I managed to get my hands on a new production Canon EOS 50D since a few days ago and and am doing a review of this new camera as I have promised. As in my review of the Canon EOS 40D last year, I will leave the comprehensive technical review to publications like dpreview.com. I will be mainly concentrating on the design changes compared to the 40D and new features and improvement in the 50D. I hope this review will answer most of the important questions people have been asking all over the world in different forums.

The main changes and improvement with the 50D according to Canon are:-

1.  A new 15.1-megapixel CMOS APS-C size image sensor with newly designed gapless microlenses over each pixel to reduce noise and expand sensitivity up to ISO 12800

2. DIGIC 4 image processor provides faster processing speed compared to DIGIC 3 in the 40D

3. Peripheral illumination correction, which automatically evens brightness across the image field, making an image of a blue sky even toned throughout

4. Auto Lighting Optimizer analyzes the brightness of subjects and automatically adjusts dark images so that they appear brighter

5. A new 3.0-inch Clear View LCD screen which features 920,000 dot/VGA resolution, four times the pixel count of the EOS 40D camera’s screen, for better clarity and color

6. HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) output to display crisp, clear images on a High-Definition TV

7. support UDMA cards for faster writing of image files

8. AF Microadjustment feature, originally introduced last year with the Canon EOS-1D Mark III professional digital SLR camera, has also been added to the EOS 50D for maximum control over focusing precision

All the above claimed improvements were basically copied from Canon official's press release. Let's see how many of these claims hold up.

External Appearances

The body of the 50D is essentially the same as the 40D. The buttons, dials and LCD are all in exactly the same position. Although a couple buttons have different or additional functions. The 2 bodies have the same measurements, but the 50D is slightly lighter at 730g (740g for the 40D). The mode dial is in silver rather than black as in the 40D. Otherwise, there is practically no difference between the 2 bodies.

The cameras looked practically from the front identical except the name tag of course.

The back of the camera looked identical too.

The top of the cameras are identical except the mode dial of the 50D is in silver instead of black.

The rubber terminal covers are obviously longer on the 50D, thanks to the addition of an HDMI terminal.

Changes in Features and Design

You can clearly see the HDMI output in addition to the other output terminals.

There are no additional buttons on the 50D. However, there are some minor changes with the buttons compared to the 40D.

The "Print" button on the left side of the viewfinder also function as the button to turn on "Live view" mode. On the 40D, Live view mode is turned on by pressing the "SET" button in the middle of the large "Quick control dial" on the right side of the LCD display.

The "JUMP" button on the 40D amongst the row of 5 buttons at the bottom of the camera has been replaced by the "FUNC" button. The FUNC button can be assigned to have different functions in the custom menu:-

1. select LCD brightness menu

2. select Image Quality menu

3. select Exposure comp/AEB setting menu

4. select Image jump menu

5. select Live view function settings menu

On the 40D, you can save 3 sets of "Camera user settings", which can be selected by selecting C1, C2 and C3 on the black mode dial.

On the 50D, you can only save 2 sets of "Camera user settings" which correspond to C1 and C2 on the silver mode dial. The "lost" C3 position has been replaced by "CA" position on the 50D mode dial.

New LCD Display

The 50D has finally caught up with the competition and now has a 3" LCD display with VGA resolution 640x480x3=921,600pixels. The 40D also has a 3" LCD but only with a resolution of 320x240x3=230,400pixels.

The questions that many people have is whether the 50D LCD can be used to check sharpness and focus during image replay like in the Nikon D3 and D300. Actually, many people had the misconception that the 40D LCD has too low a resolution to check image sharpness and focus during image review. However, the real reason why the 40D could not be used to check sharpness and focus critically was not because of the LCD resolution. During image review, the 40D is only actually reviewing a very low resolution thumbnail rather than on the actually RAW or JPEG file. When you enlarge the image during review, this low resolution preview will become rather blur and cannot be used to critically assess image sharpness. However, the Nikon D3 and D300 is either previewing a very high resolution thumbnail or on the actual RAW or JPEG file (I do not know exactly which method Nikon is using, but whatever image it is using for review, it is of high enough resolution to critically assess image sharpness).

So the important question with the 50D is that if Canon has changed from previewing a very low resolution thumbnail to a high resolution thumbnail or RAW or JPEG file itself.

I have borrowed a Nikon D3 from a friend for comparison here.

The above is an image review on the 50D LCD.

The above is an image review on the Nikon D3 with a similar photo as on the Canon 50D.

Now let's enlarge the image to maximum size and centered it around the point of focus.

It is hard to reproduced in a photo, but you can still see the image review showed fairly good sharpness. You just have to believe me that in real life, the 50D LCD can be used to check image sharpness and focus. But let's compare it to the Nikon D3 before we move on.

