Wow, my computer is going to burst trying to work with all those pixels. I have a pro photographer friend who is already complaining about the time it takes photoshop to work the 10MP camera images.
Also, on a good note, I like the "CA Creative Full" mode. The old ISO, Stop and such settings were for old cameras that needed a way to convey the settings. This is the modern world, and needs for such confusing terms and methods should go away. Die hards will always disagree, but the only way to bring more creativity out of the world is to make that creativity easier to produce. This is the first step, hopefully we'll soon see more "human terms" in camera settings from cameras of this level. It just makes sense.
So long as the traditional shutterspeed, aperture, and ISO settings don't disappear, I don't mind new approaches, even though the old is not that hard to learn. The problem with something like this is you are depending on the camera to do the best option. Suppose I set the DOF slider to somewhere near the middle, am I going to get f/8 or f/13, where diffraction is softening the image? And what if the camera kicks the ISO up a few stops to use that f/13? And what is the chance the settings are identical between brands? If I, a Canon user, am asked to take a picture of someone with their Nikon, I can set 1/100, f/8, ISO 200 and be pretty certain the exposure will be quite close to what I would get with my Canon. Will setting the brightness slider to the middle and DOF slider to 3 notches from the left give me the same result on Nikon as Canon? Who knows?
Also, the computer requirements for working with 10MP files are not that high, my desktop here at work flies through 40D files, and could be built for well under $1000 right now (3GHz Q6600, 3GB DDR2, P35, 500GB hard drive, 7300GT). Might be too many pixels for other reasons, but progress won't slow due to computational reasons.
I really hoped that the improvement they'd make was to take their 35mm sized sensor further down their product line. I've been wishing for affordable 1:1 ratios for 6 years now. Someday.....
The 50D will not ship until October. Since there were many rumors with wrong info on the 50D flying around we posted the press release and added pictures as soon as we received it from Canon. because we believed our readers would want the correct feature information on a new prosumer model from a major player. The info and additional pictures were up within an hour of receiving it from Canon.
We will review the 50D when it is available. We also need to add a new article category to make it clear to readers when we post a detailed camera introduction or an opinion piece on a new camera introduction. DailyTech cannot provide the depth of information buyers might want on a new DSLR camera so we have been posting more detailed info for our readers when we receive it.
It is not good practice in the Computers industry to announce new products months before you can actually buy them. We also get advance samples under NDA. This is not common practice in the Digital camera industry and there are no NDAs in digital SLRs. It is routine for camera makers to announce new cameras two or 3 months before you can actually buy the camera.
Review samples from the majors are not normally available until the camera is available for sale or sometimes very shortly before. Early sample availability heavily favors those sites that are favorable toward a particular camera brand, which is why we have been buying the cameras we have reviewed so far.
If you have suggestions on how to better bring you information on new digital cameras please let us know.
> This is not common practice in the Digital camera industry
> and there are no NDAs in digital SLRs.
dpreview.com gets pre-production samples under NDA, as do a few other sites like rob galbraith.
lots of sites re-post press releases, but they at least provide some minimal introduction/commentary/analysis. but perhaps it's safer to leave that out, considering the quality of past camera articles here...
Canon sent me a policy statement that they do NOT operate under NDA in the Digital SLR market and will not provide AnandTech or any other review site pre-production DSLR samples under any conditions. They DO operate under NDA in their point-and-shoot cameras, and they do provide samples in the P$S market. We received a similar reply from Nikon.
When I pointed out that dpreview and a few other sites do get pre-production samples I was told in no uncertain terms that the samples did not come direct from Canon and they were not sanctioned by them in any way.
If they don't come direct from Canon, then it has to be some high-level Canon employee who conveniently "loses" a body or something. This far in advance retail stores won't have them to give out, so straight from Canon in one way or another is the only option.
hm, i'm not sure who you're working with at Canon but that sounds very fishy... dpreview has specifically stated in the past that they are operating under an NDA, which is why they can't provide sample images from pre-production cameras. Phil @ dpreview, as well as Rob Galbraith, have working relationships directly with the manufacturers, and the preview articles have got to be sanctioned. sometimes they specifically mention what Canon will or will not let them talk about in such articles. i could ask my colleague about it, who is friends with the head of Nikon USA's pro services group and knows a lot of manufacturer-sponsored pros who get pre-prod equipment for testing.
