Canon 550D/50D/7D as 1st DSLR?

[Annaminnnie2010]

Hi there,

I'am really confused as to which camera to start with.
I currently have a point and shoot but saving for a DSLR, would be ready to buy one in the next few weeks Under $1500 is the current budget unfortunatelly.
I can afford the 550D now, but just saw that 50D is being discontinued and heard its very similar to the 7D (ofcourse 7D being better). Do you thing it's worth me getting the 50D's while they are still around?

And what is a good lens kit or lens to start with just for good all round photos. ( I take alot of portrait shots )

I'am not completely set on canon, but they are the only cameras I have been researching for the last few months.

What is Nikon 90D like in comparison to the above I mentioned, say 50D? Did the 90D sell better then the Canon 50D and that is why they deleted it?

 

[cfusionpm]

50D is being discontinued for the upcoming 60D. 7D is an amazing camera with a lot of high end features, but significantly more expensive. The 550D isn't a bad camera, but definately lacks the build quality, burst speed, and features that the others have (rear control dial, top LCD, etc). The Nikon D90 does not perform overal as well as the 50D. Some will argue it has a better sensor, but differences are not even really noticeable to the eye (especially with post processing). It probably sold better because it was cheaper. The next camera above that (Nikon's D300/s which competes with the 7D) was a big leap in price; more than the 50D and significantly more than the D90.

Now would be a perfect time to pick up a 50D for cheap, but with a new 60D right around the corner, there may be some buyer's regret.

 

[Scatterbrained]

If you're doing lots of people why not a 5Dc? Used 5D's are well within you're price range.

 

[pbelarge]

Anna
Hello and welcome to the forum

What kind of photography are you interested in? Such as, portrait, landscape, modeling, still life, macro, etc...

 

[TiCoyote]

I'm in the "spend more one lenses and less on bodies" camp. The best body in the world will only take mediocre shots with a mediocre lens. In fact, many feel that a sensor with very high resolution (7D) will actually accentuate the shortcomings of a mediocre lens.

Why not start with the 550 and a single Canon L-series lens. If you give up the hobby, the lens will retain its value better than the body. Think about it, a $1000 lens might be worth $850 in two years. A $1000 body will probably be worth $500.

Conversely, if you love photography, you'll want to upgrade your body in a few years, and you can keep the 550 as a backup.

I have a 50D and I love it. I would love to have a 5DMkII as well. I got the 50D not just for the image quality, but for the build and burst rate. The sensor density is the same as the cheaper the T1i.

 

[robertwsimpson]

For portraits, I'd get a 5d and an 85mm f/1.8... that would be a pretty good portrait/general walk around setup. Then you'd probably want to eventually get the triumvirate of zooms (16-35, 24-70, 70-200)... All of those lenses would be great for portrait type stuff too, depending on what you want to do with the background in your photos.

 

[Idahophoto]

Unless you really want the video ability or need the slightly better performance I would go with the 50D. It has had some mixed reviews but is a outstanding camera and as a photography student I have used several major competitors including the 7D, D300 and some of the Rebel lines.

The major problem the 50D had when it came out is it was priced to compete against Nikon's D300 and that was a huge mistake as Nikon D300 is one of the best cameras ever in it's class. That was a fight over before it even began. Come the time of the 7D ( A true rival to the D300) Canon dropped the price to more inline to compete with Nikons D90 this is a much more fairer battle. The D90 has video higher performance in low light but the Canon has a better build faster FPS. Having switched from Nikon using the D90 to Canon with the 50D I see it's a real trade off. I would not automatically say the 50D is better, but its a tough call and I think it boils down to what you are after.

I have been saving up and will be buying the 7D in a couple months (or perhaps the 60D) but haave no plans of hanging up the 50D. Its a super fast camera, capable of doing top of the line work and will continue to see regular use as my 2nd camera.

I could go on more stuff, but think the 50D would be a perfect camera for you it is pro quality all the way and with the latest price drops its a steal of a deal.

 

[Derrel]

Yes, the Nikon D90m did outsell the Canon 50D. The reason the 50D is being discontinued is that it has had its time in the Canon lineup. It was a poor seller for Canon because of several things, among them the Canon 30D and 40D were very successful models, and the 50D did not offer much image improvement over the 40D that came before it, and at the same time the 50D was the top consumer/semi-pro camera from Canon, Nikon had the D90 and the D300 as better alternatives for those who were not lens-committed. For peopl who wanted to break into wedding or other types of "pro" photography, the best Canon they could afford was the 50D, which was pretty sadly underfeatured compared with the Nikon D300, which offered pro-level autofocusing and a built-in wireless multiple flash commander. The NIkon D300 was also one of the only two d-slr's to offer the then-new, ultra-high resolution LCD screens with 920,000 dots, so the LCD review/playback of D300 images put other cameras fto shame, and in side-by-side comparisons, the 50D looked anemic compared with the D300, so many peopl shelled out the few extra hundred for the Nikon D300 instead of the 50D.

