Canon EOS 50D *Official Announcement* + Review: Pg.4
09-16-2008, 02:21 PM
#121
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Still more pre-production 50D shots, this time up to ISO 12800:
http://www.digitaldreams.com.sg/eos5...les/index.html
These last two sets of shots have impressed me with their ISO 3200 quality. Pretty darn clean while still maintaining very good detail. Even the ISO 12800 is useable, which is amazing in and of itself, IMO.
http://www.digitaldreams.com.sg/eos5...les/index.html
These last two sets of shots have impressed me with their ISO 3200 quality. Pretty darn clean while still maintaining very good detail. Even the ISO 12800 is useable, which is amazing in and of itself, IMO.
09-19-2008, 11:48 AM
#122
Senior Moderator
I'm reading that the 50D has better high ISO than the D300. this I did not know! nice work Canon.
09-29-2008, 09:25 PM
#124
09-29-2008, 09:45 PM
#126
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i except a full review by wednesday night with high ISO samples 
09-29-2008, 10:17 PM
#128
Dan, one thing (oh 
) check what the 50D's RAW look like with DPP and with ACR 4.6 BETA. Those dillholes over at POTN are whining like shit.
) check what the 50D's RAW look like with DPP and with ACR 4.6 BETA. Those dillholes over at POTN are whining like shit.
09-29-2008, 11:29 PM
#129
Photography Nerd
I've noticed that DPP is better at lens corrections (CA, distortion, vignetting, etc.) but ACR is better at exposure adjustments and white balancing. I don't think the perfect RAW converter exists yet, so it's a matter of knowing what the weaknesses are and picking the tool that is best suited to the image. I don't really expect DPP 3.5 and ACR 4.6 (or 5.0) will be much different.
Luckily we're going to an Indian wedding on Saturday, so I should be able to snap some samples to play with. I expect the vivid colours and mixed lighting conditions should be a pretty full test of the camera.
09-30-2008, 04:51 PM
#130
09-30-2008, 04:57 PM
#132
Earth-bound misfit
09-30-2008, 05:37 PM
#133
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i want pics now! 
09-30-2008, 06:00 PM
#134
Needs more Lemon Pledge
SS did say "might"....
09-30-2008, 06:29 PM
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09-30-2008, 06:30 PM
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he does mention that there is some noise improvement with sRAW1 
10-02-2008, 08:32 PM
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10-02-2008, 09:15 PM
#139
So, A, how are you liking your 50D?
10-02-2008, 09:26 PM
#140
I love my husband and it thrills me to see him excited. Soooo, for the record, the unopened box still sits on the kitchen table awaiting Dan's arrival. I don't want to take away the thrill he'll get out of opening the box for himself and checking out the 50D first, before I mess around with it and never give it back.
Or maybe it's been sitting here on burst mode since I picked it up.
Or maybe it's been sitting here on burst mode since I picked it up.
10-02-2008, 10:03 PM
#141
I love my husband and it thrills me to see him excited. Soooo, for the record, the unopened box still sits on the kitchen table awaiting Dan's arrival. I don't want to take away the thrill he'll get out of opening the box for himself and checking out the 50D first, before I mess around with it
10-02-2008, 10:40 PM
#142
Big Block go VROOOM!
And we all know Canon doesn't seal their boxes....
Come to think of it, you should put your Elan 7 in there. That would certainly put a look on his face when he opened it.
Come to think of it, you should put your Elan 7 in there. That would certainly put a look on his face when he opened it.
10-03-2008, 06:46 AM
#143
10-03-2008, 11:12 PM
#145
Photography Nerd
I've just taken it out of the box and spent a half hour configuring all the custom settings that I had set before. I really like the new "My Menu" feature and the greater range of custom functions. I count at least 6 buttons on the back of the camera that can be reprogrammed to perform different functions, if you so desire.
The grip is noticeably bigger than the 30D, but I was unaware they made any changes. The body feels a little more solid than before too. Maybe it's a little heavier?
The screen is a great upgrade and the anti-reflective coatings make it easy to read in bright light. Perhaps the only real downside I've noticed is that it's very easy to get nose prints on the screen when looking through the viewfinder. I'm sure 40D owners have the same issue, but it wasn't much of a problem on the 30D with its smaller screen. Still, I'd take this screen with nose smudges over the 30D's any day. The 10x review zoom feature uses a high-res sample from the file which makes it easy to confirm focus. In live view, it is very easy to manually focus with the 5x or 10x modes.
