Canon 50D first impressions.
In reaction to an upcoming trip to Nepal I have succumbed and purchased a Canon 50D my previous camera, a Canon 350D was getting on in years and with more than 50,000 shots on the clock it is breaking into the range of potential problems. Not something I want to deal with when I am in the heart of the Himalayas and thousands of miles from the nearest camera store. I had not initially been swayed by the 50D’s extra mega pixel count or the ISO boost offered over the 40D. The 50D offered a number of features that I wanted in a camera but at a cost $500 more than the 40D. I was ready to sink my money into the 40D but when I waled into the store with money in hand, I found out that the 50D had dropped in price by $200 a difference of $300 was enough to sway me toward the 50D.
So what do I think of the camera? I won’t go into a full review that has already been done, in far more depth and far better then I ever could. What I will say is that the 50D is a joy to use. The buttons are all in the right places, the menu is easy to navigate and the camera, unlike the 350D does not feel too small in my hands.
Image quality has so far been a bit confusing, with huge file sizes it is very hard to make judgements on noise. The camera seems to have a bit more noise than the 350D at similar ISOs. However when viewing photos you have to keep in mind that the file sizes are huge and the noise levels at similar file sizes is much better. The noise also has a very soft feel and looks much better than digital noise I am use to. It looks very similar to film grain and has a very appealing effect.
The other thing I was surprised by was how few shots I got from the camera. The huge files sizes also function to reducing a 4gb cf card to 180 or so shots. This means that extended shoots with this camera will need a lot more memory than I had previously been using.
So far I have been very pleased with this camera and I imagine that I will be pleased for years to come as I tend to hold on to bodies for much longer than the current market cycle.
One thing that has been reinforced by this purchase is how little quality difference is made by an upgrade of bodies in comparison to and upgrade in lenses. When I traded my 70-300 f4-5.6 lens for the 200mm f 2.8 L, the jump in image quality was unbelievable. I would highly recommend getting good glass before getting concerned that the newest camera has five more mega pixels or a boost in ISO.