Canon Blogger has a great post with images at this link. Share your thoughts on the high price tag for a crop sensor body with HD video (because they are all doing it now, soon even shopping carts will be HD!)
Me….I’m sticking with my 50D, maybe next time Canon. When you give us a full frame sensor, crop sensor at (almost) full frame sensor price tag is not a winning sales plan!
Canon has released an updated firmware for the EOS 50D, as always they recommend updating the software as well. Among changes are a fix for vertical banding (I have installed but not tried it the new firmware out yet).
You can find all the details along with downloads at this link.
My weapon of choice. Canon EOS 50D with 24-105 f4/L and extended battery grip.
Canon has released the much awaited 1.0.3 firmware update for the Canon 50D. Here are the notes, and lets hope that it does indeed deal with the err99…we should find out soon enough.
Notes from the page regarding changes,
This firmware update (Version 1.0.3) incorporates the following fixes.
1. Corrects a phenomenon in which an image becomes overexposed when C.Fn.II-3 Highlight tone priority is set to “1″ together with other camera settings. (This correction has already been incorporated in the Version 1.0.2 and later firmware.
2. Corrects a rare phenomenon in which “busy” blinks on the camera’s display panel and the shutter cannot be released due to the timing of battery installation.
3. Corrects a rare phenomenon in which “Err 99″ appears on the camera’s display panel and LCD monitor and the shutter cannot be released due to the timing of pressing the shutter button.
Firmware Version 1.0.3 is for cameras with firmware up to Version 1.0.2. If the camera’s firmware is already Version 1.0.3, it is not necessary to update the firmware.
….
My install was fast and painless, now the testing begins…
I am going to continue to report the problems I am having with the 50D because it is clear from the hits I get on my blog, forums I’ve read, and posts that I have read that the 50D problems with err99 are more than ‘just a few bad bodies’. Now I will say that it has only happened to me once in maybe 150 shots, but that’s not the point….you should be able to trust hardware to either work or fail (and at the price and brand new status of the 50D I’m going with work not fail), no one wants to be on a shoot or at a place you cannot go back to and take the shot again and have a failure.
Today whilst shooting I got another err99, the interesting part was I knew it was about to happen!
I was shooting shots with high speed burst, the bursts were 3 to 4 frames only and around 15 seconds between each of the bursts. That is plenty of time for those few files to be written from the camera’s memory cache to the compact flash card.
The way I knew something was about to happen is that on the last two or three bursts that I shot the camera appeared to be getting slower between frames. Each frame exposed correctly and the shutter speed was correct but the time between each shot being taken felt like it was getting a little longer each time, and then sure enough it finally did an err99 on me.
This makes me continue to believe what I already feel, the problem is related to the writing to/from the cache and or the compact flash card. I know it’s not the card it’s self since I had been using it for at least a year on my 30D with no problems. And I know it’s not the lens as I have been using that on my 30D for at least a year and a half and have never had a problem with it.
So I took the time to set-up all my usual lens on my 50D and tweak the Auto-Focus using the adjustments menu and I have to say it has made a big difference.
To be honest I did not think it would make enough of a difference that I’d notice or care, but it sure did. And finally my images are making me as tack happy as I was on my 30D. So if you have one and get the chance, try it, I think you will be surprised…
Update :-
To better explain what I mean, look at this tutorial here that I followed to ‘correct’ my 50D focusing.
Essentially you focus on a target by hand and then activate AF and watch to see if the camera moves the lens, if so then go into the 50D menu and look for C.FnIII:Autofocus/Drive which would be the last menu tab before the user menu.
In there under option 7 I chose ‘Adjust by lens’ and changed the settings until I got no movement on the lens from the AF using the method above. Then after shooting some shots I instantly noticed a big difference, especially when I was close to the subject.
Hope this update helps explain better.
Never had one issue with my Canon 30D but earlier I got the much talked about err99 on my new (and expensive) Canon EOS 50D. It seems I’m far from alone as this thread on dpreview seems to show.
Canon…sort it, we sure payed enough for them. If it’s software then that’s fine get the firmware fixed, if it’s hardware then you are about to get a lot of very nasty phone calls from customers.
I’m hoping it doesn’t happen again, but based on what I’ve read from reports of users I guess I won’t be surprised if it happens again.
A couple of shots from my first real attempt to work with the new Canon EOS 50D. Overall I’m happy with the camera but still having a hard time trusting the image quality at 100%, why does everything feel like it has a soft glow to it? I’m guessing it’s the sensor and big mega pixel they tried to get in there because as soon as you scale it down to anything close to the 30D ‘off sensor image size’ it looks just fine.
Onto the images..
There is plenty out there on the Canon EOS 50D, so here are my highlights of likes and not likes after owning one for a few hours, please not that a lot of my comments are based on my move from my 30D. I think for 40D owners there really is not much reason to upgrade to a 50D unless you really want that new screen and higher pixel count. There are no sample images right now as I am not confident my initial shots are doing the camera justice, there will be plenty to follow for sure.
There is a video up all shot with the new Canon EOS 5D Mark II and I have to say it’s very VERY impressive.
