In April 2023, Canon EOS R50 was launched that is geared towards both vloggers, content creators, and photojournalists. Weighing roughly 375 grams (which is about slightly heavier the same weight as a flagship smartphone with metal housing) and a compact body of 116.3 x 85.5 x 68.8 millimetres — which is much smaller than the average camera of about 130 x 100 x 75 millimetres — this mirrorless camera is perfect for lugging around for the whole day without tiring your hands much.

I’ve had the opportunity to test the camera out a couple of weeks ago, to see what the camera is capable of. Long story short, I’m pleased. The camera was almost always reliable when I needed a quick shot of anything that I saw in a split second, or when I wanted to take in sceneries that would make a good cover on the paper (or on my social media).

Let’s hop into it. Every picture you see below is not edited and taken using Canon EOS R50 with standard RF-S18-45mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM lens.

Specifications

Let’s get this out of the way, for anyone who’s interested in the details of this camera:

• 24.2MP APS-C CMOS sensor and DIGIC X image processor for high-resolution photos and videos
• 4K 30p video recording with 6K oversampling for clear and detailed footage
• Full HD 120p video recording for smooth slow-motion playback
• Up to 15 fps continuous shooting for capturing fast-action moments
• Dual Pixel CMOS AF II for fast and accurate autofocus
• Vari-angle touchscreen LCD for easy framing and control
• High-resolution OLED electronic viewfinder for a clear view of your subject
• Built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for easy sharing and connectivity

The camera generally produces strong and sharp images, enough for me to see details in every shot clearly. The APS-C CMOS is basically a type of image sensor size commonly used in Advanced Photo System type-C DSLR and mirrorless cameras (in this case, the Canon EOS R50 I was using). Combine that with the DIGIC X image processor, it was no doubt most of the shots I took yielded impressive results.

I took the camera out for some photoshoots for a couple of days while I was outside, and I was mostly relying on the “A+ (Scene intelligent auto)” mode to get the right composition. But, the shooting modes offered by the camera ranges varyingly for more professional users — “P (Program Auto)”, “Tv (Shutter priority)”, “Av (Aperture priority)”, or “M (Manual)”.

There’s even special scenes in “Scene intelligent auto mode”, which allows the users to select different type of scene if they don’t want to resort to the auto selection by the camera: “Hybrid auto”, “Special scenes mode” that ranges between Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Close-up, Food, and more, “Self-portrait mode”, and “Silent shutter mode”.

The tools given by the camera are definitely up-to-par with its more expensive counterpart, despite being a more compact design.

Landscape Shots

Since the camera is designed for vloggers and content creators, I resorted to a lot of shots using “Scene intelligent auto mode” for most shots, and use manual modes when I wanted to take more time with the scene I was shooting.

The picture above was taken with the “landscape mode”, which led the camera to focus both the foreground and the background. The picture holds up well, if I do say so myself.

But the landscape mode works wonders in sceneries like the ones above. The colours are well-adjusted, and the pictures look like a good cover for an album of landscape shots. As far as I was using the camera, I didn’t notice any artifacts or over-sharpening some image processors tend to do (particularly in smartphones), so that’s already a plus in my book.

But these are taken with the 18mm lens. I tried taking some zoomed pictures with 45mm lens to see how it holds up, and I wasn’t disappointed.

The details, as well as colours, in the pictures still holds up well, even with the zoom lens. I was expecting the boat, or streams would have some blurs or over-sharpening, but it’s well enough.

Portrait Shots

Portrait shots are good, too. It’s expected to have a focused subject in the zoom lens, and the one above does a good work of doing so. Thanks to the large sensor size and wide aperture control, the subject stands out a lot more than fabricated portrait shots by regular smartphones. I could adjust the aperture to allow shallower depth of field to make the rubbish bin stand out, but I’m pretty certain it’s already standing out enough in the picture.

The camera’s LCD screen can be flipped to the front, so I took the opportunity to test out the camera’s selfie capabilities. The results are pretty satisfactory — the camera did a good job focusing on the subject while blurring the background (including me because I was photobombing him out of nowhere at the time).

