Canon 50D Story & Hidden Features

19 min readJun 26, 2021

The Canon EOS 50D was released in October 2008. This is a look at its place in the Canon lineup, its successor as well as a review of its features and hidden capabilities.

Canon EOS 50D review and tutorial

CANON 50D vs 60D vs. 7D

According to Canon, the successor to the 50D is the Canon 60D. However in my opinion it appears that the successor is 7D.
If we compare the Canon 50D with the 60D and the 7D, it appears that it has more in common with the 7D than with the 60D.
Both the 50D and the 7D were the highest end Canon cameras which used an APS-C sensor size at the time of their release.
Both use Compact Flash cards whereas the 60D uses SD cards, which is not only a step backward from the 50D in terms of quality but also makes it more inconvenient to upgrade from the 50D to the 60D.
The Canon 60D has a different battery to the 50D and 7D which again makes it a less likely choice for an upgrade path from the 50D.
Both Canon 50D and 7D are constructed from metal, sporting a magnesium alloy body whereas the 60D has a plastic body on an aluminum chassis.
The Canon 50D uses the same battery grip as the 20D, 30D, and the 40D whereas the 60D uses a different battery grip which is incompatible with the previous versions of the same camera lineup such as the 50D.
Again, this makes the 60D a less likely upgrade option for 50D owners.
When shooting photos, the 60D can take less frames per second than the 50D.
The release price of the Canon 60D was less than the 50D which validates that the 60D is of a lower quality in comparison to the 50D.
However if someone was to upgrade from the 50D, then the 7D would be the obvious choice despite the higher price in comparison to the 60D.
Because if you consider the additional quality and features of the 7D in comparison to the 60D, as well as sharing the same battery and memory card storage format as the 50D the difference in price becomes less of a barrier.

VIDEO FUNCTIONALITY

The camera does not have video recording capabilities but you can install a software on your camera called Magic Lantern which will let the camera shoot video. The software is free and will be installed on the Compact Flash memory card, and it will also change a few settings on the camera itself to enable the software to function correctly.
The Magic Lantern software provides additional features for taking photographs as well as providing video recording capabilities for the Canon 50D.

BACKGROUND

Canon may have intended to release this camera with video and audio recording capabilities.
Internally the body has a dedicated location for a microphone which has been left un-utilised.

Also, the camera uses Compact Flash cards which are superior to SD cards for higher write speeds that would be required for video recording.
This camera even has a memory register for movie recording function which is not shown in the Canon menu system. This has been documented on the Magic Lantern website:
“On 50D, movie recording function is changed from ML menu (yes, this is a persistent Canon setting, but it’s not present in Canon menus);”

Magic Lantern webpage screenshot stating the existence of movie recording setting on Canon EOS 50D

MAGIC LANTERN / VIDEO

If you install Magic Lantern on your Canon 50D, you will have the choice of whether to start the camera with the Canon firmware or with the Magic Lantern software. If you press and hold the SET button when switching on the camera, the camera will use the Canon firmware otherwise the Magic Lantern software will load.
You can verify this by going to the menu item which displays the firmware version to see what the camera is using.
Also, if you use a Compact Flash card which does not have Magic Lantern installed then the camera’s default Canon firmware will be used. So if you want to use Magic Lantern with your camera, you have to install it on all the CF cards that you intend to use with the camera. Otherwise you won’t be able to switch memory cards and still use Magic Lantern.
To use Magic Lantern, start the camera normally then go to the live view mode by pressing the Live View mode button which has a camera icon above it, next to the viewfinder.
You will notice that the Live View mode looks different to when the camera is loaded with the default Canon firmware.
If you press the trash can button below the LCD screen, you can see the Magic Lantern menu, and there you have the choice to make changes to any of the settings.
Please note, this camera does not have a microphone so even if you install Magic Lantern and record video on it, the sound will not be recorded.
Also, you won’t be able to playback recorded video clips on the camera.

