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RobLindsay
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Registered: Nov 8, 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 5
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Review Date: Nov 8, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Price, weight, AF
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Cons:
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none yet
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I've had the camera for a week. I am writing to ask for people's pref's in tweaking the camera's CF's, customizing Picture Styles, modes of use etc. Any tips are appreciated!
I find the manual confusing but an excellent soporific. it puts me to sleep in about ten minutes. If there is a good 50D book, please recommend it.
Thanks,
Rob
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 Nov 8, 2009
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spiros skopos
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Registered: Apr 3, 2007
Location: Greece
Posts: 31
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Review Date: Nov 1, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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fast focus - great colors
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Cons:
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need lot of manual reading (but this is not a negative!)
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Upgrade from Canon Xti - this is a huge step to another world!
Great camera very impressed with, but not so many days to have a final conclusion.
Very fast shutter speed and clear photos under difficult (test) circumstances ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/spicros68/4067817662/).
Very satisfied!
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Nov 1, 2009
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BurtR
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Registered: Jul 11, 2003
Location: United States
Posts: 409
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Review Date: Oct 26, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Upgraded from a 10D with the Canon Loyalty program and the changes have been enlightening from the older model. The LCD screen and resolution are outstanding compared to the 10D, shutter speed, ISO and upgraded processor made the 5 model upgrade a no brainer. Also have a 1D MKII but have put that on the back burner for now except for football games.
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Cons:
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None so far other than the manual is a bit confusing.
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Oct 26, 2009
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MacHeadCase
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Registered: May 16, 2006
Location: Canada
Posts: 6
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Review Date: Sep 23, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Great handling of noise at high ISO, good image quality, solid build, great ergonomics, the 3" LCD viewer is heavenly!
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Cons:
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I did get a couple of funky colored photo on a sunrise in fog over a lake. The mist was greyish but shots straight on the sun, the camera insisted on giving me a yellow tint in the images. Latest firmware available is installed...
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I upgraded from a Rebel XT (EOS 350D) to the 50D just about three weeks ago and I haven't even had time to go through all the settings yet. The 50D's menu is much more detailed than the XT's.
Canon's User Manual is confusing so I am thinking of buying a good "How To" book on the 50D to explain in detail all the capabilities of this camera.
It has performed flawlessly since I've had it though there was an occurrence of the camera giving me a yellow tint in some photos I took of a sunrise in fog on a lake. The correct color would have been grey/blue but photos taken straight on in the sun gave me the incorrect tint. I moved the camera slightly from "directly in the sun" to out of the sun's rays and the differences in tint was very very noticeable.
I know that the 50D did have a firmware update to correct wrong tint in photos taken in tungsten lighting and the latest firmware was indeed factory-installed.
Apart from that, I am very thrilled with this purchase.
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Sep 23, 2009
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dalephill2
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Image Upload: On
Registered: Aug 26, 2003
Location: United States
Posts: 485
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Review Date: Sep 7, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Focus on par with MKII, screen by far the best, focus adjust a real plus,live view with face detect a real plus, to be able to control by pc for studio a big plus
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Cons:
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I just really have not come up with any
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I held off for some time on getting the 50D due to it being more
expensive than the 40D, having since getting the 40D and not
noticeing alot of improvment over the 1DMKII, I sold the 40 and
with the canon loyalty program I got a refurb new unit 100
dollars over the 40D, what a deal to be sure, So I compared the
to bodies, 50D&MKII, I am much happier with the 50D, its
incredible as you will see in the pics, I used the same lens on
both(55-250) which by the way is a fantastic lens.) both cameras
are set at 100ISO 5.6 apeture, both shot raw, here is what I cam
up with, sure the 50D has greater resolution but it also caught
alot of more detail due to the greater resolution, it comes down
to image quality and the 50D just captures a far better picture,
the IQ seems par with the MKII,First pic is the gastank with 50D
50D gastank
http://phillips.smugmug.com/photos/642487744_2p3hb-L.jpg
1DMKII gastank
http://phillips.smugmug.com/photos/642485700_7Hk4s-L.jpg
50D meter
http://phillips.smugmug.com/photos/642486102_9re7J-L.jpg
1DMKII meter
http://phillips.smugmug.com/photos/642485077_meXoa-L.jpg
50D postcap
http://phillips.smugmug.com/photos/642486800_sqi4M-L.jpg
1dMKII postcap
http://phillips.smugmug.com/photos/642485352_JM7hy-L.jpg
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Sep 7, 2009
