Friday, October 10, 2008

New Canon 50D Arrived Today!

I took possession of my brand new Canon 50D this morning. I've sold my old Canon 1D Mark II N and replaced it with this baby. I wanted a wildlife (and backup landscape) camera with more megapixels (for cropping) and better noise characteristics. I can live with a slower shooting camera, but I'm a little apprehensive about the hit I'll take in the autofocus capabilities. The real test is gonna come in December when the 50D will get a good workout shooting the birds of Bosque del Apache in New Mexico. Until then, I'll be experimenting with it to see what it can (and can't) do.



Update - May 14, 2009: I thought I'd update my impressions of this camera. My biggest concern with this camera upon further use was the noise that it produced all the way down to iso 100. It was just plain worse than my old 1D Mark II N at every iso level! Needless to say, I wasn't happy one bit. My workflow has me using both Photoshop Lightroom and CS3 and upon further research, I learned that Adobe's algorithmns for rendering the 50D's raw files was subpar. The workaround for this was to render them with Canon's DPP software instead of Lightroom. While I hated to have to do this as it's always a pain to change one's workflow, specifically for one camera, it did alleviate the problem. Every time Adobe updates their Lightrooom program I check to see if there's an improvement, but no luck so far.

3 comments:

  1. I just went to the next blog and ran into yours,
    I have a question for you., I just got the 50d also, I had the rebel xt. The camera is really great but I have only one complaint. I can use the same lens with both cameras, (canon 24-105L IS) and shoot the same subject with both the xt and 50d and have poor "LOW" ISO performance with the 50d... The big difference to me is the shutter speed.. At ISO 100 the xt can shoot a faster shutter speed in the same conditions and lighting than the 50d. The 50d far outshines the xt in the high ISO settings, I guess I just thought the 50d would out-perform the xt in all areas.. It's just frustrating that I "have" to use high ISO with the 50d when I am not in bright enough areas or I don't have my tripod...

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  2. Hello "A Blessed Life". It's hard to give a possible explanation for your woes unless I know exactly how you're shooting. If the aperture and EC settings are identical for both cameras, then it would appear that Canon's claimed iso sensitivities are different between the two cameras. I know that tests have shown that iso sensitivity ratings between camera makers differ (that is, iso 100 on a Canon camera can be more like iso 150 on a Nikon), but I'm unaware if this varies within a particular camera maker's product line. Another possible explanation may exist if you are shooting in program mode...I'd check to see if the 50D is choosing a smaller aperture than the xt as it would result in slower shutter speeds.

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  3. I would deffinately shoot in manual in all of my tests. "Everything" the same in testing.... The 50d would just require a higher iso to bring my shutter speeds up.. (and unfortunately the noise)
    Outdoors, I can run low iso and it is bright enough to keep acceptable shutter speeds,. But when photographing children, in order to get sharp images I have to have a quick shot...
    Thank you for your reply,
    Chad

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