Can we read a review that you have posted at a website? It would be interesting to see your writing style and depth of information provided in an article.
How about a camera review? You constantly complain about the reviews so why not do a camera review the way you like it. Could care less about an epinion from five years ago. Who knows if it really yours or not. I could grab one and claim it was mine but would not pick the name dorkus.
right, i went and picked out some random epinions article to claim as my own...
regardless, the whole "don't criticize if you can't do it better yourself" argument seems silly. if the New York Times' reporting became sloppy and inconsistent, would you as a reader have no right to criticize just because you have no journalistic qualifications yourself? we come to Anandtech precisely because we want (and usually get) a very high level of reporting and commentary. Anand's architecture articles are some of the best I've read (i was an EE/CS major in computer engineering). i've read some of Wes's graphics reviews in the past and they were very good. but many readers have felt the digicam reporting has not been up to the same standards, and they have a right to express that opinion.
and yes, i could probably write camera reviews if i really wanted to - i work in the photography industry. but again, that is totally irrelevant to the issue at hand.
I have no problem with you posing press releases, and the LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., August 26, 2008 start should give it away, but I guess you could have placated some people by putting a line at the beginning stating that this was the Canon press release, it's scheduled to ship in October, you will post something once you have one to play with.
2-3 months can be optimistic on shipping vs announcement time. In March 2006 Tamron announced their 16-50 2.8, scheduled for release that fall. In reality it didn't ship at all until around May/June 2007, and the Canon mount version was not available until August, not sure if any other mounts lagged further behind. The desire to have new stuff at the shows typically drives these announcements which are way before the actual release. Not entirely unheard of in the computer world (hasn't Intel been showing Nehalem processors at shows this year?)
That's a good suggestion. Like you, I thought the Lake Success dated by-line would make it obvious this is a Press Release, but I added a description at the top detailing that this is a press release, the camera won't ship until October, and that we will be following up with a review when we can get a 50D.
Yup... not a bad bit of infomercial, but DailyTech material, not AT, since it lacks critical analysis and benchmarking -- not that I'm yet convinced AT will ever review cameras as well as photo-centric sites.
It used to be that, when you wanted to see press releases (which are basically ads) surrounded by extra ads, you went to DailyTech.
AnandTech used to be the place where you got your editorial ads (i.e., biased "reviews") surrounded by extra ads.
How will we be able to distinguish the two, now?
But hey, at least there are less obvious mistakes (and probably more useful information) in a manufacturer's press release than in your average AT "camera review".
Indeed - great press release, but surely if we are going ot start getting this on AT it should be a blog post, or just call it a press release. Letting manufacturer press masquerade as actual articles just degrades the site.
Yeah, they probably should have made it more clear that this is just a reprint of the press release, though it is rather obvious.
As for the actual announcements, the 50D has a few features I wish my 40D had (AF micro-adjust, hello), though I'll wait and see the IQ on the high ISO images. As for the 18-200, what were they thinking not including USM? I'll stick with my Sigma 18-200 OS, thanks.
I have been using this camera for last one year. Just to let you know I am a serious amateur photographer who takes mainly landscape photo and sometimes portrait of my kids. My main lenses are: 50mm 1.4, 17-55mm 2.8 and kit lens (28-135mm). First of all, this is a good camera. Good in a sense than it is better than Nikon D90 for its ISO performance (low light), focusing, metering and shutter speed. It has ISO 100 which helps you to take long exposure picture. The CMOS crop sensor is as good as 7D and the only difference with 7D is metering system and megapixel. But believe me if you do not enlarge your photo more than 20"X30" you cannot see the difference AT ALL. Pros of this camera: 1. Easy to handle. Ergonomic. If you use manual mode you will see how easy to dial the aperture and shutter speed. 2. Good ISO performance. I took some star trail with iso 3200 and the noise still less. 3. LCD screen amazing. Actually thats too good in my opinion. 4. Two pre-seeting is very useful for some known conditions. 5. Picture quality is very good if you have moderate lens. 6. Shutter speed (6.3 fps)- very important if you take sports photo.