PHYSICAL HARDWARE SPECS

It weighs 730 grams without a battery and 822 grams with the battery.
It is 14.6 cm by 10.8 cm by 7.4 cm.
It has a magnesium alloy body which feels solid and well built, and is weather-sealed.
It has a built in flash which can be configured through the menu and there is a physical button on the front left side of the camera that will open the flash.
Alternatively in the automatic modes, it can be set to pop up when needed based on the camera’s evaluation of the scene.
If you are using the built in flash, make sure you don’t have a lens hood attached to your lens otherwise the lens hood will cast a big shadow on the bottom half of your picture. This might not be apparent when taking a photo since the shadow will only become visible once the flash fires.

BATTERY / CHARGING

It has a BP-511A Lithium-Ion battery, but it also works with other Canon batteries such as BP-508, BP-512, and BP-514.
You can purchase the BG-E2N battery grip separately if you wish to extend the operating time of the camera without having to change batteries.
Also, the BG-E2N battery grip let’s you use AA batteries for operating the camera.
BG-E2N Video:

It comes with the CB-5L battery charger which lets you charge the battery externally.
You have to take the battery out of the camera to charge it using the charger.
So you cannot charge the battery while it is in the camera using its USB port.

Canon BG-E2N battery grip on black background

COMPACT FLASH

It has a single memory card slot which takes Compact Flash cards.
Compact Flash cards are faster and more reliable than SD cards,
particularly when operating in extreme temperatures,
but they are also more expensive.
CF cards are good if you are shooting pictures at high frame rates or if you are shooting videos to ensure the camera doesn’t slow down because of slow write speeds to the memory card with a limited buffer.

CONNECTIVITY

In terms of connectivity it has:

PC sync,
Remote terminal,
Video-out,
USB 2.0 mini-B, and a
mini HDMI port.

OTHER CONNECTIVITY OPTIONS

The camera doesn’t have wireless connectivity but you can purchase a wireless grip such as the WFT-E3 which provides:
Wi-Fi, an ethernet port, a USB-A port, and a vertical grip.
This grip will allow you to connect to a GPS device and record location data using the USB port.
The USB port can also be used to connect storage devices such as USB sticks.
The WFT-E3 grip needs an additional battery to operate its own features. So it doesn’t contribute to the battery life of the camera.
You can also get the BG-E2N battery grip which lets you have two batteries for running the camera but doesn’t provide any of the additional features such as ethernet or Wi-Fi.
Comparing the two grips, the WFT-E3 seems to be the better choice for everything apart from extending the battery life of the camera. As not only does it provide Wi-Fi, ethernet connectivity and a USB-A port but it also has the additional autofocus button in the vertical position which is typically used for back button focusing. This button is missing on the BG-E2N which makes the WFT-E3 a closer experience to operating the camera in vertical orientation.

VIEW FINDER

Canon 50D is a DSLR camera so its viewfinder is not electronic but it has an electronic overlay which lets you see all the key information that is required for photographing.
Such as focus points, shutter speed, aperture, ISO and metering.
It also shows a dot on the bottom right hand corner, for when focus has been obtained.

SCREEN (LCD Screen + LCD Control Panel)

It has a 3 inch LCD screen which is clear and bright for use even in bright environments.
The LCD is not a touch screen, so all menu navigation and usage has to be done with the physical buttons and dials on the camera.
On top of the camera there is an additional LCD screen which lets you see the basic camera settings quickly from the top of the camera.
The LCD control panel is also very good for viewing the camera settings in very bright environments or direct sunlight.
It also has a light button which helps you see the settings in dark environments.
So there are three places where the basic camera settings can be viewed:
the view finder,
the colour LCD screen on the back of the camera,
and the LCD control panel on top of the camera.

SENSOR & PROCESSOR

The camera has the DIGIC 4 image processor.
It has a 15.1 megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor.
It has a self-cleaning-sensor-unit which automatically shakes off dust on the front of the sensor.
It supports Canon EF and EF-S Lenses. So you can use any Canon full frame EF lenses on this camera but with a narrower angle of view, but a higher quality since only the central part of the image from the lens will be captured and the edges of the picture which typically have flaws will be discarded due to the smaller sensor size.
So the combination of an EF lens on a Canon camera with an APS-C sensor will produce high quality results and is particularly good for macro-photography.