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palombian
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Registered: Sep 22, 2008
Location: Belgium
Posts: 1
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Review Date: Aug 27, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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AF, LCD screen, microAF adjust, speed, image resolution
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Cons:
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none for the price
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@DocTP1885: well said about noise and DPP
it is not a FF, but when correctly exposed noise is no problem up to 800-1600
on low ISO heavy crops are possible
upgraded 10 months ago from the 400D
I do birds and landscape, and the 50D is the best Canon crop now, no complaints
my old EF24-85 USM is even sharper after microadjusting the AF
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Aug 27, 2009
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DocTP1885
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Registered: Aug 15, 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 26
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Review Date: Aug 19, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Excellent Build, Digic4, fast focus, excellent image, fast FPS. LCD is beautiful. Micro-adjustment, peripheral illumintation, new Live view. New menu display
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Cons:
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Above average ISO
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Finally put my 30D to the pasture and sold it to another pro photographer who was buying it for her brother. Man, I loved the 30D. been flawless and a great work horse. I mainly wanted to upgrade to a FF but I managed to save for two L lenses and what ever I had left over I would get the 50D. I felt getting pro quality lens was more important than a body, since bodies seem to go through 18mos cycle. The 50D upgrade was significant. Getting familiar with the 50D layout took me all of 10min and setting to my preference took less than that. The menu was simple, effective, and brilliant. LCD is breathtaking. Lot of bells and whistles. Immediately I noticed the focus and image was very impressive. better than my 30D. On my 30D with L lens the focus was fast compared to non L glass, but on a 50D, its blistering fast and image is excellent. Live view is new to me and I doubt I would ever use this feature. If I do, it would be extremely rare. I fiddled with the live view and it was easy and intuitive. Did I mention about the LCD? the view on the LCD is HD quality and right now surpass my laptop monitor. It's that beautiful, but dont rely on it becuase if you dont have a nice LCD monitor, you'll be dissapointed when PP.
Ergonomiclly, it's feels bigger,better and more rugged than my 30D. My bud has a 40D and they feel almost exactly the same.
Now lets talk about IMAGE and NOISE. I've read alot of reviews and just about all of them stated to get the best image of the 50D, top quality glass is needed. This is a toss up in my point of view. I chose L glass because of it's quality, value and ability to go FF without having to buy more lenses just for FF. Combination of the 50D with top glass is a match made in heaven and the image is EXCELLENT, but for casual photographer, certain USM lenses will be more than suffice. NOISE...this is interesting. I'm a closet pixel peeper. I wont admit to my other photographer friends or clients, but I do pixel peep, not because of the image, but noise. From 800 and above, there is a very slight noise increase (Very slight) compared to my 30D. I normally use CS3 and correct the noise on 30D and 50D, but find CS3 didnt clean it as well on the 50D as it did when I had my 30D....But, if I used DPP, the noise cleaned exceptionally well and image is phenomenal at 800 and 1600. At 3200, Image starts to soften just a little. I rarely shoot above 1600, so this doesnt bother me. If you're constantly shooting 800 and above, expect to be using DPP for noise cleaning, CS3/4 just doesnt cut it.
Overall, the pros out weighed the cons. 50D surpassed everything on my 30D from body, menu, LCD, speed, and extra features. the 30D handled the noise better, but with DPP, the 50D noise becomes obsolete and image will become breath taking...it'll just extra few steps to get there.
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Aug 19, 2009
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CJBushnell
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Registered: May 25, 2009
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 0
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Review Date: Aug 18, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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1 - 20% increase in resolution over the 40D - it shows!
2 - Screen sharp enough to judge pics properly in the field
3 - Live view with new screen excellent for manual focus macro
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Cons:
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None
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Well, it was hard choice to buy this camera, mainly because of how many regurgetated poor reviews there are scattered around. This website is the leveller in this as the reviews are from real owners/users. So, thank you FM and thank you to all the FM posters, because I am Very Happy with my purchase.
I wanted more resolution, mainly for my macro work. There's a lot of criticism of the 50D, mainly centred around two points "it's not sharp at pixel level" and "it's too noisey".
Well maybe at 100% on an unsharpened RAW file you could say it doesn't look so sharp and yes, on a RAW file with no noise reduction at ISO 800 and above it does show noise,,,,,,,,,,,, BUT hold your horses, RAW images require processing right? - if you use the the whole package - i.e. camera settings for noise reduction and sharpening and use the new canon DPP software for processing, the images look Great. The files take noise reduction very nicely (with the new canon DPP software) and simillarly they take sharpening very well. The end results are visibly smoother and sharper than my 40D files were - without doubt.
I posted a 100% crop of a damselfly a few days ago on flickr. See for yourself:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clive_bushnell/3827250013/
The new vga screen looks fabulous and is excellent for manual focus macro using live view!