The Nikon D3 can actually enlarge the image a bit more than the 50D, but whether this additional enlargement is beneficial in checking image sharpness is hard to say.

Creative Auto Shooting Mode

CA stands of Creative Auto shooting mode. It is a new auto shooting mode and the 50D is the first Canon camera with this shooting mode.

When you set the camera to "CA" mode, you will see the above display on the back LCD display. Basically you can make different settings in this menu like set the flash to auto on, always on or always off. Set different Picture Styles. Set image quality. Set single shot, continuous shooting or timer shooting modes.

The supposed innovation here is, instead of directly setting aperture  value or shutter speed, there are 2 sliders on the LCD display.

The first slider allows you to vary the blurring/sharpening of the background. This basically means, the sliders changes the aperture value and hence the depth of field.

The second slider allows you adjust the picture brightness. So it is effectively just an exposure compensation control. It will -EV(exposure value) if you shift it to the left and +EV if you shift it to the right.

In my humble opinion, this new CA shooting mode will only be of use to newbies and beginners who know very little about photography. Any advanced amateur, professional or even learner photographer who is at all serious about seriously learning photography would not really use this mode or any of the other fully auto modes.

One note of interest though, for the first time on Canon DSLR cameras, you can select RAW instead of JPEG in any of the shooting modes including all the fully auto modes. Previously, one can only shoot in JPEG format with the fully auto modes.

Auto ISO

Auto ISO on the 50D is improved over the 40D and more versatile. In most of the shooting mode, auto ISO would set ISO between 100-1600. I have tried it out for short time and it seemed to work quite well, changing ISO from 100 to 1600 depending on ambient light level.

On the 40D, auto ISO behavior changes in most shooting mode and was rather limited and worked in an awkward way. For example, In P, Av and A-DEP modes, the ISO will be set between 400-800. If overexposure would result at ISO 400, a lower ISO, as low as ISO 100 will be set. In effect, ISO 400 is the base ISO and only under very strong lighting would force the camera to shift to lower ISO.

Although, the auto ISO on the 50D is certainly an improvement over the 40d, it is still not as versatile as on Nikon DSLR.

Lens Peripheral Illumination Correction

This is a feature that provides in-camera correction for light falloff at corners of an image (or technically called vignetting). Basically all it does is increase brightness of the 4 corners to match the brightness at the center of the image. It maybe a useful feature for JPEG shooters that do not want to do post-processing on a computer. For RAW and JPEG shooters who do post-processing, vignetting is easy and quick to correct with most image manipulation software.

Anyway, if you do want to use it, it can be easily activated in the menu. I have not really bothered testing it out, but I believe it should work as advertised.

Auto Lighting Optimizer

Auto Lighting Optimizer analyzes the brightness of subjects and automatically adjusts dark images so that they appear brighter or at least that's what Canon claimed it would do.

It can be activated in the custom menu and has 4 settings:- Standard, Low, Strong and Disable. I set it on Strong and put it to an extreme test with a scene with very high dynamic range.

The above photo was shot with Auto Lighting Optimizer off.

The above was shot with Auto Lighting Optimizer set on Strong. it can quite clearly be seen that the brightness of the shadow area has been increased and some shadow detail has been recovered.

Again, I think this feature could be useful to JPEG shooters who do not want to do any post-processing. It would be much less useful to RAW and JPEG shooters who regularly do post-processing work.

Live View

Live view on the 50D is very similar to the 40D. I will not go into details about live view here, please read for 40D review for detail description. I will only discuss new features here.

Live view on the 50D is activated by the Print button rather than the SET button (as described earlier).

In addition to one shot AF using center AF point to focus, the 50D also has Live AF mode, which uses contrast detect AF as in practically all point & shot digicam.

You can select different AF mode in the menu. There is also a Live "Face" mode, which can detect faces as in many new point and shoot digicams.

Live contrast detect AF modes are kind of slowish compared to Quick mode (one shot AF), but it works alright and the focus area can be shifted to an part of the screen.

I can also report the face detect AF works well and despite my attempts at trying the fool the camera, it still successful managed to recognize real human faces and ignore faces of stuff toys.

Autofocus

50D uses exactly the same autofocus system as the 40D. However, because of the faster DIGIC 4 processor, autofocus is claimed to be faster than on the 40D. (I have read from somewhere that suggested that the 50D actually has a dedicated processor for AF calculations and does not use the DIGIC 4, but I do not know if it is true or not)

Again, I will not go into details about the 50D AF performance. I could not truly detect much difference with the 40D while testing it. My opinion is that the 50D AF performance is decent and should satisfy the majority of users.

