Canon EOS 50D - Field Report | Have Camera Will Travel | Gary Gray

More Images and Some Final Thoughts on the EOS 50D

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:47:43 -0700

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

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:07:13 -0700

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

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:16:35 -0700

ACR_Zero

100% Crop of Adobe Camera Raw

No Enhancment

DPP_Zero

100% Crop of Digital Photo Pro

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

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 05:56:05 -0700

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

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 10:56:58 -0600

EOS 50D ISO 1600

No Noise Reduction Applied

Full Resolution JPG

EOS 50D ISO 1600

Noise Reduction via Noise Ninja

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

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 05:59:34 -0600

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

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:58:05 -0600

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.

Canon EOS 50D - Field Report | Have Camera Will Travel | Gary Gray

More Images and Some Final Thoughts on the EOS 50D

Real World 50D Shots

Gazing at the gathering crowd.

McBush.

Waiting to get in.

Wave That Sign.

Organizer

Police vehicle.

The Young...

And the Old...

Waiting for Mrs. Obama to Speak.

Mrs. Obama makes her way to the crowd.

Michelle Obama - November 3rd, 2008

Michelle Obama Interacting With Supporters.

Adobe Camera Raw vs Digital Photo Professional

ACR_Zero

DPP_Zero

Features Tested

Canon EOS 50D Sample High ISO Images

EOS 50D ISO 1600

EOS 50D ISO 1600

EOS 50D ISO 1600

EOS 50D ISO 1600

Resolution Comparisons

High ISO Comparison to EOS 5D and EOS 50D