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I've had Canon's 50D for
several months now—I bought it for shooting wildlife
and as a back-up camera for landscapes—but I haven't written a review.
The reason, you ask? Frankly, I almost never use the camera.
Once again, you ask: the reason? Well, truth be told, I guess I diverge from the
majority of users who say positive things about this
camera. Personally, I find it too noisy for
demanding professional use. One is better off, in my
opinion, with the 50D's predecessor, the 40D.
It seems that Canon tried to
cram too many pixels into too small a sensor, which
results in too much digital noise. With new
pixel-cramming technology or advanced noise
reduction solutions, this strategy can work. This
was not the case with the 50D. Rather, it appears
that Canon pixel-packed the sensor just to win a
marketing war: more megapixels are good! Well, in
fact they are not necessarily good at all, as noise
can eviscerate increases in resolution. Note,
pixel-cramming has not been Canon's strategy with
the newly released G11, which actually has 5 less
megapixels than its predecessor the G10. Instead,
Canon opted to update the G series with a lower
resolution, but higher quality and less noisy
sensor. I wonder, did Canon learn something from the
50D?
I should add a huge
caveat to this review. As a working professional, my
camera uses tend to be very
demanding. I often shoot in tricky, high contrast
lighting conditions, the kind of conditions that
reveal all of a camera's flaws. Most users of the
50D are very happy with the camera's performance,
and some leading bird photographers
sing its praises (although at least one of them is
sponsored by Canon . . .). For casual
users and even serious enthusiasts, a 15-megapixel camera for $1000 is a
great deal. So take my review with a grain of salt,
and remember that, even though this camera does not
meet my exacting standards, it is no worse than a
lot of cameras out there, and in fact is far better
than many.
As is typical with my reviews,
I tend to avoid objective resolution and
noise tests and the like. There are plenty of such
reviews out there, and I don't intend to duplicate
their results. Rather, I present a subjective
analysis of the camera, one based on years of
experience photographing nature subjects. What I
offer is a practical, real world perspective, not
one based on wall-mounted resolution tests. So, with all that out of the
way, here it goes . . .
Resolution
One thing the 50D does have
going for it is resolution. At 15 megapixels, this
camera packs a lot of punch into a relatively small
package. Overall I am impressed by its resolution,
but it just doesn't have the fine detail of the
21-megapizel 5D Mark II (well duh), which also has a
full frame sensor allowing for finer per-pixel
quality. But in absolute terms, the 50Ds resolution
is impressive.
Let's look at a 100%
crop from the image above:
Overall, the detail is a bit
mushy, not quite as crisp or clean as my 5D Mark II.
But then again, this crop is a really tiny
part of the overall image. I'm guessing this will
blow up to 16"x24" reasonably well.
Noise
Here's where my problems with
this camera start. Base ISOs are actually quite
clean. Here's an example of first light on the Rocky
Mountains of Colorado. It's not a very good picture,
but then again, I did tell you I don't shoot with
this camera much! When conditions weren't terribly
interesting is when I tended to take the 50D out for
testing.
Here's a 100% crop of the sky:
That's about as noise free as
you get! Pretty impressive for 15 megapixels crammed
into a APS-sized sensor, if you ask me.
By the time you get to ISO
400, however, the camera starts to get a bit
squirrelly. Let's take a look at an example of a
shot made under ideal lighting conditions (bright
sun at my back, even illumination of the subject,
and a perfectly exposed histogram).
Here's a 100% crop:
Yikes! That's starting to get
noisy. Modern DSLRs, at ISO 400, shouldn't be this
noisy. On the other hand, the noise can be easily
removed from the background, and it is actually not
too apparent in the chipmunk itself. So, not so
bad—perhaps I'm just being too picky. And, just as
an aside, the resolution is fairly
impressive.
But as I said, the shot above
was made in optimal lighting conditions. In nature,
sometimes (most of the time, in fact) conditions are
not optimal. What happens when the light or exposure
is not quite right? Here's an example:
This 100% crop of a flying
pelican was shot at ISO 800. The light on the
pelican was somewhat weak, so it came out a little
dark. To compensate, I brought up the shadow areas a
bit—something one often has to do when lighting
conditions aren't optimal. The result? A noticeably
noisy image. Now, perhaps I am being too harsh: when
printed at small to moderate sizes, I think this
would look just fine. But I'd be nervous to have
this as a double page spread in a magazine.
Overall, I haven't been
impressed at all with higher ISO settings on the
camera—in fact, I find them unusable. It's nice to
be able to bump ISO up to 800 or 1600 to get
wildlife shots in low light, but with this camera I
don't find that to be an option. In fact, I don't
find ISO 400 to be a terribly attractive option
either—and that's my bread-and-butter ISO for most
wildlife!
Speed & Autofocus
The 50D has a pretty robust
autofocus system, and at 6.3 frames-per-second, it
is no slouch. The 9-point autofocus performs quickly
and reasonably accurately—it may not be as good as a
1 series camera, but it is pretty darn good
nonetheless. For example, I was able to nail this
shot of a pelican diving into the water:
Anyone who has seen a pelican
dive can attest to the fact that they dive fast,
like a speeding bullet. Also, having water behind a
moving subject can often fool autofocus systems. Not
here. So overall, I'd say the 50D's autofocus system
works just fine!
Live View
It stuns me to still hear some
photographers scoff at Live View, deriding it as a
useless bell-and-whistle feature. Live View is an
amazing tool. I use it for critical focusing, to
determine exposure before I make the shot, and for
awkward setups where it is not possible to get my
eye to the viewfinder. The 50D's generously
large LCD screen is perfect for zooming in to 100%
to check focus throughout the scene—even when the
depth-of-field preview button is pressed, allowing
me to verify depth of field.
Sensor Cleaning
The 50D comes with an
internal sensor cleaner that vibrates the sensor
when you power the camera on or off. I think that
the sensor cleaner works reasonably well. So far my
50D is virtually dust free, although I haven't used
it much.
Durability
The 50D seems reasonably
durable. I've owned other D cameras in the past, and
they've held up just fine to the rigors of field
work. Once again, they're no 1 Series cameras, but
overall I haven't had any problems. The camera is
lightweight and easily portable as well, a real plus
when traveling or doing a lot of hiking.
Conclusion
Canon might have
made a mistake in trying to cram too many pixels
into this camera. I'm not sure it improved image
quality compared to their previous D model, the 40D.
At low ISOs in optimal lighting conditions, the
camera outperforms the 40D. But at higher ISOs or
sub-optimal lighting conditions, the noise penalty
of the 50D outweighs any resolution gain. More often
than not, even when shooting wildlife, I reach for
my slow 5D Mark II rather than use my noisy 50D.
I'm afraid I just don't see the 50D coming
out of my camera bag all that often—except to sell
it when Canon's next 1 Series camera comes out.
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