The lens micro focus adjustment is a brilliant feature for anyone with front or back focus issues with their lenses (I've not tried it yet as I haven't noticed problems with my lenses, but it's proven technology from the 1D series cameras).
Build quality is the same as the 40D - excellent. If I wanted to nit pick I'd say that they could have weather sealed it, but I think that this is a marketing decision to keep that for the 1 series pro bodies and anyway, I knew it wasn't sealed before I bought it, so it doesn't loose a mark for this.
AF - it's at least as good as the 40D if not better. Art Morris says it's the best canon body so far for birds in flight. Google Art Morris 50D and read for yourself.
High ISO (6400 and 12800): As regards noise - the ISO expansion of 6400 and 12800 are very noisey - but they're are there if you really feel the need and in such cases you'll get an image where you would otherwise had nothing (or something very blurred).
If you buy this camera specificly to shoot about 3200, you may not be happy with the results (depending on what level of image quality you are expecting). however; if you are buying it for the high resolution for cropping or for very large prints; for the excellent screen and live view; for the solid build; for the lens micro focus adjustment; you will be one happy camper! I certainly am!
Incidently, it cost me £150 more than a 40D - at £750, that's a massive drop from the original £1200 price tag when it launched. That's one benefit I got from all those bad reviews - sales have suffered and now it's a lot cheaper. Take my advise and take advantage of that - I doubt that the 5DmkII will drop by the same margin.
Hope this has helped you in your hunt for you next camera.
Thanks to FM for a great site.
Clive
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Aug 18, 2009
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Archim
Offline
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Registered: Jul 12, 2009
Location: Belgium
Posts: 0
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Review Date: Jul 12, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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Picture quality is excellent
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Cons:
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Dust problem within 2 weeks, AF probleem after 3 and 1/2 mnths of use
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I bought this camera EOS 50D on March 30, 2009.
I was very happy when using it after the first week:
Easy to use
Incredible quality of the pictures
Very fast Auto Focus
Very nice LCD screen
Very usable an good navigation
I am an architect and after two weeks I needed to make some pictures of one of my projects. Results where excellent, I noticed however suddenly dust in the right hand bottom corner of the LCD screen. I took the pictures in very windy conditions.
I surfed the net I noticed some other people had the same thing happening in windy conditions. To me unacceptable for a camera in this price range. However I learned to live with it since it not really was a usability problem.
Then there was today 3 and half months after buying, I was at the local navy days with my kids when suddenly out of the blue I had a problem focussing on a ship after zooming in.
The focus kept going in and out, no beep, then a black info screen and ERR 01 saying there might be a problem with the contacts of the lens, so I tried to clean them, the following two hours I took about 185 pictures but the problem constantly came back over 15 times, only switching of an on helped sometimes, but in soome instances the problem was immediately back.
Getting back home I first left the camera of and decided to go first for a clean of the contacts which I did, then for a firmware update from 1.03 to 1.06.
The firmware update went perfect. Then I started using the camera again first 66 test pictures seemed no problem.
Turned the camera off, dismounted the lens put in the bag to rest. A half an hour later remounted the lens and did a new test to make sure I had no problem.
Oh boy after that I constantly have AutoFocus problems randomly, example wide open lens AF OK, zoom in AF starts to focus in and out sometimes more then 30 seconds with no focus when pushing the release button half way down.
Then leaving release button sometimes it works sometimes the problem remains.
Going back to zooming out mostly gives no problem, however zooming back in creates the problem again, and it does not matter if the target is far away or close at hand.
I had flawless and very AF before in nearly all circumstances, nearly had no problem on about 3000 picture taken before.
Tomorrow I'm calling service as this makes the camera in many instances not usable.
Christophe, Belgium
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Jul 12, 2009
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Alex Paul
Offline
Image Upload: Off
Registered: Jan 2, 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 3917
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Review Date: Jun 22, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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Light, fast and accurate focusing, focus tracks BIF shots nearlly as well as my 1 series bodies and coupled with a long lens such as a 500f4IS makes hand holding much more manageable than with the added weight of the pro bodies. Very consistent metering, excellent resolution and excellent detailed images. 6 1/2 frames per second is plenty fast for capturing what the eye didn't see at the time, and support of UDMA cards makes a substantial difference in not filling the buffer under normal rapid burst shooting situations. Great price!! If the new version of the 1 series has the abilities the 50D is exhibiting, I will have my name on the waiting list...
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Cons:
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I honestly can't come up with anything other than it wouldn't survive being used as a hammer.. I find higher ISO performance is fine with good exposure, and reasonably even lit shots, though this seems to be a complaint by some.
