Field Report
by Gary Gray
Canon have released the EOS 50D Digital SLR.
I've been shooting with one for the past week and my general impressions are here. I'll try to post additional updates as I get the opportunity.
The primary features of this new body are (but not limited too.)
15.1 megapixel APS-C CMOS image sensor with new gapless photosite technology.
Live View.
Integrated Sensor Cleaning.
6.3 Frames per second.
Custom lens micro-adjustment.
Improved Weather Sealing
Improved High Resolution LCD Screen
14 Bit Raw Images
Additional New Small Raw Files (I still haven't figured out why on this one)
New Menu Layout
In Camera Chromatic Aberration and Vignetting Correction. (For JPG, must use the Canon Software for RAW, I still do it in Lightroom anyway.)
Overall general impression is this is a solidly built body with great image quality.
My comparison of images with the Nikon D300 indicate the 50D is holding a little more resolution at about the same noise levels.
The new live view works very well. My only complaint is the available zoom levels for the LCD screen while in live view could use another level of magnification. Not unusable, you'll just quickly run out of steps of magnification and may want that one more zoom level for critical sharpness adjustments.
Startup time and other camera speed issues are impressive. Virtually no delay from off to shooting and the new Digic IV processor seems to help this body write the images to compact flash very quickly. Very fast electronics are my first impressions here.
View finder is about the same as the 30D/40D, and giving you about 95% of the full frame. Nothing to write home about, but not unusable. The D300 has a better viewfinder.
Menu system is very easy and intuitive to navigate. A custom menu can be created with most camera configuration settings, but the total number of settings that can be stored in the custom menu are limited. Still, useful and one doesn't need an interpreter to understand setting it up. Better than the D300 in my opinion.
The new LCD screen is excellent. Detail is right up there with the D300, and Canon have finally made a screen that is viewable in bright light with good resolution. Good enough to actually review images and glean useful sharpness information. I'll call this one a dead heat with the D300, with one exception. The Canon LCD screen is very prone to nose smears. Of course this will have a different impact on shooters, as I doubt that most folks have the big nose I have, but I've heard other complaints about this tendency. It is positioned perfectly for my nose to smear out the left side of the screen. I found the eye piece extender helps a little. Otherwise, keep a lens cloth handy, you'll probably be cleaning the LCD every time you look at it after a shot.
Autofocus looks and feels about the same as the 40D and 5D. Canon claims the new Digic IV processor improves performance. From what I can see, it certainly isn't any worse. I'll write more about this as I test the camera.
Image quality and resolution is simply fantastic. Canon has crammed a lot of pixels into the APS-C size sensor. To accomplish the task, they've reduced the pixel size to a record 4.7µm, down from 5.7µm in the 40D. I've seen some concerns voiced on internet forums about the smaller pixel size causing issues with image quality, mostly techno-geeks trying to impress people with math and studious speculations. I've tested the camera extensively with a number of L grade lenses and primes and can safely report...all is fine. There are no perceptible issues with Depth of Field, Diffraction, High ISO noise, or other techno-geek boogie-man issues. This camera produces excellent images up to ISO 1600 and usable images up to ISO 3200. Image noise is as good and maybe a little better than the D300 on this front. I don't think it's as clean as the Nikon D3 or D700 though. Nothing to worry about. From what I've observed, detail is great, outresolving the Nikon D300 and the Canon 5D. All this talk about the body outresolving the lens may have a basis in mathematics, but the actual image is flying in the face of the claims of the techno-geeks. Detail is there, with no loss of image quality and at very low noise levels. Put a junk lens on this camera, you'll get a junk result. Put a top lens on it, you'll get a outstanding image. (When has this not been true though?)
Shutter noise is very muted. This camera gives a distinctly soft and rapid "click", with shutter blackout and lag times being quite acceptable. It will make a good discrete shooting camera where you don't want to alert everyone to the fact that you're taking pictures. It will also crank out shots at about 6.3 frames per second with a robust RAW buffer depth of about 17-18 shots.
File sizes are enormous for a camera like this. 15-18 megabytes raw, smaller JPG but still larger than what you may be used to. But these are 14 bit Raw files, so there's more image data to save. Not a serious issue unless you're planning on storing everything on a small hard drive. It may be time to think about upgrading your digital storage media.
Batteries are the same as the 20D/30D/40D/5D, BP-511A. It also uses the same battery grip as the 20D/30D/40D, so if you are upgrading bodies, you won't need to invest in a new battery and grip. Battery life seems fairly good, but I've disabled the LCD screen doing anything unless I tell it, just to conserve juice. Canon claims a little shorter battery life than the 40D under similar conditions. I don't see anything to worry about, just keep an extra battery or two with you if you're going to be chimping a lot.