Also, the big web sites like dPreview roundly criticised Canon for cramming too many megapixels onto the 50D's smaller 1.6x sensor. dPreview's concerns about the noise from the 50D' high-megapixel sensor. As dPreview noted in their review at Canon EOS 50D Review: 31. Conclusion: Digital Photography Review

the 50D had "worse than 40D" High ISO performance; and its dynamic range in the sahadows was "reduced" compared to what the 40D could do; and its per-pixel level of detail was "not as good as" that of 10- and 12-megapixel cameras; and the 50D required what they called "high end" optics to get the most from the camera...

So...the 50D met with an icy review result from probably the single most-influential photography web site on the planet, and it was not a big seller, for a number of reasons. Even seasoned Canon fans often suggested that newcomers to the system buy a 40D instead...quite a few TPF Canon users made that suggestion, as recently as early this year. If you are looking to get into a system, you want to actually hold and handle the options you have.

Canon's 7D is their answer to the Nikon D300s, and is a bit more expensive than your other options. I shot a Canon 7D two months ago on a commercial small product/company staff shoot. I was not impressed by its poor viewfinder image quality,poor focusing screen for manual focusing on small products,and by how noisy its images were at low ISOs under studio flash illumination. The color it had was rather anemic too at its base ISO...not as good as the 40D or 5D in terms of color richness and saturation.

 

[cfusionpm]

The major problem the 50D had when it came out is it was priced to compete against Nikon's D300 and that was a huge mistake as Nikon D300 is one of the best cameras ever in it's class. That was a fight over before it even began. Come the time of the 7D ( A true rival to the D300) Canon dropped the price to more inline to compete with Nikons D90 this is a much more fairer battle.

I don't agree that it was priced to compete with the D300. The 50D's original price was only $100 more than the D90 and $300 less than the D300 (based on launch MSRPs: $1400, $1300, and $1800 respectively). The D90 and 50D launched about the same time; the D300 a year earlier. I couldnt find a price for D300's circa 2008, so maybe it dropped closer to the 50D's price. I didn't pick up mine until spring '09, and having already invested into Canon, didn't even look at Nikons.

I have been saving up and will be buying the 7D in a couple months (or perhaps the 60D) but haave no plans of hanging up the 50D. Its a super fast camera, capable of doing top of the line work and will continue to see regular use as my 2nd camera.

Feeling's mutual here! My 50D isn't going anywhere. I practically never pick it up as my primary anymore (just because the 7D is better in every way), but I would happily use it as a second body.

 

[cfusionpm]

the 50D had "worse than 40D" High ISO performance

This is a compelation from DPReview's own test results. You be the judge who has "better" ISO performance:



Iduno about you, but it looks like the 50D has a little less luma noise and significantly less chroma noise.

and its per-pixel level of detail was "not as good as" that of 10- and 12-megapixel cameras; and the 50D required what they called "high end" optics to get the most from the camera...

This argument is getting old. Here's what it boils down to:

1: High MP cameras with decent or cheap lenses will yeild about the same (maybe a bit worse, but not noticeable unless printed the size of a bilboard) results compared to a low MP camera using similarly decent or cheap lenses.

2: High MP cameras require good glass to get the most out of the sensor.

2: (rephrased) High end lenses will yeild better, more detailed results with a high MP sensor.

Therefore, high megapixel cameras have more performance potential.

 

[Derrel]

Canon EOS 50D Review: 31. Conclusion: Digital Photography Review

From their conclusion, a few "highlights":

"in terms of per-pixel sharpness the 50D cannot quite keep up with the better 10 or 12 megapixel APS-C DSLRs in the market. At higher sensitivities the smaller photosites are clearly producing more noise (as shown from our RAW comparisons) and so Canon is having to apply more noise reduction to keep to acceptable noise levels, this of course means a loss of detail from ISO 1600 upwards."

and "Canon has reached the limit of what is sensible, in terms of megapixels on an APS-C sensor."

and "Even the sharpest primes at optimal apertures cannot (at least away from the center of the frame) satisfy the 15.1 megapixel sensors hunger for resolution. Considering the disadvantages that come with higher pixel densities such as diffraction issues, increased sensitivity towards camera shake, reduced dynamic range, reduced high ISO performance and the need to store, move and process larger amounts of data, one could be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that at this point the megapixel race should probably stop"

and "...the 50% increase in pixel count over the 40D results in only a marginal amount of extra detail."

and "We're by no means saying the 50Ds image quality is bad but it's simply not significantly better than the ten megapixel 40D. In some areas such as dynamic range and high ISO performance it's actually worse"

and "The EOS 50D has to stand its ground in a highly competitive bracket of the DSLR market. It is currently almost $500 more expensive than the 40D, almost $500 more expensive than the Nikon D90 and for an extra $100 you can bag yourself a Nikon D300. Looking at the specification differences between the EOS 40D and our test candidate it appears you pay quite a premium for the 50D's extra megapixels and as we've found out during this review you don't get an awful lot of extra image quality for your money."

