Should I buy an EOS50D or stick with my 450?

[mister c]

My mate (the same one I bought my old EOS300D off a few years back) has now offered me his camera gear at, what I think, is rather a good price.
It consists of
EOS 50D, 18-55mm IS lens, 50mm f1.8 lens, canon battery grip, x4 canon battery's, x3 memory cards, shutter release, uv filters cables chargers etc.
He wants 400 quid for it all. He's not in any hurry & he won't be back down here until March, so have plenty of time to save the money up.

My question is. What are the main advantages (other than more mega pixels) on having the 50D over my 450D.

Or the other option would be to keep my 450D & save up to buy a better zoom lens

[jambo]

I think this one comes down to handling rather than image quality.

The sensor on a 450D is 12Mp, the 50D is 15Mp. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that isn't the sort of difference you're going to notice a lot.

What you may well find you notice is the bigger feel of the body, the use of the rear control dial, the brighter viewfinder and the longer lasting batteries. The extra couple of stops of ISO gain can be useful when needed, but will probably get very noisy very fast, so whether you'd use them often of or not would be up to you.

Head on over to the DP review page for the 50D (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos50d/) and 450D (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos450d/) to get a feel for how they stack up against each other in terms of noise and features.

The cheapest way to get a better sensor is to get a 550D or similar, but I personally have found using a semi-pro body has been much easier for me in terms of handling and quick access to menus which is what I was missing on the 400D. The quality of the pictures themselves may not be worlds apart, but the use of the camera is. Does that make any sense?

Jambo

[mister c]

It does Jambo, yes. I have fairly big hands, so anything to make life easier would suit me. I know that the camera has hardly been used, so is like new.
I did read the review on the 50D, they gave it a good write up, but, as you said, the picture quality isn't much different.

[Sir Trev]

...anything to make life easier would suit me.

When I was deciding on my upgrade I wanted light weight to reduce fatigue. Was humming and harring about the 100D because of this but after trying one for size alongside a 700D and 60D I decided the 700 fitted me better than the 100 and the extra weight of the 60 would put me off using it as much.

A work colleague has a 5Dmk3 and now hates it (and his collection of L-series lenses) as it's so heavy to lug about so I'm not alone.

[Bluepete]

Trev,


Ask him if he wants to get rid of his L series glass!


Mr.C


Or you could buy this http://www.mpbphotographic.co.uk/used-equipment/used-lenses/used-canon-fit-lenses/canon-ef-70-200mm-f/4-l-usm-6/


which on your camera equates to a 112-320mm L class zoom. Very useful for bike photography...!


Pete ;)

[mister c]

Trev,


Ask him if he wants to get rid of his L series glass!


Mr.C


Or you could buy this http://www.mpbphotographic.co.uk/used-equipment/used-lenses/used-canon-fit-lenses/canon-ef-70-200mm-f/4-l-usm-6/


which on your camera equates to a 112-320mm L class zoom. Very useful for bike photography...!


Pete ;)
Kin ell, that's cheap! That is exactly what I was sort of looking for, but funds forbid me (I've spent over £500 in the last 3 days). I will bookmark this & have a shufty in a couple of months.
I've been looking at usm lenses on Ebay, but they have been selling for 6 - 800 quid.
Pete, this could be the answer, many thanks :)

[maviczap]

Looking on that site reminded me that I ought to dip my toe in the water & get myself a DSLR

I've got a Cannon 1000fn so the EF lens should fit?

[Bluepete]

No worries!

Thats an average price for that lens. It's a brilliant bit of kit too!

I'd recommend MPB to anyone, and have done in several threads on here. I very rarely buy new camera equipment now, used is certainly the way to go.

Pete ;)

[Brettus]

Hmm, off the top of my head I'd say there isn't anything particularly attractive to make it worthwhile upgrading (IMHO of course) It IS a good price, but given that you already have the 450D then you aren't going to get much benefit from the kit lens and the nifty fifty (what lenses to you have BTW? I'm assuming you have wide stuff covered given that you are looking for zooms)

You can pick up a battery grip with batteries for £30 if you wanted to expand your 450 and make it more suited to your hands, you can get a shutter release cable for £3, filters are handy but ALMOST redundant now most things can be done digitally afterwards.

There will be slightly better noise performance on the 50D but as my friend pointed out when I was getting hung up on that, lightroom or similar can remove noise pretty effectively.

Just my ramblings anyhow ;)

[mister c]

I thank everybody for their input. I think I will keep the 450 & buy myself a decent lens. At the moment I have an 18 - 55, 75 - 300 & a 400mm cheapo Tamron lens, but have always wanted an L series ever since I used my mate's at Wigan earlier this year.
I'll have to let my mate down.
Anybody wanna buy a 50D cheap? ;)

[Littlepeahead]

Once you've used L series you'll never go back. Look out for the 24 - 70 f2.8 original version second hand. Brilliant lens, and the update is twice the price for no real benefit. Yes it's heavy, but for the quality of the images it's well worth the sore back.