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  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

50D - first impressions

N

Nikolai Sklobovsky

New member
Yesterday I finally received my new toy:

384171261_YLZAZ-L.jpg


I wasn't able to arrange for a sensible shoot on a short notice, so fancy pics would have to wait (I'm gonna get some tonight, though).
As a result I spent the evening going through the user manual, familiarizing myself with the new features, configurig the custom functions, etc. I did, however, take a few shots at home, mostly with high ISOs, to get an idea of the new sensitivity range.

Here's the link to the sample gallery, originals enabled (exifs there, too), including some side-by-side 40D vs 50D:
http://nik.smugmug.com/gallery/6111814_tqCAG


So, here's the very first things I noticed:
  • MUCH improved LiveView - including live focusing, live histogram (finally :), dedicated activation button, and programmable FUNC button (which I set to Liveview settings)
  • MUCH improved low light performance
  • Takes all 40D accessories (battery, L-plates, grip)
  • Yes, ISO 12,800 images are noisy, but you can still take an image even if you can hardly see the target. Cleaning it up in DPP/ACR/PS should not be problem
  • Much better screen with much fancier menus
  • And, yes, it's 15mp, not 10 :)
On a negative side: one less custom set, two slots instead of 40D's three - new CA mode (a mix between P and green) took space. Gosh, I hate Silly Modes...

More later...
 
R

Rachel Foster

New member
Sounds good. I considered the 50d very seriously.

I rarely shoot on anything but M these days. Does anyone use the settings like this CA?
 
N

Nikolai Sklobovsky

New member
Rachel Foster said:
I rarely shoot on anything but M these days. Does anyone use the settings like this CA?
Click to expand...
I shoot A (outdoors ambient) and M (studio/assisted lighting outdoors), and yes, I HATE basic modes. I'd rather have more user sets... But I guess Canon still treats this APC x0D lienup as "consumer", hence them and the infamous Direct Print button (which on 50D can be luckily used for LiveView activation)
 
Asher Kelman

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Canon 50D early experience report!

Hi Nikolai,

You have purchased one of my 6 most favorite cameras for 2008, listed here.

Thanks so much for your early information channel that you have opened up for us! Keep it up!

Asher

P.S. If anyone else has found a new camera that's super-wonderful, add details here.
 
J

Joseph A. Kurkjian

New member
Nikolai Sklobovsky said:
Yesterday I finally received my new toy:
Click to expand...

Congratulations Nikolai, I hope the new tool serves you well.

You might want to disable Auto Lighting Optimizer (ALO) via CFn setting ... IMO Canon's default is just the opposite of "you" will more than likely prefer. Also consider double checking to see what DPP does during RAW conversion of two files, one with ALO enabled and the other disabled; early reports on this subject are a bit muddled.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian
 
N

Nikolai Sklobovsky

New member
Joseph A. Kurkjian said:
Congratulations Nikolai, I hope the new tool serves you well.

You might want to disable Auto Lighting Optimizer (ALO) via CFn setting ... IMO Canon's default is just the opposite of "you" will more than likely prefer. Also consider double checking to see what DPP does during RAW conversion of two files, one with ALO enabled and the other disabled; early reports on this subject are a bit muddled.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian
Click to expand...

Joe, thanks!
I hear you!
I have a mixed feeling about it, I need to play. Besides, it doesn't work in M mode anyway.

My BIGGEST inconvenience so far is the lack of ACR support for 50D. bundled software is such a POS compared to Bridge/ACR...
 
T

Torsten Kötting

New member
i found the DPPs conversion show less color-moire and slightly more details. You can do the basic conversion eith DPP and then transfer it to PS ... theres a special function for this in one of DPPs menus ...
 
R

Rachel Foster

New member
If you post those larger anywhere, let me know? I'd love to get a really good look at them. That looks pretty impressive for a $1500.00 camera.
 
T

Torsten Kötting

New member
since ACR (beta) and DPP are available and imaging-resource provides 50D-raw-files for download i played a bit around and found that DPP seems to care about banding while ACR doesnt. This is from a ISO12800 shot, NR set to off in both programs:

DPP:

dpp.jpg


ACR:

acr.jpg


im rather concerned about the hot-pixels that already show in the ISO-6400 sample. Maybe its better to wait and hope that Canon will sort this out ...
 
J

John Sheehy

New member
Rachel Foster said:
Sounds good. I considered the 50d very seriously.

I rarely shoot on anything but M these days. Does anyone use the settings like this CA?
Click to expand...

I'd like to shoot in manual Av and Tv, but with ISO floating with the metering, with *every* ISO available, but limitable by the user, and EC setting applied to the ISO (set it to - for more headroom, + for exposing low-contrast and/or high-key scenes, etc). The lack of such a mode in the new Canons pains me. I've waited far too long for this very basic and necessary feature. I don't know why Canon is so adamant about omitting this very valuable feature, which is most closely related to what a photographer really ultimately wants the camera to do; capture a slice of time in a scene with a certain aperture, but with minimum noise, which is what you would get if the camera used the highest ISO that didn't cause clipping.

Ironically, the first adopters of such a mode (called TAv by Pentax) were cameras where the RAW data wasn't significantly cleaner at high ISO than low ISO under-exposed, unlike Canons, which can have as little as 14% as much read noise at ISO 1600 as ISO 100 under-exposed 4 stops, and have been like that for years!
 
J

John Sheehy

New member
John Sheehy said:
The lack of such a mode in the new Canons pains me. I've waited far too long for this very basic and necessary feature.
Click to expand...

Well, I wrote that as a non-owner of the 50D. Since I wrote that, I have bought a 50D. Lots of nice features over my 30D (sensor cleaning and live view), but now something else pains me. I saw my 8 GB card fill up in a slow day - and I remembered that this new camera is 14-bit. I took a number of shots at ISOs 6400 and 12800. What are these companies thinking? Why do they bloat the RAW data unnecessarily? ISO 12800 needs about 4 or 5 bits, but the camera is writing 14-bit files, with 9 or 10 bits of incompressible noise. ISO 100 probably can't even make good use of the 13th bit. What a waste of space!

I need to teach a RAW math refresher course to the people at Canon. I'd take a "significant bits" file size reduction at full resolution any day over "sRAW".
 
Cem_Usakligil

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Guys,

Since the very good questions asked by John deserve to be discussed independent of the 50D, I have created a new thread here.

I suggest that we keep on topic in this one and discuss the 50D related issues.


Cheers,
 
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