ATTACHING A LENS (EF/EF-S)

If you are attaching an EF-S lens then you need to line up the white dot on the lens with the white dot on the lens mount.
If you are attaching an EF mount lens then you need to line up the red dot on the lens with the red dot on the camera’s lens mount.
The camera doesn’t have sensor stabilization but you can use lenses that have stabilization with this camera.
When using image stabilization the camera consumes more electricity which means the battery will run out quicker. So if you are using the camera on a tripod then you can switch off image stabilization to save battery power.

AUTO-FOCUS

There are three auto focus modes on the camera:
One shot auto focus, which obtains focus only once when the shutter button is pressed half way down.
AI Servo auto-focus, which will continue to obtain focus as long as the shutter button is pressed half way down.
and AI Focus which allows the camera to actively choose between the other two modes based on how much movement is detected in the scene.
When choosing an auto-focus mode, it is worth considering that AI Focus and AI Servo auto-focus will consume more battery power than the one shot auto-focus option.
The camera has nine focus points for auto focus which are accurate, even in low light conditions.
You can change the focus point using the:
main dial, the joystick, or the quick dial.
I prefer to use the quick dial because I found it to be the fastest and least interfering option when shooting action sports.
In order to change the focus point when using the view-finder, you press the focus point button which is located at the top-right most position, on the back of the camera.
This will highlight the focus point in red, at which point you can use one of three options to move the focus point: the quick dial, the joystick, or the main dial on top of the camera.
To expand on why I use the quick dial for changing the focus point;
The joystick requires a bit more force than the quick dial to use. Also when I have tried to use the joystick, I ended up moving the focus point in a direction that I did not intend.
I also tried using the main dial for changing focus points but that was the worst option as it forced me to move my index finger away from the shutter button in order to change the focus point. So I could not continue to take pictures while simultaneously changing the focus point.
The auto-focus performance is highly dependent on the lens which is used. Lenses that have an aperture brighter than F5.6 will perform better as the camera’s auto-focus system will obtain focus on both horizontal and vertical lines.
Also, it is worth mentioning that the auto-focus point in the center is twice as sensitive as the other focus points when using lenses that have an aperture larger than F2.8.
So if you are shooting fast moving objects, using this focus point is better because it is likely to obtain focus quicker.

SHUTTER

The camera can take 6.3 frames per second in high speed continuous shooting mode and 3 frames per second in low speed continuous shooting mode.
If the noise reduction is set to the highest level which is called “strong” the maximum burst rate for continuous shooting will decrease.
If you are using continuous shooting in Live View mode, the exposure is set for the first shot and will be applied to subsequent shots.
The camera also has a single shot mode as well as self timer options.
The shutter speed ranges from 1/8,000 of a second to 30 seconds.
Beyond 30 seconds, the shutter speed can also be set to bulb mode which means that the shutter will remain open as long as the shutter button is held down. And once the shutter button is released the shutter will close.
Bulb mode is used for long exposure photography and delivers the best results when the camera is mounted on a tripod and a remote shutter is used to avoid any camera shake during the long exposure.
The camera doesn’t have a dedicated bulb mode on the mode dial, but you can set the shutter speed to “bulb” and store that settings in one of the custom settings such as C1 or C2 so that you can access it quickly using the mode dial.

ISO

The camera has an ISO range of 100 to 12,800 but in my opinion, going beyond 1,600 introduces too much noise in the picture.
If you configure the camera to use auto-ISO, the camera won’t go beyond 1,600 which validates that the acceptable level of noise in pictures is at a maximum ISO setting of 1,600.