AF Microadjustment

The 50D supports AF microadjustment. This feature can be activated in the custom menu.

AF microadjustment can be either disable completely, applied same adjustment to all lenses or apply adjustment to individual lenses. There are 20 memories for storing data for 20 lenses.

I can verify the it works as advertised and can effectively adjust AF.

Continuous Shooting Performance

Canon officially quotes a 6.3fps continuous shooting performance with 90 large/fine JPEG (with a UDMA card) or 16 RAW burst.

The 40D official specs quoted a continuously shooting rate of 6.5fps. However, it has actually been tested to have only 6.3fps in real life usage. The difference is because the 50D spec is based on CIPA standard, which needed to be accurate down to the first decimal point, whereas for the 40D, the specs was conveniently rounded up to 6.5fps.

I tested the 50D with an 8GB Sandisk Extreme IV CF card. It managed to shoot 110 large/fine JPEG pics at 6.3fps before slowing down and 16 RAW before slowing down.

Test Photos ISO 100 to 12800

All the samples posted are large/fine JPEG with High ISO speed noise reduction set at 0:Standard. You can click on the photos for a full size view.

ISO 100

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

I think the 50D images are usable up to ISO 6400. ISO 6400 cleans up reasonably well after noise reduction on a computer. ISO 12800 has too much color noise and also exhibits quite noticeable vertical banding even at reduced web size. ISO 12800 is probably only really for emergency use, and has too much noise for any serious usage.

High ISO Test

According to Chuck Westfall, Technical Advisor at Canon USA, the 50D can be expected to have noise levels to be roughly 1 to 1.5 stops better in the high ISO range compared to the 40D, despite a having a sensor with 50% resolution increase. A lot of people are interested as to know whether this promise would hold up. I am going to post some 100% crop comparing the 50D to 40D at high ISO and also another comparison to the current high ISO king, the Nikon D3.

High ISO 100% Crops 50D vs 40D

In the following crops from ISO 1600, 50D are on the left and 40D on the right. I have taken 40D RAW at -1 and -2EV and then corrected the exposure in Canon Digital Photo Professional to simulate ISO 6400 and ISO 12800 on the 40D for comparison purpose.

ISO 1600

ISO3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

From ISO 1600 to 3200, I really cannot see too much difference between the noise level between the 50D and 40D. Although at ISO 6400 and 12800, the 50D did pull ahead of the 40D simulated high ISO.

However, the 50D has 50% more pixels than the 40D. Now if we up-res the 40D files to 50D resolution, would the 50D begin to show an advantage or not? Let's find out.

The following crops were made with 100% crops from 50D and 100% crops from 40D files up-res to 50D resolution.

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

Again, I can't really see much difference in noise level between the 2 cameras at ISO 1600 and 3200. Although, the 50D crops seemed to showed more details. At ISO 6400 and 12800, the 50D again showed less noise compared to the 40D, but paradoxically, the 40D crops seemed to be sharper and showed a little bit more detail.

50D vs D3 high ISO 100% Crops Comparison

Just so that I won't have more people commented that I should not compare the 50D to D3 and I should have compared it with the D300 or D90, I will include a reply that I have made to someone here:-

"As I have pointed out in the review, I knew the Nikon D3 is not really a direct competitor to the 50D. However, since Canon claimed such major advances with high ISO performance (1 to 1.5 stops improvement at high ISO as claimed by Chuck Westfall, that should make it pretty close to D3 performance if the claim held up), I thought it would only be “fair” to compare it against the current “gold standard” in high ISO performance, the Nikon D3.

Plus the fact that I don't have any close friends who own the D300 and lend it to me for testing. Otherwise, I may have compared it with the 50D too."

I am just going to compare 100% crops from 50D and 100% crops from D3 files up-res to 50D resolution. 50D crops are on the left and D3 crops on the right.

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12800

It is quite clear that the D3 showed less noise than the 50D at all ISO from 1600 to 3200 and the D3 also retained more detail as well.

Perhaps this was not a fair comparison as the D3 is at more than 3 times the price of the 50D. However, the 50D sensor does have more pixel resolution than the D3 and Canon also claimed major advance in noise level with the 50D. So I think it was interesting to compare the 2 cameras nevertheless. Anyway, the results speaks for themselves.

sRAW

The Canon 50D has a sRAW1 mode than shoots RAW files at half the size (7.1MP) of the full resolution RAW files. There has been rumours around the net that Canon may have pixel binning technology that would produce sRAW files with lower image noise. Well, I don't know Canon has put this technology into the 50D, but let's see if sRAW does indeed perform better than full resolution RAW.