Other than those little tweaks, it is a very familiar design. There are going to be a few things to get used to, but I'm sure it won't take more than a day or two of shooting to get adjusted.
I'll post more about image quality, autofocus, and other impressions when I have a chance to shoot something more interesting than what is visible from my spot on the couch.
The grip is noticeably bigger than the 30D, but I was unaware they made any changes. The body feels a little more solid than before too. Maybe it's a little heavier?
The screen is a great upgrade and the anti-reflective coatings make it easy to read in bright light. Perhaps the only real downside I've noticed is that it's very easy to get nose prints on the screen when looking through the viewfinder. I'm sure 40D owners have the same issue, but it wasn't much of a problem on the 30D with its smaller screen. Still, I'd take this screen with nose smudges over the 30D's any day.
The 10x review zoom feature uses a high-res sample from the file which makes it easy to confirm focus. In live view, it is very easy to manually focus with the 5x or 10x modes.Other than those little tweaks, it is a very familiar design. There are going to be a few things to get used to, but I'm sure it won't take more than a day or two of shooting to get adjusted.
I'll post more about image quality, autofocus, and other impressions when I have a chance to shoot something more interesting than what is visible from my spot on the couch.
10-04-2008, 12:48 AM
#146
Big Block go VROOOM!
10-04-2008, 06:02 AM
#147
Photography Nerd
The short answer is, nope, there's still no way to program a MLU hard button. However, they've made it a little easier.
You can add the MLU to your "My Menu" list and assign that to the SET button. If you put MLU at the top of your My Menu, you just have to press SET twice, then you can turn MLU on or off.
The alternative is to use LiveView, for which there is a dedicated hard button. You only need to press one button that way to get the mirror up. With the 10x mode for focusing, chances are if I'm using MLU, I'll want to use that feature too, so I'm not too upset by Canon's refusal to add a single MLU button.
10-06-2008, 05:14 PM
#148
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Initial Review
I’ve been playing with the 50D all weekend, so I now have some idea of what the image quality is like, but a weekend is just not enough time to test every aspect of image quality. I’ll continue to update this thread with my findings as I shoot in different conditions and different subject matter. I hate to test cameras for the sake of testing cameras, instead I rather shoot what I normally shoot and report back on what I found.
Autofocus
We were at a wedding this weekend so I was able to test the autofocus under very tough lighting (i.e. candlelight) and I am happy to say that the camera performs exceptionally well in one shot mode in these conditions. It acquired focus much faster and with far less hunting than my 30D ever could in dim light. I did not attempt to use servo focusing, so I’ll reserve my comments there for another day.
ISO
The dim light also gave me an opportunity to test the high ISO abilities. I never dropped below ISO 800 and I was frequently in the ISO 1600 to 3200 range. ISO 1600 is useable all day long and ISO 800 is fantastic. ISO 3200 is not bad for smaller images but banding starts to become a problem in shadow areas. The luminance noise is not much of an issue at 6400 and 12800 but banding certainly is. If banding wasn’t a problem, I would not hesitate to use these two settings, but as it stands now I would not recommend venturing above ISO 3200 unless it’s an emergency. Since the imaging sensor is skewed to capture more data at the bright end of the spectrum, you’ll only see banding in shadow areas. If you found some strange scene that didn’t have any shadows but you needed high ISO to expose properly, you could safely use ISO 6400 and 12800.
Overall, I estimate the ISO performance to be about 1 stop better than the 30D at the pixel level, and about 1.5 stops better when downsized to the 30D dimensions or printed at the same size. This camera won’t compete with a 5D2 or D700 from a noise perspective above ISO 1600, but I wouldn’t hesitate to use anything up to ISO 1600. Print for print, the 50D will trump the 30D/40D when it comes to noise. I didn’t shoot any in-camera JPGs, so I can’t tell you how they stack up to the 30D. I never shot JPGs with the 30D either, so I would have to go out of my way to test this feature.
SRAW1 and SRAW2
These reduced-size RAW files were of great interest to me when I saw that they would be offered on the 50D. Having done my own tests of these settings, I have to say I’m both very impressed and surprised at the same time. Canon hasn’t said what technique they use for resizing the files (nor do I expect they ever will tell us) but if I were a betting man, I’d bet that they are doing pixel binning at the time of capture. The noise signature of an SRAW1 file is completely different than a downsized RAW file. What surprised me is there is actually more visible noise with the SRAW1 than there is with a downsized RAW file. No, that’s not a typo, there is slightly more noise with SRAW1 than there is with a RAW file downsized to the same dimensions.
