After unboxing the the Canon EOS M50, my first impression of was…. “This is cute”. It’s much smaller than my DSLR. Even the EF-M 15-45mm lens was tiny and cute.
Electronic Viewfinder
I couldn’t wait to use it. Using the kit lens, I put the camera up to my eye and took some test shots in the house. Since there is no mirror, mirrorless cameras have an electronic viewfinder. The image in the viewfinder looked… for lack of a better descriptive word, weird. However, the LCD screen looked fine. So I would just it if I couldn’t get used to the weirdness. I liked that the LCD was a touchscreen. Although, it was marketed as “entry level”, I found that you still had all the control over exposure. It’s not a point and shoot. I also liked that the LCD wasn’t fixed and I could flip it out to get a view from low angles. You can also turn it around so you can see yourself, which is why it was also sold as “great for vlogging”.
Big Lens, Small Camera
The M50 has the EF-M mount, but there is an adapter for EF lenses. So I ordered the adapter to put the camera through a real test. My nephew had a football game that weekend. It provided me with a great opportunity to test the camera. For the game, I would be using my 70-200mm lens w/ 2x extender. When they were attached to the camera, the camera looked tiny. The lens was MUCH bigger than the camera. During the game, I found tracking and panning with the electronic viewfinder to be problematic. It had to do with the size of the camera and the electronic viewfinder trying to keep up with the movement. I decided to just use the LCD screen (which on either camera is good for static subjects) I missed his interception! At that moment I decided that this was not a good camera for sports photography.
Rocky Mountains
The second time I used the camera ‘for real’ was the next month when I when to Denver with my family. I brought it as a second camera. I was planning to shoot wildlife at Rocky Mountain National Park, and I wasn’t going to attach another big lens to that camera. What I noticed was the M50 is a great travel camera (when using the 15-45mm lens). Its size makes it easy to carry if you’re just walking around, going out to eat, or just on the move. So I left my bigger camera in the hotel, and used the M50 a lot on this trip. I found it to be very portable, even on a tripod. I wanted to get a shot of the Highland Park Bridge at night. Jogging down the street with the camera on a tripod was easy.
Great for Vlogging
One of the selling points of the camera was that it does excellent 4k video. My son and I used it to shoot some video while at Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s a very nice video camera. In fact, I’ve been using it a lot to shoot my videos. It is great for vlogging and single person shooting.
I find the EOS M50 to be a fun little camera. I use it often. I’m glad I decided to buy it, but I’m honestly not sure if I’m ready to ride the mirrorless camera wave. If someone just starting out asks me the question, “what camera should I buy” – I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest the Canon EOS M50 to them.