Cons: 1. LCD screen so good that you may think all your pics are good. Actually it may not be. 2. Very dim view through viewfinder. Covers only 93%. 3. Only 9 point metering compared to 7D's 21 point.
Overall I should give a 5 star for the qaulity image I get for this price. My only reason giving is 4 star is crop sensor which is not necessarily any bad about this camera. Even you have better budget to buy something expensive I would say go for it and spend the monety to buy good lens.
The Nikon D50 is the only entry-level Nikon DSLR to have the autofocus motor ('screw drive') built into the camera body where the camera is backwards-compatible with mechanical autofocus lenses (Nikkor AF series) dating back to 1989. This feature has been eliminated on later entry-level models and is currently only available on mid-range and advanced models. This makes the D50 the lightest Nikon DSLR to have the autofocus motor.
This camera has many settings that can only be accessed by selecting a detailed menu view. One such feature is the ability to shoot HDRI photographs. The camera refers to this setting as BKT (Bracketed Set)
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chiew - Friday, August 29, 2008 - link
even though i've only had the 40d for 8 months :(scottwilkins - Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - link
Wow, my computer is going to burst trying to work with all those pixels. I have a pro photographer friend who is already complaining about the time it takes photoshop to work the 10MP camera images.Also, on a good note, I like the "CA Creative Full" mode. The old ISO, Stop and such settings were for old cameras that needed a way to convey the settings. This is the modern world, and needs for such confusing terms and methods should go away. Die hards will always disagree, but the only way to bring more creativity out of the world is to make that creativity easier to produce. This is the first step, hopefully we'll soon see more "human terms" in camera settings from cameras of this level. It just makes sense.
melgross - Thursday, August 28, 2008 - link
If his computer has problems with 10MP images, he needs a new computer.strikeback03 - Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - link
So long as the traditional shutterspeed, aperture, and ISO settings don't disappear, I don't mind new approaches, even though the old is not that hard to learn. The problem with something like this is you are depending on the camera to do the best option. Suppose I set the DOF slider to somewhere near the middle, am I going to get f/8 or f/13, where diffraction is softening the image? And what if the camera kicks the ISO up a few stops to use that f/13? And what is the chance the settings are identical between brands? If I, a Canon user, am asked to take a picture of someone with their Nikon, I can set 1/100, f/8, ISO 200 and be pretty certain the exposure will be quite close to what I would get with my Canon. Will setting the brightness slider to the middle and DOF slider to 3 notches from the left give me the same result on Nikon as Canon? Who knows?Also, the computer requirements for working with 10MP files are not that high, my desktop here at work flies through 40D files, and could be built for well under $1000 right now (3GHz Q6600, 3GB DDR2, P35, 500GB hard drive, 7300GT). Might be too many pixels for other reasons, but progress won't slow due to computational reasons.
foolsgambit11 - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
I really hoped that the improvement they'd make was to take their 35mm sized sensor further down their product line. I've been wishing for affordable 1:1 ratios for 6 years now. Someday.....JonB - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
I also wait for a 35mm sensor, but the price of a Canon 5D gives my wallet the shivers. I'll wait a few more years.aguilpa1 - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
the extended ISO range is interesting but other than that, the only thing I am coveting is the 18-200 IS lens..., which I can get separate.Visual - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
Does anyone else's adblock fail to block this article as well?Wesley Fink - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
The 50D will not ship until October. Since there were many rumors with wrong info on the 50D flying around we posted the press release and added pictures as soon as we received it from Canon. because we believed our readers would want the correct feature information on a new prosumer model from a major player. The info and additional pictures were up within an hour of receiving it from Canon.We will review the 50D when it is available. We also need to add a new article category to make it clear to readers when we post a detailed camera introduction or an opinion piece on a new camera introduction. DailyTech cannot provide the depth of information buyers might want on a new DSLR camera so we have been posting more detailed info for our readers when we receive it.
