Canon booms with 50D

While new product announcements have been raining from camera makers like a monsoon downpour, nothing so far has matched Canon's debut today of its much-anticipated 15.1 megapixel EOS 50D digital SLR.

The DSC is interesting not only because of its many improvements over its predecessor, the 40D--which, by the way, Canon will continue to sell and support--but because the 50D, which has an APS-C sized CMOS sensor, is squarely making a bid to attract point-and-shoot power users into the higher-priced SLR fold. It's doing that by building what it's calling "Creative Full Auto" features into the new camera.

Accessible from the snapper's mode dial, the feature allows advanced shutterbugs to remain in auto mode while making adjustments for a shot and to do so without getting swamped by photo speak.

"In this mode," Canon explained in a statement, "the camera menu on the back screen spells out options in common language for average photo enthusiasts, allowing them to 'blur the background' or 'lighten or darken the image.'"

The company went on to observe, "These easy-to-comprehend image options will help amateur photographers improve the shots they are capable of taking, while helping them learn new techniques."

Another play for the point-and-pop crowd is the welcome improvements in the camera's Live View mode over its progenitor. Through its three-inch, 920,000 dot LCD, the 50D supports three Live View modes--a Quick Mode AF that uses phase-detection to focus a shot; a Live Mode AF that uses the camera's CMOS sensor for contrast detection autofocusing; and a Face Detection Live Mode that can focus on up to 35 faces in a shot.

The camera also features an "Auto Lighting Optimizer" which analyzes the brightness of subjects in a photo and corrects it to accomodate the situation. Moreover, the feature can be used not only during a shot, but after it's taken via editing in the camera.

Another nice feature in the unit is peripheral illumination correction, which is built into the new DIGIC 4 processor at the core of the bytecam. With PIC, brightness is automatically made more uniform across the field of an image improving its tonal quality.

Like the 40D, this new EOS model supports 14-bit analog to digital conversion, and from Canon's professional SLR line, it's inheriting the AF Microadjustment feature for more precise control of focusing.

Light sensitivity for the 50D ranges from ISO 100-3200, but it also has high speed settings that support 6400 and 12,800.

Other features of the unit include top sequential shooting speed of 6.3 frames per second; four levels of noise reduction; and three RAW settings--RAW (15.1MP), sRAW1 (7.1MP) and sRAW2 (3.8MP).

The 50D is scheduled to reach retailers in October. Body-only price will be $1399 and kit price with 28-135mm lens will be $1599.