Best Midrange DSLR Canon Digital Camera

I'm sure quite a few 40D owners will decide to wait for a possible 60D, but the 50D represents a good upgrade path for 10D/20D/30D owners and those looking to move to a camera with features beyond those of a Digital Rebel. The EOS 50D renders colors in a very similar manner to the EOS 40D and in a manner which is fairly consistent across the whole line of Canon EOS DSL Rs. *

The Canon EOS 50D is capable of shooting 90 Large/Fine JPEG frames in a burst on UDMA-3 cards, or 60 frames on non-UDMA cards; the 40D was estimated to get 75 frames regardless of the card type. The new Canon 50D supports even unreleased UDMA cards, up to UDMA-6, capable of transferring up to 133MB per second. I was happy with printed ISO 800 shots up to 13x19, and shots even at 3,200 produce good quality 8x10-inch prints. Images from ISO 100 to 3,200 are quite usable at a wide range of sizes. Everyone should feel pretty comfortable shooting at ISO 800 and 1,600 without much worry about significant loss of image quality, since these can be printed at up to 13x19 inches and still look nice. Image stabilization with the 18-200mm is remarkable. *

The peripheral illumination correction feature is new to the 50D, and it aims to reduce vignetting (dark corners) in your photos. Colors are nice and saturated, and the camera's custom white balance feature handled my studio lamps perfectly. Everything is nice and clean through ISO 400. Colors are great -- vivid and accurate. The image
on the screen is bright and easy to see, both outdoors and in low light. *

The high ISO performance looks very good. *

Images of Fall foliage were excellent, with colors that were right on the mark. *

Colors are vibrant despite the overcast skies. The details of the leaves in the foreground are very sharp in the image below, and there is no trace of purple fringing at the area where leaf meets bright sky. *

The Canon 7D's hue accuracy is quite good, just a hair less accurate than the 50D. Most of the other colors are very close to technically accurate saturation levels. Flesh tones shot with the Canon 7D appeared quite natural, with appropriate saturation levels and accurate color. The Manual and 2,600 Kelvin white balance options were very similar, both producing fairly neutral images. Color and saturation are very good, though a tendency towards slightly high contrast under harsh lighting. The Canon 7D's default contrast is a little high, producing some washed-out highlights and dark shadows under the deliberately harsh lighting of our "Sunlit" portrait test shown above, though the camera's contrast and highlight tone priority settings do help tame the highlights quite a bit. ISO 1,600 is very usable for average print sizes. The Canon 7D's images are very clean at ISOs 100 and 200. The grain is slightly more evident at ISO 800, but detail remains very strong. Color balance was pretty neutral with Canon 7D's Auto white balance setting, even at high ISOs and lower light levels. ISO 1,600 ones looked pretty good, albeit with some visible noise in areas of flat midtone tint. ISO 12,800 shots were acceptable to good at 4 x 6. Detail at high ISOs was very good, with the Canon 7D doing an excellent job of holding onto detail while also reducing noise. *

It's interesting that Canon has essentially had no camera in this category until now. The Canon 7D's autofocus system has quite a few new features worth mentioning, and some of them are related to the Metering system, which we'll get to in a moment. *

Very easy to use for such a powerful camera; very good image quality even at high ISO settings Bulky compared to lower-end digital SLRs; 400D now might look like a better bet A great digital camera, but the 400D looks like a better bet for many non-professional photographers

Colors are nice and saturated, and the subject has a smooth (some may say soft) look to it. The camera is PictBridge-enabled for direct printing to compatible photo printers. Photo quality was excellent on this 8.2 Megapixel camera. Photos were well-exposed, with accurate colors, very low noise levels (even at high ISO sensitivities), and minimal purple fringing. *

An excellent midrange digital SLR, the 30D has given way to its even more excellent successor, the 40D. However, it remains a great choice if you can find it at a good price.

Color and exposure were consistently good, noise levels were nice and low (even at higher ISOs), and purple fringing was rarely a problem. The camera is PictBridge-enabled for direct printing to compatible photo printers. Deleting photos is easy, as there's a button right on the camera for that purpose. Photo quality was excellent on this 8.2 Megapixel camera. Photos were well-exposed, with accurate colors, very low noise levels (even at high ISO sensitivities), and minimal purple fringing. *

Overall, the EOS 30D gave us the image quality we expect from a high-end prosumer digital SLR camera - all the images we shot exhibited good color fidelity, and they sharpened up nicely in our favorite image manipulation apps. *

An excellent midrange digital SLR, the 30D has given way to its even more excellent successor, the 40D. However, it remains a great choice if you can find it at a good price.

The camera is PictBridge-enabled for direct printing to compatible photo printers. Photo quality
is excellent, with photos having an ultra smooth look to them. *

Even ISO
3200 (setable via a custom function) is usable for many applications. The Canon 20D is an excellent picture taking machine. *

Though its performance has been surpassed by
subsequent models, the Canon EOS 20D remains a top semipro dSLR choice.

The 20D looks fine at these high ISOs. ISO 100, 200 and
400 are excellent. ISO 800 is great with just a little noise. *

The images look fantastic, so long as you know what you're doing, and even if you don't, the XT does the best it can. ISO 1,600 is fine. It looks great, and so does the color. *

ImageBrowser (Mac OS X) ImageBrowser and ZoomBrowser are pretty nice photo downloading and organizing products, for Mac and Windows respectively. You can still get 100% usable images even at ISO 1600. Colors are accurate and saturated. Noise levels are incredibly low, even at high ISOs. The camera is PictBridge-enabled for direct printing to compatible photo printers. *

The 8MP images are great for cropping and editing. *

You can still get 100% usable images even at ISO 1600. The camera is PictBridge-enabled for direct printing to compatible photo printers. Deleting photos is easy, as there's a button right on the camera for that purpose. *

The bottom line:
The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT is an exceptionally small and lightweight camera designed for amateur digital SLR photographers, but it delivers the responsiveness and image quality you'd expect from a semipro model.