Unleashing the Next Wave - The Canon EOS 50D
26 August 2008

Canon has been on a roll this year, with Canon EOS 450D and 1000D and already rumours for the coming Photokina of a possible Canon EOS 5D replacement, and more tantalizing reports of a Canon Powershot G9 replacement. But Canon has decided to pre-empt the Photokina next month by announcing the replacement for the Canon EOS 40D now. It's called the Canon EOS 50D, of course, and it looks to be an impressive replacement with a host of upgrades to its predecessor.

Sensor
The CMOS sensor on the 50D is slightly larger and a great deal more imposing than on the 40D, at 15.1 Megapixels to the 40D's 10.1 megapixels. Keeping the sensor squeaky clean is still a top priority and the 50D manages this with what Canon is calling a fluorine coating on a low-pass filter to repel dust as well as sensor shake to dislodge the extra sticky ones.

LCD
Both the 40D and 50D come with a comfortably large 3-inch LCD, but the 50D's 920K resolution VGA LCD puts the 40D's 230K dot 3-Inch LCD to shame. With more than double the resolution and anti glare coating and adjustable brightness, live view takes on a whole new meaning.

Live View
Speaking of Live View, the 50D gives a little extra boost to this feature with a dedicated Live view button and 3 types of auto focus which includes Face Detection as well as Quick AF and Live AF.

Processor
While the 40D boasted the ever handy DIGIC III processor, Canon unveils the DIGIC 4 processor in the 50D. A powerful new processing engine that delivers the same 14-bit image processing as its forerunner but now promises to be faster and more powerful. Canon doesn't specify exactly, except to say that it's responsible for near instant start-up and quick image review.

ISO
The 40D had an ISO sensitivity of 100-1600 and a high setting of 3200. The 50D doesn't just boost its ISO sensitivity, even though at 100-3200 it's pretty impressive. No, with the ultra high settings of up to ISO 12800, it steam rollers over its predecessor's sensitivity. You could probably take photos in pitch black and still end up with a usable image.

Continuous Shooting
Strangely enough, the 50D's continuous shooting speed, at 6.3fps is slightly slower than the 40D's 6.5fps but it can capture more images at a go. The 40D managed 75 large JPEG images at a burst but the 50D manages 90 JPEG images in one go on a UDMA card.

The Body
As for all the other changes, well we'll have to get our hands on the 50D to see just how far it can chew up and spit out the 40D. They both have that enviable wide-area AF with 9 cross type points and are made of the same magnesium alloy though the 50D is just a few millimetres bigger here or there.

Final Word
The Canon EOS 50D looks to be more than just a minor revamp of the 40D, in fact it seems to be really making an effort to outshine and outshoot its forerunner and we can't wait to see it when it arrives in October this year. This is definitely one camera to look out for when it arrives.