The good thing about this camera is that the LCD screen is that it’s a touchscreen display, which makes it easy to navigate settings and focus on desired point for the selfie. The camera’s autofocus system can also detect and track faces, so we didn’t have to worry about making sure the faces remain sharp in the selfie taken.

But generally, portrait shots are really good with this camera. It’s sharp enough that any shot taken makes the picture worth a thousand stories behind it, considering the quality. I do notice, though, that under extreme light conditions, I had to manually adjust the white balance to prevent the colours from looking flat.

Harsh-light Condition Shots

The above pictures show the difference between using ‘scene intelligent auto’ and manual adjustment of white balance.

The difference between the lightest and darkest areas is not very strong in the auto mode, and therefore less vibrant. Under harsh lighting where the sun can get really hot, it might be more ideal to bring out the colours with a bit of adjustment on the white balance.

But I like how the subjects can stand out when taking pictures, with details being preserved when doing so. The shots taken create this ‘professional’ look to it, since people tend to associate bokeh effects to professional pictures.

Low-light Condition Shots

Under low-light conditions, this is where a tripod and/or a steady hand would be recommended. But, the image tends to get blurry (as expected) if the camera is not held steadily during the shots taken in the dimly lit area, especially when the shutter speed is set to be longer. If done well, though, the images that come out can be unexpectedly impressive.

I kid you not, the cave was dark, with some lights shining from the holes on the cave roof being the only ones to illuminate wherever I was stepping on. There’s some overexposure on the first picture of the cave above, since it’s compensating for the dark interior of the cave. I’m sure it can be fixed with the curve tool and using RAW image format for post-editing process, but I’m not too entirely proficient in it.

Regardless, the focus was on the darkened areas of the cave, and it highlighted those areas perfectly.

Close-up Shots

I knew I had to try out some close-up shots using this camera, just to see what it’s capable of. The APS-C sensor on this camera works wonders in getting me closer to the subject I want to highlight in the macro shots, and the 45mm lens I was using was doing more than enough to help me with it.

But without a proper macro lens, the camera can only do so much. There’s no dedicated macro mode to get really close-up shots, so I was out of luck when I wanted to get even closer. The depth of field can also be quite an issue with the auto mode, and considering that I had not much expertise in manual shots, I had to resort to that mode only to avoid distortion.

The beach picture is the most distinctive as to where the lens shows its limitations. The camera couldn’t focus a bit closer to the foreground, so I had this odd horizontal focus area in the middle of the picture and blurred background and foreground.

So, unless you want to take extreme close-up shots, the lens would do just decently should you wish to get macro shots of something.

Videos

Of course I have to try out the video captures on this camera. It is designed with content creation in mind after all. I have to say though — the 4k resolution in the recordings is super sharp.

It’s written on the paper that the 4k resolution on this camera is based on 6k oversampling, and it definitely doesn’t lie. It’s crisp and clear, and under the bright sunlight, the details of the image in the recorded footages are preserved well should I wish to edit them later on.

Satisfying is the word that I’d used. But bear in mind that the camera does not have in-body image stabilization (IBIS), so even walking can cause the footage to shake a lot, even with the Movie digital IS feature by the camera to reduce camera shake during video recording. A gimbal might come in handy if you’re looking for shooting action scenes with this camera.

Verdict

Whether you’re a passionate vlogger or a dedicated photojournalist, Canon EOS R50 is definitely your constant companion for capturing life’s moments. It’s an entry-level mirrorless camera, so it’s somewhere close to RM3-4k, but it’s nowhere near the more expensive counterparts as well (the ones that can reach up to RM8k or more).

If you have the budget for it, why not? After using the camera for a couple of days, I can’t lie when I said I fell in love with it. Not to mention that the camera has HDMI ports as well that you can connect using USB-C to function as a webcam. I used it during one of my online classes before. The battery lasts considerably long as well; I took the camera out for an entire day for photoshoot, and I still had enough to go for another day (considering that I kept the camera off when not in use).

But, it’s definitely worth the money. If you can spare more for a better lens, definitely go for this camera if you’re looking to buy a starter camera as your daily work companion. See you another time!