Canon 50d: Bad review

[bmpress]

I just saw a review that is not very good about the new 50D. Read it at

http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/content/Canon-EOS-50D-Digital-Camera-Review-19359/Color-and-Resolution.htm

Essentially, they say that color accuracy is not as good as the 40d or the Nikons.

Any comments?

[Bob Atkins]

I've been playing with a 50D this week and I really haven't noticed any problems. There have been a few unflattering reviews complaining about things like noise, but I can't say I've really noticed any problems in actually using the camera (as opposed to bench testing it in a lab). Intrinsic noise does seem a little higher than with the 40D, but since the image starts out with higher resolution you can apply stronger noise reduction and still come out with an image that shows lower noise and higher resolution than the 40D. It's not a huge difference, but if you look closely, it's there.

As for colors, I'm sure that with colorimetry you can find differences, but quite honestly in real world shots taken with the 40D and 50D, I'd be pretty hard pressed to find any significant color differences.

So you have to look at tests from the point of view "Does it matter". Yes, there will be differences in noise level, resolution, color etc. but do they actually matter to you and the photography you do. Are the added features of the 50D more important than small differences in the image, most of which you'd only see in large prints, and color differences you'd only see in side by side prints with images from a different camera. I tend to shoot RAW and make both color and white balance adjustments in DPP, so "out of the camera" color and WB aren't a huge issue in my book. I guess if you're shooting JPEGs for direct printing, it would be.

I'll have a 50D review here in a few weeks and it will discuss both the theoretical ("lab test") results and the practicel ("field test") results.

I shot the Halloween parade in NYC last night with a 50D, taking around 300 shots under pretty difficult lighting conditions. I'm pretty pleased with the results. How different they would have been if I'd used a different camera I'll never know of course! Handling one camera in that crowd was difficult enough. nevermind two.

[lukeap69]

It seems there was too high expectations from the 50D because of the overwhelming recognition of Nikon D300. It will be interesting to see side by side comparison of the two. And yes, there are quite few bad reviews of the 50D.

[mike_tee_vee]

I find many the bad reviews of the 50D out there to be unwarranted.  I haven't found a review that uses DPP as its raw converter.  I have borrowed a 50D and have compared it to my 40D using DPP, and the RAW files appear to have identical color and noise up to 3200 when both viewed at 100%. 

What other reviewers seem to over look are the notable improvements in handling.  Things like the hi-res LCD and AF fine tuning really add to the user experience. 

If I had the money, I would gladly upgrade to the 50D.  Canon made lots of nice touches to improve the user experience, which will never show up in lab test

[Bob Atkins]

I've looked at a few RAW images using DPP and setting the Noise Reduction functions to zero. It does look like the 50D images have more noise at the same ISO as 40D images. Remember that DPP applies the camera defaults, and even with high ISO noise reduction off, there is still noise reduction (3/3 in DPP at ISO 1600), so you have to set that to 0/0.

That being said, since the 50D images start out with more detail, you can apply a stronge noise reduction to them and end up with images that look like 40D images as far as noise goes - but which still have more detail than the 40D images, which is what really counts in the end.

I agree that some reviews are hard on the 50D. Technically speaking it does have more intrinsic noise, but really what you should look at is an optimized print when comparing the 40D and 50D. I think in that test the 50D would come out slightly ahead. When you factor in the new features of the 50D (e.g. micro focus adjustment), it seems to me like the 50D is the better camera. Whether it's worth $400 more thana 40D is, of course, debatable. To some people it would be, to others it wouldn't.

[lukeap69]

I hope the 5D Mk II will not have the same issue as the 50D as this might be my first FF camera.

[Bob Atkins]

The pixels of the 5D MkII are much larger than those of the 50D. They're about the same size as those of the 1D MKIII, so it's very unlikely that there will be concerns over noise performance. They're even larger than the pixels of the 40D.

[SidSP]

I have owned a 50D since October 6.  For me, it will be my backup camera once my 5DMkII arrives (soon, I hope!). I have shot, perhaps 2200 images so far.  Previous to that I've owned a 40D (for a year); an XSi(since it came out); and XT; and the original Digital Rebel.  It is absolutely clear to me that the 50D exceeds the performance of each of these.  When taking outdoor/landscape photos in decent light, with Canon L lenses, the IQ is beyond any of the other three Canon cameras I have used.  Only the XSi comes anywhere close.

When taking photos in poor lighting and using high ISOs (>1600), to realize the full potential of the camera I have found that it works quite well to to turn off the all on-camera noise reduction, use RAW, and convert using DPP.  This seems to give results about as good as the 40D, particularly when accounting for the differences in resolution.  Also, converting with DPP, saving as TIFF, and using PSE6/ACR5.1 and Noise Ninja seem to work reasonably well.  I shoot frequently in a dimly lighted church.  I can use ISO3200 with highly predictable results and at H1 (ISO6400) with reasonably good expectations.  Previously, with the 40D, I was using ISO1600 with ISO3200 under the same conditions. So for me, low light performance shows some improvement.

I have found that autofocus works much better than either the XSi or 40D.  I could never get my 100-400mm Canon zoom to focus reliably with the 40D; it was better with the XSi; but with the 50D focus is very reliable, and works quite well even with my Kenko 1.4X TC with 3 pins taped. 

Live view also is much improved, particularly with the convenient dedicated button to turn it on an off.  The VGA LCD is also a big improvement over the 40D.  I sold my 40D early on and got decent $$ for it on Ebay, so the upgrade was only a modest investment for me.

Is it worth the upgrade from a 40D?  For me, it was.  If you are just doing normal kinds of outdoor photography, maybe not.  Frankly, I found the XSi was superior to the 40D in about every performance category, including IQ, EXCEPT low light performance and was my camera of choice when I was doing anything but low-light photography. Obviously the 40D is a much more substantial camera with many more professional features than the XSi, particularly in frames-per-second speed and overall usability and ergonomics. 

I think the 50D has gotten an undeserved bad rap, not so much by the tests themselves, but by their interpretation in the blogs that seemed to dwell on the camera's apparent lack of improvement in low light performance over the 40D; ignoring the many improvements that on the whole make it a better camera than the 40D. 

I hope that this provides some perspective from someone that has actually used the 50D, virtually from the first days it has been available, and has some comparative experience with several other Canon D-SLRs. 

Bob, we look forward to your unbiased review and your always reasoned, practical perspective.