IMAGE FORMAT and QUALITY

The camera can take photos both in raw and JPEG, or both at the same time.
And this is something that you can configure on the camera.
The JPEG resolution size can be set to Large, Medium, or Small
And two settings for the level of compression
Fine and Normal.
The RAW setting has three options:
RAW, S-RAW 1, and S-RAW2
S-RAW1 and 2 have a lower resolution relative to the default raw format.
Based on your chosen settings and the available free storage left in your CF memory card, the camera shows how many shots you can take before the memory card will fill up. This number is shown in square brackets on the LCD control panel on top of the camera as well as in the bottom right hand corner of the LCD screen on the back of the camera when the quick control screen is displayed or when in live view mode.

DEPTH OF FIELD PREVIEW BUTTON

The camera has a depth of field preview button.
The depth of field preview button allows you to see a preview of the depth of field of your framing when pressed down while looking through the viewfinder or on the LCD screen, otherwise the depth of field which is shown in the viewfinder is always the largest aperture of your lens which is the lowest F stop number.
So for example on the lens that I have the largest aperture is F2.8 and that is what is shown in the viewfinder even if I have set the aperture to F11 on the camera. When I hold down the depth of field preview button the aperture will change to F11 on the lens to match the setting on the camera, and I will be able to see a preview of the depth of field in the viewfinder or LCD screen to see how the resulting photo will look.
Once I let go of the depth of field preview button the camera will change the aperture back to the largest opening which in this case is F2.8 and that’s the level of depth of field that I see in the viewfinder even though my setting is F11. The camera will only change the aperture to F11 at the moment when the shutter button is pressed to take the photo, but with the depth of field preview button you can temporarily change the aperture opening of the lens to match the camera settings so that you can see how your scene will look when you take the picture.

A-DEP (Automatic Depth-Of-Field)

The camera has a dedicated mode for automatic depth of field on the mode dial.

In this mode the camera analyzes what is in the frame and automatically selects a number of focus points based on what the camera algorithm identifies as subjects to ensure those subjects are in focus.

It is not entirely clear how the algorithm works in terms of identifying subjects but in my experience the algorithm favours three types of subjects:

subjects that are close to the camera
subjects that have texture and contrast
subjects that have bright colours

The algorithm seems to ignore items that have a uniform plain colour if they don’t have texture or contrast in them, even if they have a bright colour such as a white wall.

Once the camera automatically detects subjects in the frame, in order to ensure all subjects are in focus it automatically sets the aperture F-stop to make sure the right depth of field is selected, so that subjects in both the foreground and background are in focus.

In this mode, the camera will automatically adjust the shutter speed so that exposure is also correct following the automatic selection of the aperture.

You can control the ISO setting when in this mode, or you can set the ISO setting to automatic so that the camera controls the ISO setting in addition to aperture and shutter speed.

I think this would be a really nice feature to have on a camera for video recording, but this camera doesn’t provide video recording by default.

OTHER FEATURES

The camera allows you to set exposure compensation.
And it has the auto exposure bracketing feature as well which lets you automatically take multiple pictures with different exposures with a single press of the shutter button.
If you press down on the joystick button, the quick control screen appears, which displays all the basic settings of the camera. The settings can be changed from this screen.
The menu system has a custom menu which you can customize to make it easier to access a setting that is buried deep in the menu system.
The camera has a number of picture styles which can be adjusted, as well as user defined picture modes that you can create and modify to your liking.
The picture modes let you modify the level of sharpness, contrast, saturation and color tone.
Depending on the subject that you are photographing different levels of sharpness may be desirable. For example a portrait cannot be too sharp because human faces will look unnatural if over-sharpened whereas for product photography you may want to increase the level of sharpness.
In monochrome picture style, adjustments let you configure a filter effect and a toning effect.
You can view pictures on the camera or connect the camera to a screen or television via HDMI and view pictures externally.
The camera has a slide show feature for viewing pictures, so you can sit back and view all the pictures without manually selecting the next picture to view.
The camera has various custom functions which you can customize to your liking as well as two dedicated custom modes on the mode dial.
For example you can customize the number of stops of light that the ISO or exposure compensation should change when the main dial is rotated.

