Canon EOS 50D

Movie Mode
While Canon and Nikon have both created SLRs that can shoot movies, the 50D is not one of them.

Drive / Burst Mode (8.75)
The 50D offers both high-speed and low-speed continuous shooting modes. The former takes an impressive 6.3 shots per second (our lab tests measured this at 6.1 fps, a minimal difference), and the latter shoots 3 shots per second. This is a minimal step-down from the specs of the preceding model, the 40D, which Canon stated could shoot 6.5 fps. The only difference between the high- and low-speeds are the frame rates, so you won't see a reduction in image quality with the faster mode. Both will take approximately 60 large JPEGs, 16 RAW files or 10 RAW+JPEG.

Self-timing options for the 50D are mundane; 2 and 10 seconds are the only options available. It would have been nice to see a user-defined timer, or a combination burst/timer control to capture multiple images once the countdown is finished.

Auto-exposure bracketing on the 50D can be set from ±1/3 to ±2 EV in 1/3 steps. When set to single shot mode, you have to press the shutter button three times to bracket, but when in high- and low-speed continuous shooting, all three will be taken automatically, even when using the timer. The 50D also has white balance bracketing, with steps along either the blue/amber or magenta/green axis. Since white balancing is essentially a post-processing technique, only one picture is taken, but three files are recorded. If you combine both auto-exposure bracketing and white balance bracketing, a total of nine images will be produced.

Playback Mode (8.00)
In playback mode, the amount of information displayed with the image can be varied by pressing the Info. button. The minimum is shutter speed, aperture and file name, which are shown in a black bar across the top of the screen. Pressing the Info. button once adds image quality number of photos on the card in a small inset box. Another press relegates the image to 1/4 its normal size, and pushes it into the top left corner, making room for a brightness histogram and a large amount of information. In this view, it shows shooting mode, metering, ISO, white balance, picture style, image quality, image size, color space, number of images currently on card and date and time taken. Finally, pressing the Info. button once more removes a large proportion of that information, but adds RGB histograms. The only data left on screen is shooting mode, metering, white balance, image size, image quality and number of pictures on the memory card.

While the 50D can present slideshows, it's a pretty minimalist operation. Found on the second page of Playback options in the menu, the only options available are play time per image; repeat; and whether to show all images, selected image folders, or pictures taken on a certain date. You won't see any fancy transitions nor hear funky music from this camera.

If you're viewing your images, you can zoom in up 10x in 15 steps. When magnified, you can navigate around the image using the joystick, and browse through pictures at the same magnification using the rear dial. This latter function is invaluable if you're checking multiple near-identical images for focus, as you don't have to zoom out, change image, then zoom back in again. The files can also be shown as thumbnails, either four or nine at a time. The front dial also has a function during playback, jumping forward or back 10 images at a time (this increment is user definable), which lets you browse a fair sight faster.

Custom Image Presets (8.00)
The 50D, as with many SLRs, doesn't offer much in the way of image presets. You're not going to see modes for food, underwater, UFO spotting and intergalactic photography. As a mid-level SLR, it does ask that you control the majority of the camera settings, chosing those that best accommodate your situation. It does have a few scene modes: the relatively standard portrait, landscape, macro, sport, night portrait and no-flash auto.

Canon also has their  Picture Style options, that alter sharpness, contrast, color tone, saturation and apply various virtual filters. You can choose between Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Faithful, Monochrome, and three user defined options. While monochrome is fairly straightforward, it can be difficult to understand how the others function. Portrait softens the image, and works to improve skin tones. Landscape over-saturates the image, and tweaks blues and greens, to produce dynamic and exciting, but relatively inaccurate, colors. Neutral and Faithful both under-saturate the image, which provides a greater range of image editing controls in post-processing, and Faithful is designed for use under 5200K light (that of the sun). In our lab testing we found that Faithful produced the most accurate colors, even under tungsten lighting.