EOS 50 D - Here is a translation of what I wrote in my Swedish blog
I got some messages from some members on this sites, so here is on request a subjective report from not more than three days with EOS 50 D:
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As I wrote also in Swedish, I was paid to be in the video for the new camera, but Canon does not pay me to write this:
A quick and, of course, subjective evaluation of the new EOS 50 D - after three days photography
Late in June, the Netherlandish advertising agency working for Canon in Europe contacted me. They asked if I wanted to take part in a product and advertising film for a new camera. They did not yet know exactly which camera it was, just that it was going to be a camera for amateurs, and that the auto focus should have been improved, having sports and bird photographers especially in mind. I said yes, my experience of Canon is that they supply excellent cameras. But I would like to have time to test the camera first.
Competition between camera manufacturers has hardened, and there is of necessity much hush-hush about new products to be introduced into the market. In the middle of July, the camera house arrived at my favourite place in Norway, being well packed in an anonymous cardboard box — and accompanied by a Canon representative from its European office.
I am of course used to Canon’s big pro cameras, the EOS 1 D Mark III and the 1 Ds Mark III, respectively. The former, with its extreme frame speed of up to 10 frames per second, I use for real quick action and when I have to exceed 1600 ISO (the noise level of that camera is extremely low). The picture files, of 10 Megapixels, tolerate a certain cropping. I am using the model EOS 1 Ds, with 22 Megapixels, when a frame speed of 5 per second is enough and I have light enough not to have to exceed ISO 800-1600. Then, it is in a class of its own as regards picture quality.
What I got into my hand, in July, proved to be an advanced amateur camera, or semi-pro camera. With its 15 Megapixels sensor and 6.3 frames per second, it may be compared to a cross between the two pro models. This camera was thus the next model, the EOS 50 D, in the Canon series together with the 20 D, the 30 D, and the 40 D.
I have not photographed with the earlier models, besides the 10 D. But although there were no instructions for use (there did not exist any yet) it took me just a couple of minutes to grasp the functions of the new 50D.
What, among other things, interested me a lot in this camera was how the auto focus might react. The camera - I was told - had a new DIGIC IV-processor. Before I went with the rent boat to photograph gulls, I therefore tested the auto focus on land. In the One-Shot position, I adjusted the focus of my 300/2.8 IS to infinite, directed the camera towards the gravel three metres away, and pressed the shutter. I repeated the procedure with various motifs, and the focus was there with lightning speed every time. Amazingly quick, I have to add.
I also tested the camera with the zoom 70-200/2.8 IS and then let it focus continuously with both objectives, while I very quickly panned down from the beach, 200 metres away on the other side of the water, to the water surface just a few metres in front of me. Focus followed all the time.
When I took out my EOS 1 D Mark III and did the same, the result was good but not as convincing as the new camera house. Sure, I have felt the Mark III's were quick, but the EOS 50 D felt quicker. I repeated the manoeuvre some ten times.
At least as regards stationary motifs, I judge that the EOS 50 D may have the quickest auto focus so far in the world. (Addition: I know that the EOS 40 D also has a very fast AF in the One-Shot-mode, how much these camera models differs in reality I will leave for more scientific tests to show us. But my immediate reaction to the 50D was that it had the fastest AF I have ever experienced, when it comes to stationary subjects.)
The next question was how the camera would work in the field. Photographing flying birds is one of the toughest tests of a camera as regards auto focus.
The new EOS 50 D house with EF 300/2.8 IS and EF 70-200/2.8 IS respectively, with and without a 1.4 times converter, succeeded most of the time in following the gulls flying after the boat or towards me after anchoring. That is, if I aimed correctly and allowed the camera some tenths of seconds for reacting, I got sharp pictures. When it did not get sharp, it was me who had missed having the bird in the centre. It also seemed to be tracking the bird very good, that will say as long as I could manage to hold the bird close to the center focus point.
I used the AI-SERVO AF with only the central focal point — which I recommend that one should do when it is a question of birds in flight. My experience is that the AI SERVO auto focus is functioning best with just one point, at most you sometimes add a couple of points immediately around the central sensor itself (this in the pro models). If you use the whole field of AF points in AI-SERVO position, the camera has not the time to calculate the connection between all the different AF points and the movement, at least not if it is a question of birds in quick flight.
Anyway, to test the EOS 50 D I switched to all focal points, still with the AI SERVO AF. At the same time, I checked that I had stopped down one and a half stop to increase the depth of field. If you use all focal points and the bird occupies relatively much space in the viewfinder, then you do not know if the camera will be focussing a wing-tip or if it succeeds in focussing the eye, which is where I want the focus. With some stopping down, the eye stays sharp even if the main focus is a bit away, say on the wing.