LIVE VIEW MODE

The camera has a “Live View” mode where the mirror is locked up and the LCD screen can be used to compose pictures, or alternatively use the Canon EOS utility software to control the camera remotely from a computer.
Taking pictures remotely from a computer can be good because you can see a larger framing of the scene as well as not handling the camera means there will be less camera shake which results in sharper pictures.
Before using the Live View mode, you have to make sure that the menu option for “Live View Shooting” is set to “Enable”.
Also, “Live View” does not work in basic modes, so you need to turn the mode dial to one of the modes such as P, TV, AV, M, or A-DEP.
To use “Live View Mode” you can then press the button which has a camera icon above it on the top left hand side of the camera above the LCD screen and to the left of the view-finder.
To obtain focus in Live View mode, there is a focus box which can be moved around using the joystick to achieve focus on the desired part of the scene. Once the focus box is in the correct position you can press and hold the “auto-focus on” button to lock focus, at which point the focus box will turn green once focus is achieved.
Pressing the joystick on its axis like a button will make the focus box return to the centre of the frame.
The Live View mode has three auto-focus modes:
Quick mode which uses Phase Detect auto-focus,
Live mode which uses a Contrast Detect auto-focus,
and Live mode with face detection which uses Contrast Detect auto-focus with face detection.
The quick mode obtains focus accurately and quickly but it is very clunky to use. Once you press the back-button autofocus the LCD goes black the mirror flips which makes a distinct sound and auto-focus is obtained then the LCD screen turns back on, ready for the picture to be taken.
Using the Live mode auto-focus, you can move the focus box to the subject using the joystick and once the focus box is on your subject you press and hold the auto-focus button until the auto focus box turns green. The camera will hunt back and forth until it locks focus. This process takes about two seconds which might seem like a long time but I prefer it to quick mode because the LCD remains on throughout the process.
The Live mode face detection is able to recognise multiple faces and the camera draws a box around one single face with arrows to indicate that focus can be moved to a different face. You can use the joystick to move focus to a different face and then in order to lock focus you need to press and hold the auto-focus button. The face detection feature works best in bright conditions with faces being fully visible and taking up a large portion of the frame.
In my experience the face detection feature doesn’t make it sufficiently easier to lock focus for me to justify its use. But nevertheless it is an impressive feature for a camera that was released in 2008.
You can use the depth of field preview button in live view mode to make sure you have the right level of depth of field prior to taking a photo. Although, I never use this feature because I can just take a picture, review it on the LCD and then delete it.
I think the depth of field preview button would be immensely useful prior to digital cameras where film had to be developed to see the outcome.
When in live view mode, you can press the info button repeatedly to view different levels of information on the LCD screen.
When using live view mode, it is useful to enable exposure simulation so that you can see the actual exposure of your photograph on the LCD screen prior to taking it.
This is very useful in a scenario when you are using flash to take a picture.
In Live View mode, the exposure metering will be set to evaluative metering regardless of the current metering mode setting.
When using the camera in Live View mode for an extended period of time, the camera can become hot.
And the battery will run out relatively quickly compared to using the view-finder.

Canon EOS 50D impressions

In my opinion, the camera has a high build quality, good ergonomics, and is fast and responsive with an instant startup time of one millisecond.
To benefit from the packed photosites on the sensor of this camera, you require a high resolving lens that can provide the additional detail which the sensor is capable of reading.
I would not recommend this camera for low light situations or with old lenses due to the packed photosites on its sensor but in bright conditions with a high resolving lens it can produce really good pictures.
Particularly for macro photography it provides a higher level of detail and quality relative to its counterparts with larger photo-sites such as the Canon 40D.
I highly recommend that you upgrade the Canon firmware on your camera to the latest version which is 1.0.9.
In particular version 1.0.8 and 1.0.9 have made improvements to reading and writing speeds of Compact Flash cards as well as better support for some UDMA-7 CompactFlash cards that have been manufactured since February 2012.
https://hk.canon/en/support/0400048802

CANON 50D REVIEW

Canon EOS 50D Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCjP59qOaR0&list=PL42hO7UHafKuSuBLaLhlZPBa8LIQ6qTfI

Canon 50D EOS Review Video on YouTube