What you gain with SRAW is exceptional detail in the downsized image and next to zero chroma (color) noise. There is no smearing of detail with SRAW files. My first impression was that the image had sharpening applied in the camera (it might, I have no way of knowing) but there aren’t any visible halos. It looks just like a camera that has had its anti-aliasing filter removed. I have tried downsizing a full-sized RAW file using every technique I know of in Photoshop and third-party applications, and I can’t duplicate the look that Canon gets with SRAW1 and SRAW2. This is why I think Canon is using pixel binning at the time of capture rather than downsizing in firmware. I don’t think the AA filter affects groups of pixels the same way it affects single pixels. Images from bayer-array sensors that enable pixel binning will likely appear sharper than those from images that are resized after capture.
The bottom line is setting the camera to SRAW1 or SRAW2 delivers files that are more detailed than you can get from a downsized RAW file. The chroma noise was non-existent in all the SRAW samples I took, but luminance noise was a little higher than downsized RAW files. Unfortunately, all modes still exhibit shadow banding above ISO 3200, so don’t expect to use SRAW2 at ISO 12800 and expect it to look like ISO 1600. The detail and chroma noise will be improved, but banding and luminance noise won’t.
Software
So far the only two options for working with RAW files that I know of are Canon’s DPP 3.5 and Adobe’s DNG Converter with ACR 4.6 Beta. When it comes to workflow, both options blow donkeys compared to working natively with the files in Lightroom. They’re both brutally slow, albeit in different ways. If you go the DNG converter route, you can import the files into Lightroom or Photoshop and work with them as you normally would once they’ve been converted. It’s the conversion process that takes forever. DPP is just very slow in all aspects of editing and conversion.
DPP does an excellent job at lens corrections and I would also say it’s more accurate with color than ACR is. ACR is far superior when it comes to exposure and tone corrections though. I wouldn’t say there is a single best application out there for editing RAW files; it’s up to you to decide what is important for the images you’re working with. I really do look forward to the updated releases of Lightroom and Photoshop CS4 when I can natively work with the 50D’s CR2 files though.
By the way, the RAW files are very large... 20-24MB on average. I only managed to get about 150 RAW images on a 4GB card. SRAW1 averages 10-14MB and SRAW2 is about 8-10MB.
Overall First Impressions
The handling of the camera is nearly identical to the 30D, so there weren’t many surprises in that regard. Image quality is excellent up to ISO 800, dropping to “very good” at ISO 1600, “usable” at ISO 3200, and “emergency use only” at ISO 6400 and 12800. Low light autofocus is much improved.
The bright high-resolution screen is a joy to use and I found that the zoomed-in reviews accurately displayed the in-focus and out-of-focus areas. Live View with the 10x preview is amazing for judging focus before capture. I used to use my Hoodman angle finder at 2.5x magnification to judge focus, but this is infinitely better and far easier to use. The anti-glare coatings on the screen make it very easy to see at all angles and even in outdoor lighting.
The next things I need to test are the Highlight Priority mode and Ai-Servo focusing. I’ll report back on those findings when I have something to share. I am also looking forward to spending some time at the low end of the ISO dial to really take advantage of the higher resolution this sensor provides.
Autofocus
We were at a wedding this weekend so I was able to test the autofocus under very tough lighting (i.e. candlelight) and I am happy to say that the camera performs exceptionally well in one shot mode in these conditions. It acquired focus much faster and with far less hunting than my 30D ever could in dim light. I did not attempt to use servo focusing, so I’ll reserve my comments there for another day.
ISO
The dim light also gave me an opportunity to test the high ISO abilities. I never dropped below ISO 800 and I was frequently in the ISO 1600 to 3200 range. ISO 1600 is useable all day long and ISO 800 is fantastic. ISO 3200 is not bad for smaller images but banding starts to become a problem in shadow areas. The luminance noise is not much of an issue at 6400 and 12800 but banding certainly is. If banding wasn’t a problem, I would not hesitate to use these two settings, but as it stands now I would not recommend venturing above ISO 3200 unless it’s an emergency. Since the imaging sensor is skewed to capture more data at the bright end of the spectrum, you’ll only see banding in shadow areas. If you found some strange scene that didn’t have any shadows but you needed high ISO to expose properly, you could safely use ISO 6400 and 12800.
