shoot. The day after the product shoot i was supposed to do a full day shooting assignment for the same webshop doing fashion inspirational images. But by a coincidence i remembered i had actually turned on the peripheral luminance compensation when i first got the camera. So i got curious to see if that could have been the culprit. Since the shading occured regardless of zoom level and in the same spot i thought it logical that it would have been related to the camera and not the lighting. So the night before the big shoot i switched it off and did a few test shots and the shading was gone. So i decided to use it.

Well the shoot went very well and i had to deal with a lot of fairly complex lighting situations and focusing in dim lightingcondition. But the 50D worked throughout all of this and no banding in sight! The lcd display was also very very useful when showing on location the results. The viewing angle let the everyone view the image easilly regardless of where they were viewing from. A small feature which turned out to be very useful indeed.

Here are a few shots from that day:

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_0636.jpg

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_0699.jpg

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_0759.jpg

http://imaginara.se/50Dreview/_MG_1045.jpg

All in all the 50D worked just like it should with the only exception being the weird behaviour with the shaded band. I did upgrade the firmware to 1.03 just before the last shoot but i did turn off the peripheral luminance compensation and tested it prior to that.

Could i have done all the shots with the 40D? Most likely. The autofocus might have messed a bit though (as i know mine isnt properly calibrated =) but the 40D is an excellent camera in its own.

For me the upgrade was worth it and i have actually decided to postpone the 5D purchase a little longer. I really like the quality im getting with the 50D now and am very happy with my upgrade.

Hope you enjoyed this very subjective and non-technical little review of my experiences with the 50D during my first week of shooting with it. If the peripheral luminance compensation is an actual bug or not remains to be seen.

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Web: http://imaginara.se Blogg: http://imaginara.tumblr.com
Tools: Mamiya 645AFD w. Phase One P25, Canon EOS 5d mk II, Horseman LE 4x5, Mamiya RZ-67, Holga 120N, Polaroid 635CL, Brownie No.2, Pinhole cameras.

sonyboy
Alpaca

Registered: January 2006
Posts: 14

Review Date: Sat October 10, 2009

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: $1,300.00 | Rating: 9

Pros:	Very good camera with few bugs,fixed with firmware. Much better camera than the rating scores suggest.
Cons:	Typical with Canon, great product possibly released a little to early.

This camera gets a bad rap mostly due to bugs that are fixed with firm ware upgrades. I've owned canon cameras since the early 80,s. A-1,T-90,20D,30D and currently a 50D, The 50D has had more bugs to work out than all of the others combined, that I've owned. When compared to the 20D and 30D the focus is improved very noticeably on two lenses that I own, (100-L and a Sigma 150 macro). I mention this because the sigma focused so slowly on both the 20D and 30D that I really did not like the lens. The 50D brought this lens to life, don't get me wrong the lens is a quality lens and the 50D makes it more enjoyable to use for two reasons first, is improved focus speed and the second one is live view really rocks with macro in my opinion.
The image quality with the 50D is very good and Canon has released firm ware fixes for the magenta cast and error 99 complaints that are mentioned frequently, and justified by many reviews.
Very good build quality easy to adjust to if you've owned any of the 20-40 D series cameras.
All in all a very good camera that was released with several bugs. If you are considering one, try to get your hands on it for testing and keep in mind you may need to upgrade firm ware to be happy with your purchase. This camera is much better than a 6.3 rating.

Rick.