 

[cfusionpm]

"in terms of per-pixel sharpness the 50D cannot quite keep up with the better 10 or 12 megapixel APS-C DSLRs in the market. At higher sensitivities the smaller photosites are clearly producing more noise (as shown from our RAW comparisons) and so Canon is having to apply more noise reduction to keep to acceptable noise levels, this of course means a loss of detail from ISO 1600 upwards."

So why do their own visual test results contradict this?

Edit: and let's not forget the "firestorm of criticism" DPR got over this 50D review:

The problem with DPR's review of the 50D, IMO, is one of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Before the 50D was released, DPR staffers had opined (while rhapsodizing over the D300, if I remember correctly) that 12MP was the highest resolution for aps-c cameras, and that any higher number would result in image degradation (due, in their words, to "the laws of physics").

Then the 50D arrived, the very embodiment of what they'd said shouldn't be done.

I don't believe DPR has any bias against Canon, but they painted themselves into a corner by pronouncing that camera companies shouldn't go higher than 12MP.

This bias showed up in their comparisons with the D300. When cameras went from 8MP to 10MP (a 25% increase), they noted that it was virtually impossible to see the difference. But when they couldn't see the difference between the 12MP D300 and the 15MP 50D (again, an increase of 25%), suddenly this was proof that the pixel count was ill-advised. It's a self-fulfilling double standard.

In the time between the 50D and 7D, DPR got hammered over that review, and apparently saw the light (namely, that the world's largest camera company, with perhaps the world's largest R&D department, knows a little more about making cameras than photography bloggers), and the 7D entered the world without the same bias against it that the 50D faced. They even emended their review of the 5DII, which also suffered from anti-megapixel bias.

BTW, I'd been looking forward to the 50D, and when I first read DPR's review, I was terribly disappointed and initially decided not to get one. Then I read the firestorm of criticism over that review, checked other reviews from other sources, and today I'm the proud and very happy owner of a new 50D.

Quote taken from DPR's own forums, and some quick googling shows some a decent amount of questioning about DPR's highly opinionated "review" of the 50D.

 

[Derrel]

Yeah...go back and look at dPreview's actual,published stated review's conclusions...you can always find a fanboy who is in love with Canon, and who cannot see things objectively. The fact is, dPReview's review, and the 50D's anemic level of improvement over their 10 megapixel 40D, and the strong competition from the Nikon D90 and D300, made the Canon 50D a poor seller for Canon...that's a fact... the 40D was a mega-hit for Canon,and I personally know several Canon shooters who deliberately SKIPPED the 50D because it did not offer them much of an advantage over their 40D bodies...same AF, same feature set, basically...

I know you purchased a 50D,and therefore want to desperately find a way to discredit anybody who can comment objectively on the camera, or its limitations, or its sales history. I "get that"....you own a 50D, and so you feel threatened when objective commentary,or rigorous scientific lab tests, like those dPreview performed, show your "baby" to be, well, a little bit behind in school.

I stand by my comments: the 50D was a poor seller, it did not offer much of an advantage over competing cameras, and it was clobbered by its lack of true semi-pro features among newcomers who were not already system-committed: the Nikon D300 was a LOT better camera, with many more features than the 50D, and the buyer who wanted a semi-pro body could get a true "semi-professional" Nikon D300 for just a little bit more than a 50D, which had severe limitations in AF, lack of flash commander, color-blind metering, and sensor performance that was only so-so compared to the Canon 40D or the Nikon D300 or Nikon D90.

 

[robertwsimpson]

It's worth the extra money for the LCD screen alone.

 

[cfusionpm]

Derrel, you're missing my point entirely and putting words in my mouth.

It seems to be the general consensus that Canon users upgrade by skipping a generation or two (from what I gathered reading articles about 50D before purchasing). The conclusion that seemed to be drawn more often than not was that owners of the 30D or below (or Rebel, like myself) wanted to purchase a 50D, while 40D owners were content enough with their cameras to pass on the marginal upgrade. I think it's silly to keep upgrading every model when a new one comes out.

I will gladly concede that the 40D is the better value for money, but then again I don't remember ever saying otherwise. Plus until the 50D is officially discontinued, it is/was the only option for someone not wanting to buy used gear.

Anyway my point was to show the obvious (and pretty clearly explained) predisposed bias present in the DPR 50D review. I don't really care what they have to say in their highlights section about ISO if their OWN test results don't agree with it.

You can stand by your comments of the 50D being a poor seller all day long if you like, (and it very well may be true) but until you provide some kind of actual sales numbers (which I have personally not been able to find), it's nothing more than your opinion. I've asked for this a number of times, you planning on getting on that any time soon? Or is this going to degrade into empty rhetoric like it always does?

I've also never once said the 50D did (or should) compete with the much better D300, so I don't know why you keep bringing that up.

Forgive the disorganized nature of the post; on a long conference call and posting from my phone.