Overall, I estimate the ISO performance to be about 1 stop better than the 30D at the pixel level, and about 1.5 stops better when downsized to the 30D dimensions or printed at the same size. This camera won’t compete with a 5D2 or D700 from a noise perspective above ISO 1600, but I wouldn’t hesitate to use anything up to ISO 1600. Print for print, the 50D will trump the 30D/40D when it comes to noise. I didn’t shoot any in-camera JPGs, so I can’t tell you how they stack up to the 30D. I never shot JPGs with the 30D either, so I would have to go out of my way to test this feature.
SRAW1 and SRAW2
These reduced-size RAW files were of great interest to me when I saw that they would be offered on the 50D. Having done my own tests of these settings, I have to say I’m both very impressed and surprised at the same time. Canon hasn’t said what technique they use for resizing the files (nor do I expect they ever will tell us) but if I were a betting man, I’d bet that they are doing pixel binning at the time of capture. The noise signature of an SRAW1 file is completely different than a downsized RAW file. What surprised me is there is actually more visible noise with the SRAW1 than there is with a downsized RAW file. No, that’s not a typo, there is slightly more noise with SRAW1 than there is with a RAW file downsized to the same dimensions.
What you gain with SRAW is exceptional detail in the downsized image and next to zero chroma (color) noise. There is no smearing of detail with SRAW files. My first impression was that the image had sharpening applied in the camera (it might, I have no way of knowing) but there aren’t any visible halos. It looks just like a camera that has had its anti-aliasing filter removed. I have tried downsizing a full-sized RAW file using every technique I know of in Photoshop and third-party applications, and I can’t duplicate the look that Canon gets with SRAW1 and SRAW2. This is why I think Canon is using pixel binning at the time of capture rather than downsizing in firmware. I don’t think the AA filter affects groups of pixels the same way it affects single pixels. Images from bayer-array sensors that enable pixel binning will likely appear sharper than those from images that are resized after capture.
The bottom line is setting the camera to SRAW1 or SRAW2 delivers files that are more detailed than you can get from a downsized RAW file. The chroma noise was non-existent in all the SRAW samples I took, but luminance noise was a little higher than downsized RAW files. Unfortunately, all modes still exhibit shadow banding above ISO 3200, so don’t expect to use SRAW2 at ISO 12800 and expect it to look like ISO 1600. The detail and chroma noise will be improved, but banding and luminance noise won’t.
Software
So far the only two options for working with RAW files that I know of are Canon’s DPP 3.5 and Adobe’s DNG Converter with ACR 4.6 Beta. When it comes to workflow, both options blow donkeys compared to working natively with the files in Lightroom. They’re both brutally slow, albeit in different ways. If you go the DNG converter route, you can import the files into Lightroom or Photoshop and work with them as you normally would once they’ve been converted. It’s the conversion process that takes forever. DPP is just very slow in all aspects of editing and conversion.
DPP does an excellent job at lens corrections and I would also say it’s more accurate with color than ACR is. ACR is far superior when it comes to exposure and tone corrections though. I wouldn’t say there is a single best application out there for editing RAW files; it’s up to you to decide what is important for the images you’re working with. I really do look forward to the updated releases of Lightroom and Photoshop CS4 when I can natively work with the 50D’s CR2 files though.
By the way, the RAW files are very large... 20-24MB on average. I only managed to get about 150 RAW images on a 4GB card. SRAW1 averages 10-14MB and SRAW2 is about 8-10MB.
Overall First Impressions
The handling of the camera is nearly identical to the 30D, so there weren’t many surprises in that regard. Image quality is excellent up to ISO 800, dropping to “very good” at ISO 1600, “usable” at ISO 3200, and “emergency use only” at ISO 6400 and 12800. Low light autofocus is much improved.
The bright high-resolution screen is a joy to use and I found that the zoomed-in reviews accurately displayed the in-focus and out-of-focus areas. Live View with the 10x preview is amazing for judging focus before capture. I used to use my Hoodman angle finder at 2.5x magnification to judge focus, but this is infinitely better and far easier to use. The anti-glare coatings on the screen make it very easy to see at all angles and even in outdoor lighting.
The next things I need to test are the Highlight Priority mode and Ai-Servo focusing. I’ll report back on those findings when I have something to share. I am also looking forward to spending some time at the low end of the ISO dial to really take advantage of the higher resolution this sensor provides.
