Canon EOS 50D

On 26 August 2008, Canon New Zealand has announced the brand new Canon EOS 50D digital SLR camera locally. No surprises to hear, but still very exciting news. The EOS 50D is the replacement for EOS 40D that was announced August last year. EOS 50D is the model sitting between 450D and 5D. It’s not as expensive as 5D, but definitely has better performance than 450D. Why am I excited? Because this is the model that I’m going to upgrade to.

Let’s take a look at the highlights of the Canon EOS 50D and my comments:

• 15.1 Megapixel CMOS (APS-C sensor) – It’s the highest resolution APS-C size sensor DSLR on the market. Although I don’t really care about pixels now, still the higher the better
• DiG!C 4 Image Processor – Wow, it’s already 4th generation of the Canon’s DiG!C processor and 50D is the first model to use it. Why DiG!C4 is good? Because they always say the new version is faster processing, producing finer detail and natural colour reproduction. But who knows? It should be better though
• ISO speed 100 – 3200, expandable to 12800 – Do you hear it? Up to 12800! But don’t know how good the image quality is at this rate
• 6.3 frames per second with continuous shooting up to 60 shots in a single burst – I’m not a sports shooter, so don’t really care about shooting speed, but of course, the faster the better
• 3.0” Clear View VGA LCD with Live View Mode and Live Face Detection AF Mode – Most DSLRs now carry Live View and many compact digital cameras have Face Detection function, so no surprises here
• 9-point wide area AF
• HDMI output in full High-Definition for high quality viewing and playback on a High Definition TV
• Tough magnesium alloy body, with environmental protection
• EOS Integrated Cleaning System including the improved Self Cleaning Sensor Unit with a new fluorine coating
• New Creative Auto mode and Quick Control screen – What’s this? Well, it’s not something groundbreaking. Just for users don’t know technical terms such as aperture and exposure to adjust settings and shoot images as they visualise them. For example, you can adjust images to be a little brighter or make the background more blurry in Creative Auto mode, rather than by understanding how to change the exposure or aperture
• Automatic image correction technologies including:
• Auto Lighting Optimizer – analyzes brightness and contract automatically before making adjustments to achieve optimal images
• Auto correction of lens peripheral illumination – lens peripheral illumination fall-off is automatically corrected to suite each lens when shooting in JPEG mode
• Full compatibility with Canon EF and EF-S lenses and EX-series Speedlites
• Software – the EOS 50D should come with the following software package:
• Digital Photo Professional Software – provides processing of lossless RAW images
• EOS Utility – provides essential support for Live View remote shooting, camera configuration and image transfers
• Picture Style Editor – allows users to create individual Picture Styles that fit with their personal requirements

OK, are you ready to get one? I’m pretty much ready to sell my current camera and go to grab one when it hits retail stores late September in New Zealand. The price is still TBC at the time of writing, but I think it will be close to 40D’s price tag. It will be available in Body only, as an Enthusiast Kit with EF-S17-85mm lens, and as a Premium Kit with EF-S18-200mm Lens (this is the kit I’m going to grab!).