My initial impression is this is a great camera for the money. Out of the box, it's giving better overall images than the Nikon D300, has good functionality, feels firm in the hands and operates easily and intuitively. You can spend a lot more and not get as much for your money.
If you're considering upgrading from a 20D or 30D, this is a no brainer. Do it. If you own a 40D, I'd say wait another generation. The 40D isn't that far behind this body in technology and image quality.
One last thing. Canon has released and is selling the EF-S 18-200 mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens as a kit with the 50D. I've looked at this new lens, and in all honesty, I'd have to suggest you pass on it. It's not that great a lens. Buy the body and if you need a very good budget lens, I'd recommend the Tamron 28-75 or even the Canon 18-55 IS instead. There are plenty of better alternatives. My first choice for a general purpose, long term, walkabout lens would be the Canon 24-105 L IS.
Most of Canon's consumer grade lenses are just not worth the investment in my opinion. The 18-200 IS is a consumer grade lens. You can do better for less.
On another note. I've seen a recent review of the 50D on a popular camera review site claiming the higher pixel count in the 50D makes it more susceptible to camera shake. This is bunk. Camera shake is a function of two things. How steady you can hold a camera (which will vary from person to person) and the focal length vs shutter speed of your lens. That simple. Extra pixels don't move an object any faster across the frame.
Below, you can find my latest updates to my evaluation...
More Images and Some Final Thoughts on the EOS 50D
I've had several weeks to give this new body a good workout. Most recently, I've taken it to 11,000 feet altitude in sub-zero weather, including snow and fog at a Colorado Ski Resort (Breckinridge.)
During this most recent trip, I managed to test a few functions.
Autofocus: Using AI servo mode, I've been quite impressed with the 50D's performance. Most notably when tracking and photographing Bighorn Sheep and Skiers, using a 100-400L telephoto zoom lens. I'm not certain what Canon has done to the autofocus in this body compared to the EOS 40D, but compared to the EOS 30D, it's much more reliable, accurate and faster. This is no slouch of a camera with autofocus performance.
Sensor Cleaning: I wanted to find out how well the dust was being kept off the sensor on my trip, so I disabled the automatic cleaning for a few days and ran it manually each day before a shoot and at the end of the day. Compared to my Nikon D300, I don't think the Canon is doing as well a job of cleaning the sensor. As a matter of fact, in almost a year of shooting, I don't recall having seen any dust on the Nikon D300 images. The EOS 50D, however, accumulated dust in almost no time after a few lens swaps in the field. The dust blots I've seen on images are tiny and few though. Showing up mostly at f/14 or more closed apertures. I have three noticeable specs and the sensor cleaning mechanism isn't removing them. Still, not as bad as the 5D or 30D with dust accumulation, I'll have to clean the sensors by hand at some point. I give the edge to Nikon on this one. The Canon system may help keep dust spots down, but it's not going to keep your images dust spot free, I can tell you that for certain. I'd recommend turning on auto clean and leaving it there for best effect. Once your infected, it won't clean it totally. I haven't tested the "dust delete" function in the software provided with the camera, so no comment on that other than to say it isn't and will not be part of my post processing workflow.
Real World 50D Shots
On Monday afternoon, November 3rd, I attended the last political rally by Michelle Obama, wife of Presidential Candidate Barack Obama. The rally was held at Dakota Ridge High School, in Littleton, Colorado. All of these images were shot in the late afternoon using the 50D and the 24-105L IS & 100-400L IS lenses, using natural light.
I didn't use a speedlight. The Secret Service doesn't like cameras in their face and the speedlight would have probably aggravated them even more.
This event took place 2 miles from my home, so I used the opportunity to see how well the 50D would perform in a typical event situation.
Adobe Camera Raw vs Digital Photo Professional
ACR_Zero
100% Crop of Adobe Camera Raw
No Enhancment
There has been some debate concerning the ability of Adobe Camera Raw to extract the highest image quality from the 50D raw files. Many users are reporting that Canon's Digital Photo Professional, which is supplied with the camera, is doing a better job.
I'll explore this claim by comparing unaltered images converted directly from Adobe Lightroom and DPP. I'll be using the cabin image I used to compare noise and resolution detail with noise reduction.
Again, these are straight conversions without any alterations, except for conversion to JPG. I'm using Adobe Camera Raw version 4.6
Click on the magnifying glass beneath each image to get a full 100% crop view.
Conclusions.
It is obvious to me that Adobe Camera Raw ver 4.6 is not creating as detailed and sharp an image as Digital Photo Professional ver 3.5.0.1. I've played with both files in 16 Bit Tiff format as well and DPP is doing a better job of converting the raw image no matter how I slice it.