It is not good practice in the Computers industry to announce new products months before you can actually buy them. We also get advance samples under NDA. This is not common practice in the Digital camera industry and there are no NDAs in digital SLRs. It is routine for camera makers to announce new cameras two or 3 months before you can actually buy the camera.
Review samples from the majors are not normally available until the camera is available for sale or sometimes very shortly before. Early sample availability heavily favors those sites that are favorable toward a particular camera brand, which is why we have been buying the cameras we have reviewed so far.
If you have suggestions on how to better bring you information on new digital cameras please let us know.
n4bby - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
> This is not common practice in the Digital camera industry> and there are no NDAs in digital SLRs.
dpreview.com gets pre-production samples under NDA, as do a few other sites like rob galbraith.
lots of sites re-post press releases, but they at least provide some minimal introduction/commentary/analysis. but perhaps it's safer to leave that out, considering the quality of past camera articles here...
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
Canon sent me a policy statement that they do NOT operate under NDA in the Digital SLR market and will not provide AnandTech or any other review site pre-production DSLR samples under any conditions. They DO operate under NDA in their point-and-shoot cameras, and they do provide samples in the P$S market. We received a similar reply from Nikon.When I pointed out that dpreview and a few other sites do get pre-production samples I was told in no uncertain terms that the samples did not come direct from Canon and they were not sanctioned by them in any way.
strikeback03 - Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - link
If they don't come direct from Canon, then it has to be some high-level Canon employee who conveniently "loses" a body or something. This far in advance retail stores won't have them to give out, so straight from Canon in one way or another is the only option.n4bby - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
hm, i'm not sure who you're working with at Canon but that sounds very fishy... dpreview has specifically stated in the past that they are operating under an NDA, which is why they can't provide sample images from pre-production cameras. Phil @ dpreview, as well as Rob Galbraith, have working relationships directly with the manufacturers, and the preview articles have got to be sanctioned. sometimes they specifically mention what Canon will or will not let them talk about in such articles. i could ask my colleague about it, who is friends with the head of Nikon USA's pro services group and knows a lot of manufacturer-sponsored pros who get pre-prod equipment for testing.goinginstyle - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
Can we read a review that you have posted at a website? It would be interesting to see your writing style and depth of information provided in an article.n4bby - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
here's an epinions review i wrote a while back - not a work of art or anything, just something i wrote in my free time:http://www.epinions.com/content_110533840516">http://www.epinions.com/content_110533840516
i also write reviews for a high-end audio magazine, but those are a little more esoteric, so YMMV.
http://www.boundforsound.com/reviews.htm#Integrate...">http://www.boundforsound.com/reviews.htm#Integrate...
goinginstyle - Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - link
How about a camera review? You constantly complain about the reviews so why not do a camera review the way you like it. Could care less about an epinion from five years ago. Who knows if it really yours or not. I could grab one and claim it was mine but would not pick the name dorkus.n4bby - Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - link
right, i went and picked out some random epinions article to claim as my own...regardless, the whole "don't criticize if you can't do it better yourself" argument seems silly. if the New York Times' reporting became sloppy and inconsistent, would you as a reader have no right to criticize just because you have no journalistic qualifications yourself? we come to Anandtech precisely because we want (and usually get) a very high level of reporting and commentary. Anand's architecture articles are some of the best I've read (i was an EE/CS major in computer engineering). i've read some of Wes's graphics reviews in the past and they were very good. but many readers have felt the digicam reporting has not been up to the same standards, and they have a right to express that opinion.
and yes, i could probably write camera reviews if i really wanted to - i work in the photography industry. but again, that is totally irrelevant to the issue at hand.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
I have no problem with you posing press releases, and the LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., August 26, 2008 start should give it away, but I guess you could have placated some people by putting a line at the beginning stating that this was the Canon press release, it's scheduled to ship in October, you will post something once you have one to play with.2-3 months can be optimistic on shipping vs announcement time. In March 2006 Tamron announced their 16-50 2.8, scheduled for release that fall. In reality it didn't ship at all until around May/June 2007, and the Canon mount version was not available until August, not sure if any other mounts lagged further behind. The desire to have new stuff at the shows typically drives these announcements which are way before the actual release. Not entirely unheard of in the computer world (hasn't Intel been showing Nehalem processors at shows this year?)