10-06-2008, 05:51 PM
#150
Drifting
nice write up, Thanks!.
any idea of how the noise would compare to that of the 5dmkI?
right now i'm still leaning towards a 5dmkI over the 50D....but I have a month or so to make up my mind
any idea of how the noise would compare to that of the 5dmkI?
right now i'm still leaning towards a 5dmkI over the 50D....but I have a month or so to make up my mind
10-06-2008, 06:34 PM
#152
Photography Nerd
All I can say is I am very happy with the output up to ISO 1600 and I don't have any major reservations with shooting at ISO 3200. I think most 5D users probably feel the same.
10-06-2008, 06:43 PM
#153
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i want to get a 50D when basketball season runs around and compare the shots with my XTi and 40D @ 1600 and 3200
10-06-2008, 07:18 PM
#154
From what I've read in a couple of places, users are saying that the 50D is on par with what the 5D is able to do. So I would say that the 5D2 is going to be much better.
10-06-2008, 08:44 PM
#155
Drifting
The only reason I think I'd go for the 50D is if it had far superior high ISO performance. I guess the ability to go up to 12800 might come in handy if I just need a shot and don't really care about IQ. There were a few times on my last trip when I needed very high ISO, and for casual pictures, noise doesn't bother me too much.
Just amazing that the 5DmkI is like the same age as the 20D. I highly doubt I'll be able to afford a 5DmkII. the 50d should still be a great camera though.
Just amazing that the 5DmkI is like the same age as the 20D. I highly doubt I'll be able to afford a 5DmkII. the 50d should still be a great camera though.
10-06-2008, 11:31 PM
#156
Photography Nerd
I did some more testing tonight, this time was on a tripod with the camera teathered to my laptop.
I ran through the whole ISO range, shooting RAW, SRAW1, and SRAW2 at each setting. I hate doing these tests, because they're rather tedious and it's nearly impossible to keep all the variables in check. Anyhow, I gave it a try and the results were interesting, although far from conclusive.
In an attempt to level the playing field, I ran both the 50D files and the 30D files through the DNG converter with ACR 4.6 beta, then compared them in Lightroom 2.0. This time the results were not quite as good as what I saw with the DPP conversions I tried earlier. At native resolutions, the noise performance was nearly identical between both cameras at all comparable ISOs. Depending on what scaling method I used, I could get about a 1-stop improvement in noise when reducing the 50D image to 30D dimensions.
At the end of the day, I'm not sure if I'm testing the RAW converter or comparing cameras here. The 50D files out of DPP have less noise and more detail, even when the noise slider is turned down to 1 (out of 20). When using the same DNG converter for the 30D files and 50D files, the per-pixel noise is nearly identical. The final test I'll attempt on the subject will be to print some test strips and see what they look like on paper vs on the screen. Then it's back to real world photos for me.
I ran through the whole ISO range, shooting RAW, SRAW1, and SRAW2 at each setting. I hate doing these tests, because they're rather tedious and it's nearly impossible to keep all the variables in check. Anyhow, I gave it a try and the results were interesting, although far from conclusive.
In an attempt to level the playing field, I ran both the 50D files and the 30D files through the DNG converter with ACR 4.6 beta, then compared them in Lightroom 2.0. This time the results were not quite as good as what I saw with the DPP conversions I tried earlier. At native resolutions, the noise performance was nearly identical between both cameras at all comparable ISOs. Depending on what scaling method I used, I could get about a 1-stop improvement in noise when reducing the 50D image to 30D dimensions.
At the end of the day, I'm not sure if I'm testing the RAW converter or comparing cameras here. The 50D files out of DPP have less noise and more detail, even when the noise slider is turned down to 1 (out of 20). When using the same DNG converter for the 30D files and 50D files, the per-pixel noise is nearly identical. The final test I'll attempt on the subject will be to print some test strips and see what they look like on paper vs on the screen. Then it's back to real world photos for me.
10-10-2008, 03:07 PM
#158
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not shooting experience, but the new menus are nifty looking 
10-10-2008, 08:28 PM
#159
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What firmware is on your rental Mizouse? Apparently there are some that are shipping with 1.0.2 that have better noise performance and color rendtition, but mine has 1.0.1 and no update appears to be available yet on Canon's pages.
10-11-2008, 05:06 AM
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its 1.0.2, i read a thread about that last night.