Features Tested
A few notes on camera features and settings.
Autofocus:
I've made several hundred test shots using the AI servo mode of the 50D on several different lenses. I've tested primes and zooms. My mainstay lenses are the 24-105L IS and the 70-200L IS, and with these two lenses I'm seeing between a 70-85% in focus rate using my dog Hans as a moving target. The 70-200L seems to be a better performer than the 24-105. This isn't bad. About the same keeper rate I've seen with the D300. One thing I noticed when testing the Sigma 105mm Macro Prime in AI servo mode, the camera wouldn't burst frames at 6 fps. I checked the configurations to make sure the Highlight Tone Priority, Lighting Optimizer, High ISO noise reduction and Auto ISO were disabled, and they were. The camera did fine with 6fps bursts using the 70-200. I'll be exploring this a little more, not quite sure what is going on here.
Highlight Tone Priority and Auto Lighting Optimizer:
Both of these features seem to work as advertised. Most notably, with both enabled, I'm very seldom seeing images that are over/under exposed. The histogram on the raw files is almost always coming up in a close to optimal exposure and it is more likely to overexpose by a 1/3 of a stop than underexpose, which is actually a good thing. No problems making minor exposure compensations to reduce and this actually seems to give an optimal noise performance as well.
Canon EOS 50D Sample High ISO Images
EOS 50D ISO 1600
No Noise Reduction Applied
Full Resolution JPG
EOS 50D ISO 1600
100% Crop with Noise Reduction
100% Crop of window area
EOS 50D ISO 1600
100% Crop no Noise Reduction
100% Crop of window area
For your examination, on the left I've placed a photograph taken at my cabin in Red Feather Lakes. This shot was made at dawn, in very low light as the morning sun was poking through the trees. The original image was shot in raw at ISO 1600. I converted it to 16 bit tiff, processed it with Noise Ninja and did a little post processing on the noise reduced file for comparison. What you'll see here is that the noise level of the 50D at ISO 1600 on what is a very dynamic light condition with a lot of shadow and very bright light in spots. Noise reduction via Noise Ninja was set for defaults. I did some sharpening and detail enhancment to the final tiff file. Everything was then converted to jpg for the web. Personally, I think you can pretty much not worry about noise up to ISO1600 on this body and even a properly exposed ISO 3200 shot will clean up to make a usable 11 x 14 print.
Exif: Canon EOS 50D
ISO 1600
1/320 sec
f/4.5
100mm focal length
EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM
Resolution Comparisons
Now, I'll give you a quick look at the resolution of the 50D. What I've done here is photograph my world class test setup using the same lens on three different camera bodies. The comparisons are the EOS 5D, EOS 1DsMK II and the EOS 50D.
The lens is a Canon EF 70-200 L IS (very sharp lens) with the IS turned off. I'm using autofocus on each camera, shooting at f8 with exactly the same manual exposure on each body. .6 sec exposure time, ISO-200 and the zoom set to give the same field of view on all cameras (as close as I can get it.) The only adjustments made were to equalize the white balance (using the white card in the center of the frame), exposure highlights and shadows set to no clipping in Lightroom. There is no sharpening or any other adjustment to any image other than the conversion to jpg for web viewing. The conversion was done using Adobe Lightroom 2.1.
Here is the master image. I'm cropping on the Quick Reference card in the lower center of the frame to compare the resolution of each camera.
High ISO Comparison to EOS 5D and EOS 50D
10/30/08
I have a few high ISO Noise shots to share with you. None of these crops have been post-processed for noise or contrast or color or saturation. The only adjustment is to lower the exposure by 1/3 of a stop in Adobe Lightroom to show how a properly or slightly over exposed image will reveal noise. The lesson here is keep your exposure to the right to minimize noise in your image. Any of these shots will take noise reduction and be totally usable images.
Here is a shot from the EOS 5D, ISO 1600, over-exposed by 1/3 a stop and adjusted down in Lightroom, no sharpening. 100% Crop.
Below is a shot from the 50D, ISO 1600, over-exposed by 1/3 stop adjusted down in Lightroom, no sharpening. 100% Crop
50D at ISO 3200, 1/3 stop over-exposed, adjusted down in Lightroom. No Sharpening, 100% crop.
What I'm seeing with the 50D is that at ISO 1600, a properly exposed shot contains about 1/3 of a stop more noise than the 5D. I'm talking RAW, out of the camera. The 50D seems a little more sensitive to underexposure though. A 1 stop underexposure on the 50D will give a higher rise in noise than a 1 stop underexposure on the 5D. At correct exposure they are very close.