The first pic below is a full resolution 50D JPEG file down-res to sRAW1 resolution. The second pic is a native sRAW1 file at 7.1MP. Both were shoot at ISO 3200. You can click on the files themselves for a full size version view. See both of them at full size and compare the noise the details.

On the full size images, the native sRAW1 file clearly showed more detail and has a little less noise. I think sRAW1 mode can be a useful mode for shooting under low lighting and high ISO if you can live with the 7.1MP resolution.

Conclusion

Instead of the usual 18 months product cycle, Canon has chosen to release the 50D only 1 year after the 40D. This was probably due to the intense competition from other DSLR makers like Nikon and Sony. The question is of course whether the 50D is a worthwhile upgrade.

If you are still using a 20D, 30D, then I am sure the 50D wold be a very nice upgrade. If you are an xxxD user (350D, 400D and 450D etc), it is certainly a nice upgrade too.

However, the tricky question is of course whether it is a worthwhile upgrade over the 40D. The 50D basically shares the same body with the 40D. There is no difference in build quality. The 50D gives you 50% more sensor resolution than the 40D. It has a better LCD display, which can be used to critically check image sharpness and focus. It also has other new useful features like AF microadjustment, and those who have been haunted by back-focus lenses would certainly welcome this feature. The 50D does bring a usable ISO 6400 mode, but I failed to see much improvement in noise level from ISO 1600 to 3200.

If you are a birder or other types of photographer who need the increase resolution, the 50D will be a good upgrade. If you have also been haunted by back-focus lenses, the 50D should also help you out. It is overall a nice camera and I don't think most poeple would be disappointed with getting the 50D. However, the only caveat is that, do not expect the 50D to show any real imrpovement in high ISO performance comapred to the 40D and the competition.

1. Open CF/XD Card door
2. Press Play and OK at the same time, You'll see the OLYMPUS E-500 screen
3. Press Up, Down, Left, Right, Shutter, OK
4. Then Press either Up, Down, Left or Right to see a status page.
5. To get to the test menu start out on page 3 (hit DOWN)
6. Press Exposure Compensation (the button with +/- on the top of the camera) then press LEFT, DOWN, RIGHT, UP, SHUTTER, OK. This should take you to the Test menu

The ISO settings are setby changing to Prg 10 and different ISOs are by changing the Item from 0 to 20. ISO 50 is Item 0, ISO 3200 is item 18 and ISO 4000 is item 19. You can change up to utem 20 but I didn't try this yet :) All the other ISOs are in between.

This hack will also work on the E-300 .

Will be posting photos with ISO 50 soon.

Já estão disponíveis no site da Nikon americana as primeiras fotos oficiais da nova D3. Lá você pode conferir a qualidade das imagens e, inclusive, fazer o download dos arquivos. A curiosidade maior entre os fotógrafos por aqui era em relação ao desempenho da câmera em situações de pouca luz com ISO alto. Nos últimos anos, as câmeras DSLR top de linha da Canon vinham apresentando resultados muito melhores do que os da Nikon. Essa vinha sendo a principal reclamação dos usuários da Nikon. Em praticamente todos os outros aspectos, ambos os fabricantes se equivalem. Um é melhor em alguns pontos, o outro é melhor em outros. Normal.

Agora a gangorra parece ter mudado de lado novamente. Desd o seu anúncio, fotógrafos que experimentaram a câmera (tanto usando protótipos quanto câmeras já em produção) são só elogios à Nikon. Inclusive profissionais que utilizam Canon no dia-a-dia. A qualidade de imagem é sem precendentes, bem como o auto foco, velocidade e, principalmente, o desempenho em situações de pouco luz com ISO alto.

Veja abaixo os cortes das imagens com uma visualição em 100%. E lembre-se, essas fotos foram feitas em ISO 3200 e 6400 respectivamente. A câmera vai ainda até ISO 25600.

Segundo a Nikon ela é a DSLR mais rápida do mundo e tem um sensor CMOS de 12.1 megapixels formato FX (full frame), uma tela VGA de 920.000 pixels com ângulo de visão de 170 graus, sistema de foco automático com 51 pontos e 15 pontos AF cross-type, e ISO de 200 a 6400. Ela ainda tem o modo Hi 2 com um ISO de até 25.600!

Ela tira 9 fotos por segundo no modo FX (full frame) e 11 fotos por segundo em DX (cropped smaller). Ela ainda tem slot duplo para cartões CF e um corpo de magnésio que está pronto para enfrentar qualquer desafio. Ela vai começar a ser vendida agora em novembro por US$ 5.000 .
Para maiores informações e detalhes ou mesmo parar fazer o download das fotos, acesse o site da Nikon USA:

http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/digitalcamera/slr/d3/sample.htm

ISO 800

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

To see the full 40D review, click here.