To my surprise, the new EOS 50 D, with the 70-200/2.8 and 300/2.8 respectively, pretty well succeeded in following the gulls even when I used all AF points. I do not think it works all the time, but this was better than in any other camera I have used.
The 6.3 frames per second speed is enough for the camera to be able to catch, e.g., the wing-beats of the White-tailed Eagle in every different position. With some of the early, slower digital camera houses, it happened that I always got the picture in the very same spot in the wing-beat of the majestic bird. My experience tells me that the critical point is somewhere around five frames per second. Is the frame speed greater, you should get the wing-beats in different positions even with larger birds of prey and owls.
If you compare with the ten frames per second that I can theoretically get out of my 1 Ds Mark III, there is of course a difference, but in practice it is seldom that I should miss pictures because the speed is “only” 6.3 per second.
In my hotel room, I checked the picture files — unfortunately, I had had to photograph in JPEG format, as there was not yet any RAW converter. The files were, as I have mentioned, larger than I had expected. I had, as I mentioned, thought that it would be a question of maximally 11 or 12, maybe 13 Megapixels.
The picture size gives me, as a photographer, ample possibilities to crop the pictures drastically and still use them for example for a full page in a book (with some interpolation). Large picture files are not least important to a bird photographer. How many times is the perfect cropping to be found directly in the camera, when you are to follow a bird in flight with the AF centre point? Everyone who photographs birds knows that you sometimes have to crop for another reason as well, namely that you were not close enough.
In order to see what the 50 D manages, I used high ISO (ISO 640 to 1600) almost all the time. Unfortunately, I had no possibility in such a short a time to make a real test. My feeling is that the noise level was really low, especially as I had to work with JPG files and Canon had pressed in as much as 15 Megapixels into a APS-C-sensor, 22,3 x 14,9 millimeter.
Another exclusive feature that was introduced already in the former model, EOS 40 D, is the function of Highlight Tone Priority. The aim is to save highlights from being burnt out. As you know, I have several times earlier in this newsletter mentioned the difficulty in exposing, for example, a white bird correctly against a dark background. Even if the white bird occupies relatively much space (25—35 %), a dark, for example green, background steals so much light that the camera thinks the whole motif is darker — and therefore the camera exposes lighter than the white bird really tolerates. By the way, this is true for all cameras and camera brands.
My general advice for this kind of motif — a white bird against a dark background — is that you should underexpose with 2/3 up to one full stop, in intense sunshine still more. This in order to save the bird’s highlight areas, that is its lightest parts, from totally burning out. To burn out means that all details and nuances in the pale parts are lost.
The darker background cal always be enlightened afterwards. Digital pictures contain so much information in the details of their shadowy parts that these — in contrast to burnt-out highlights — can be saved by enlightening them afterwards. The disadvantage is that the noise increases.
For those who forget in their haste to underexposure 2/3 up to one stop, the function Highlight Tone Priority will save thehighlights — and save the pictures from landing in the trash. Whether the Highlight Tone Priority function in addition increases tonality with which I can work, or if it just automatically underexposes the picture so that the highlights survive, I would not like to say. Regardless of which, it is not a bad function.
When testing the EOS 50 D, I used automatic white-balance, which I never do in JPG position. Only when photographing in RAW format, I usually dare to use auto white-balance, because then I can always change the colour temperature afterwards, while converting from the RAW-files. But this time I wanted to see how well the auto white-balance worked.
In 50 % of the cases I was quite satisfied, but when there was water in the motif and a little warmer evening light, the camera often changed the colour temperature in a way I didn't like. Therefore, I recommend that when you photograph in JPG, you should as far as possible manually change the white-balance — then you are in full control. Moreover, there are the well-working pre-selected icons for sunshine/daylight, shadow, overcast weather, and so on.
As regards auto-exposuring flashes, my experience is that pro cameras often underexpose, which is certainly better than the opposite. Thus, I had no expectations when I took some test pictures with the built-in flash of the EOS 50 D. I used P, auto-program, and photographed a face that occupied 15—20 % of the space with, apart from that, a very dark background — a big, badly lighted room. I photographed with white walls etcetera. I have no experience of the earlier cameras of this series, the 30D or the 40D, and I am amazed at how the camera managing all these situations. The white walls did not become grey but remained white, and the auto white-balance worked well, too.
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