In praise of the 50D (yes you heard right!)

I have been using my old 50D for years for macro and product photography, and have just recently started into bird photography. Yes, with my 50D - and a 300mm f4 canon plus tc. Not exactly top-of-the-line, but for my purposes, it worked well enough for the controlled light imaging I was used to doing. So when I took it out in the early morning to get the grebes, I didn't expect much. I'm quite pleased.

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I have been using the 50D since 2008. I have 3 of them all gripped. I added a 5D3 a year ago but the 50D's just soldier on giving great results. To me their only draw-back is lack of ISO performance, so I cannot used them in very low light, hence the 5D3. Really nice shot here,

I still miss my 10D! I've yet to see a new camera from Canon that has colors nice as the original 10D and 5D.

Thinking about getting a 5D seeing as how cheap they are now.

My primary bird camera is a 50D. It yeilds some excellent results.

greyswan wrote in post #18058876
I have been using my old 50D for years for macro and product photography, and have just recently started into bird photography. Yes, with my 50D - and a 300mm f4 canon plus tc. Not exactly top-of-the-line, but for my purposes, it worked well enough for the controlled light imaging I was used to doing. So when I took it out in the early morning to get the grebes, I didn't expect much. I'm quite pleased.

Hosted photo: posted by greyswan in
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forum: Birds

I know that this is an old thread, but I didn't notice it in 2016. This is a great bird photo, greyswan. Well done !
My trusty 50D was used for years, before purchasing my current 70D. The 50D a very capable camera, and I kept it for back-up.

I’ll add my agree to the late/old thread. Lol

I LOVED my 50D and if it hadn’t gone up in smoke in 2011 might still be using it. ?

Loved my T90’s too%! Lol

I've moved on to a mirrorles, but I still use the 50D for product photography! I haven't had any complains from clients, lol.

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I used a 50D as my primary wildlife body from March of 2010 until October of 2013. . I got a crapton of good images with it and thought it was the best "bang for the buck" body that Canon offered for quite some time (if purchased used, of course).

Of course the 50D has its limitations, and can't really compete with the 1D Mark 4 that I replaced it with. . But it was an amazing value when you consider that I bought it for just $450 and used it as my main body for 3 1/2 years. . Yeah, I was thrilled to replace it with the 1D Mark 4, and admittedly the 1D Mark 4 was a lot better and could do things that the 50D couldn't, but it set me back $2500.

So the 50D was unquestionably the best value on a what-you-get-per-dollar-spent basis. . And it could produce images of excellent quality when there was sufficient light and the conditions weren't too challenging. . I've sold thousands of images that I took with that 50D, so it's probably been my best camera on a "return on investment" basis.