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I have for years had a couple of prosumer bodies for back up, and for the times when a pro body is more a chore than I need or want to deal with. Loved my 20D still do, Never cared much for my 40D as it never gave me predictable exposures, and had medium contrast focus issues. Love the performance of both my 1DMkII and MkIIN, but now that I decided to pick up a 50D, a while back the performance is so good that it is the body I grab most of the time. As a bird shooting addict the keeper rate including threading and hitting focus through clutter, and in flights is so consistent that I find it hard to justify taking a heavier body especially with my primary bird lens being a 500 f4IS, with a 1.4xTC that pretty much lives on the lens. I hand hold shoot for ease of movement, and virtually no set up time for the shots that present themselves with little to no warning, or requiring a contorted posture to get a clean shot, and so the combination is lighter, swings easily, and the 50D nails focus fast, and accurately... I believe this to be the best bang for the buck DSLR Canon has ever offered...The images that come out of this camera are excellent. I believe the DigicIV processor may be a huge benefit to the newest version of the 1 series when it comes out.. Hope this convinces anyone sitting on the fence about the decision... I will stand behind my conviction on this one.... Go for it...
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Jun 22, 2009
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arovane
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Registered: May 20, 2008
Location: Germany
Posts: 35
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Review Date: Jun 18, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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LCD, Focus, the ISO settings, better liveview and I can use my old grip
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Cons:
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no higher fps
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I owed already the G9, 400D, 450D and the 40D...
The 50D is a very nice Cam, it has a i missed on the 40D.
The LCD screen is perfect to check the photos you made. the 15 megapixel are nice but not necessary... but the real step up is the ISO and the noise reduction....I can recommend the 50D
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Jun 18, 2009
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gavin_emmons
Offline
Buy and Sell: On
Registered: Jan 5, 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 17
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Review Date: Jun 18, 2009
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Recommend? yes |
Price paid: $1,300.00
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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Excellent for wildlife and action photography: fast AF and FPS, high image quality and crop ability, micro-AF adjustment, high-quality LCD, durable and relatively lightweight body.
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Cons:
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Very little in the way of serious cons... Wishlist upgrades would include: AF on par with 1-series, or at least transitional between 1- and xxD-series; excellent noise control and clean images up to 6400.
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I feel the need to post this review after seeing some of the low ratings given to this camera. I have owned and used the 50D for 9 months. I also owned a 40D (and subsequently sold it after using the 50D) and still own a 5D Mark I as well.
The 50D is a great camera... Frankly, I'm amazed by reviews rating this camera at "6" or lower, as I have not experienced any of the issues remarked upon such as soft images, magenta casts, AF errors, etc. Compared to the 40D, the 50D equals or best its features in all respects. Given that the 50D employs Canon's first attempt at a very high density 15 MP sensor, I think it's impressive that the camera is able to equal the 40D's noise and FPS rates as well as it does.
I use this camera largely for its superb abilities as a tool for wildlife photography. Mated with L glass this camera can produce incredibly detailed and colorful images. AF speed is very responsive, particularly with super telephotos like the 500mm f4 IS and 300mm f2.8 IS lenses (both of which I use and own). When printing large images - say 16"x24" - noise control is still excellent at ISO 400, and great at 800 with proper post-processing.
I can't help thinking that the majority of reviewer problems with this camera are related to user error rather than faults in the camera itself. Many expert wildlife photographers have produced superb images with this camera, and Art Morris - one of the most highly regarded bird photographers - now uses this camera frequently with 400mm f4 DO IS and 800mm f5.6 IS lenses, and claims that it tracks birds in flight better than any other EOS model he has used. If folks like Art Morris can produce exceptional results with the 50D, clearly it can be a superb tool with appropriate attention to detail and technique.
In my experience with the 50D, the main "issue" seems to be the 15MP sensor. Having used the 50D, the 5D, and the 40D, I can definitely say that the 50D takes a different processing approach than the other cameras. Use of sharpening and noise reduction must be very thoughtfully applied to make the best use of the sensor's capacities. Likewise in field use, the 50D is pretty unforgiving; it requires very high-quality lenses for optimal results as well as very good technique to achieve sharp photos. In this way, it is a bit misleading to think of the 50D as a prosumer camera. It is definitely a professional tool and requires expert attention to detail to get the most out of it. Fortunately, it does include micro-AF adjustment and a beautifully sharp LCD screen... I have found both to be invaluable for critical photo review in the field.
In summary: with proper technique and attention to detail, the 50D is an incredible camera, especially for wildlife and action photography. I highly recommend it!
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Jun 18, 2009
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