Canon EOS-50D Review

The Canon EOS-50D is a very competent midrange digital SLR. It offers very good photo quality (with a quality lens attached), rocket-fast performance, plenty of manual controls and customizable features, and a super-sharp 3-inch LCD. There aren't too many negatives to mention, but the major ones are the noticeable drop in battery life compared to the EOS-40D that came before it, occasional highlight clipping and overexposure, and sluggish contrast detect focus in live view mode (par for the course, I'm afraid). While I'm not rushing out to sell my EOS-40D and upgrade, the 50D is a solid D-SLR that I can definitely recommend.

If you've seen the EOS-40D, then you've seen the 50D. The two cameras look almost identical, with just a few cosmetic changes. Things have changed considerably behind the scenes, of course. The 50D sports a 15.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor, an enhanced dust reduction system, and a much higher resolution LCD, to name a few things. The camera is very well built, with a solid metal frame. The right hand grip is the perfect size, giving the 50D a secure, comfortable feel in your hands. The camera supports both EF and EF-S lenses, with the usual 1.6X focal length conversion ratio. Unlike cameras from Olympus and Sony, the EOS-50D doesn't have built-in image stabilization, so you'll need to rely on the lens for that. One thing I complained about on the 40D was the low resolution of its LCD, compared to the competition from Nikon and Sony. Canon took care of that on the 50D, offering up a 920,000 pixel, 3-inch display that's amazingly sharp. As with most D-SLRs these days, you can compose photos on the LCD using a "live view" feature, and I found it bright and easy to see indoors and out. The 50D has two ways of attaching an external flash (hot shoe or flash sync cable), though Canon is seriously lagging in the wireless flash department (you need to buy a pricey flash or transmitter to do this). A new addition to the 50D is an HDMI port, allowing you to connect the camera to a high definition television (cable not included).

While it has a few features for beginners, the 50D will mainly appeal to advanced amateurs and professionals. If you're not quite ready for manual controls, there are several scene modes, and two auto modes -- regular and creative. The creative auto mode (new to the 50D) tries to simplify aperture and exposure adjustment, and it opens up a few more controls, as well. I wasn't terribly excited by this feature -- you might as well use Program mode instead. I should also point out that the live view feature is not available in any of the automatic shooting modes. Ready for more? Then you'll like all of the manual bells and whistles on the EOS-50D. They include controls for exposure, white balance (including fine-tuning and bracketing), and various image parameters (via the Picture Styles feature). You can create a custom My Menu, save favorite camera settings to two spots on the mode dial, and define the function of the, well, Function button. There are three RAW sizes to choose from, so if you don't need all 15 Megapixels that the camera offers, you can use a lower resolution and still get all the benefits of the format. Canon's bundled Digital Photo Professional software is a capable RAW editor, and you'll also find remote capture software in the box -- something that costs a lot more from other camera manufacturers. One of the new features on the 50D is called peripheral illumination correction, and from my experience, it does a fine job at reducing vignetting.

Jeff Keller

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