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
That's a good suggestion. Like you, I thought the Lake Success dated by-line would make it obvious this is a Press Release, but I added a description at the top detailing that this is a press release, the camera won't ship until October, and that we will be following up with a review when we can get a 50D.SleepyGreg - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
Ha ha yes, I was waiting for the article to start proper - but it never didBasilisk - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
Yup... not a bad bit of infomercial, but DailyTech material, not AT, since it lacks critical analysis and benchmarking -- not that I'm yet convinced AT will ever review cameras as well as photo-centric sites.Justin Case - Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - link
It used to be that, when you wanted to see press releases (which are basically ads) surrounded by extra ads, you went to DailyTech.AnandTech used to be the place where you got your editorial ads (i.e., biased "reviews") surrounded by extra ads.
How will we be able to distinguish the two, now?
But hey, at least there are less obvious mistakes (and probably more useful information) in a manufacturer's press release than in your average AT "camera review".
damo - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
Indeed - great press release, but surely if we are going ot start getting this on AT it should be a blog post, or just call it a press release. Letting manufacturer press masquerade as actual articles just degrades the site.strikeback03 - Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - link
Yeah, they probably should have made it more clear that this is just a reprint of the press release, though it is rather obvious.As for the actual announcements, the 50D has a few features I wish my 40D had (AF micro-adjust, hello), though I'll wait and see the IQ on the high ISO images. As for the 18-200, what were they thinking not including USM? I'll stick with my Sigma 18-200 OS, thanks.
keekimaru - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - link
I have been using this camera for last one year. Just to let you know I am a serious amateur photographer who takes mainly landscape photo and sometimes portrait of my kids. My main lenses are: 50mm 1.4, 17-55mm 2.8 and kit lens (28-135mm).First of all, this is a good camera. Good in a sense than it is better than Nikon D90 for its ISO performance (low light), focusing, metering and shutter speed. It has ISO 100 which helps you to take long exposure picture. The CMOS crop sensor is as good as 7D and the only difference with 7D is metering system and megapixel. But believe me if you do not enlarge your photo more than 20"X30" you cannot see the difference AT ALL.
Pros of this camera:
1. Easy to handle. Ergonomic. If you use manual mode you will see how easy to dial the aperture and shutter speed.
2. Good ISO performance. I took some star trail with iso 3200 and the noise still less.
3. LCD screen amazing. Actually thats too good in my opinion.
4. Two pre-seeting is very useful for some known conditions.
5. Picture quality is very good if you have moderate lens.
6. Shutter speed (6.3 fps)- very important if you take sports photo.
Cons:
1. LCD screen so good that you may think all your pics are good. Actually it may not be.
2. Very dim view through viewfinder. Covers only 93%.
3. Only 9 point metering compared to 7D's 21 point.
Overall I should give a 5 star for the qaulity image I get for this price. My only reason giving is 4 star is crop sensor which is not necessarily any bad about this camera. Even you have better budget to buy something expensive I would say go for it and spend the monety to buy good lens.
More Detail : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001EQ4BY0/...
More Review : http://camera.babybi.com/detail.php?id_detail=41
keekimaru - Friday, August 3, 2012 - link
The Nikon D50 is the only entry-level Nikon DSLR to have the autofocus motor ('screw drive') built into the camera body where the camera is backwards-compatible with mechanical autofocus lenses (Nikkor AF series) dating back to 1989. This feature has been eliminated on later entry-level models and is currently only available on mid-range and advanced models. This makes the D50 the lightest Nikon DSLR to have the autofocus motor.This camera has many settings that can only be accessed by selecting a detailed menu view. One such feature is the ability to shoot HDRI photographs. The camera refers to this setting as BKT (Bracketed Set)
More Detail : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0009GZANC/...
More Data : http://webcamerawebcamera.com/nikon-d50.php