Hands on with the Canon EOS R50

Canon EOS R50

Body and handling

The EOS R50 is very light and compact. It may be hard to tell exactly how small in photos since we all have different hand sizes, but it’s 116 x 86 x 69mm (4.6 x 3.4 x 2.7″) and weighs about 375g (13.2 oz) with the battery and a card inside. That’s surprisingly small for an interchangeable lens camera.

Both DPReview’s Richard Butler and Chris Niccolls commented on the small hand grip and found they had to adopt an off-center, 45 degree hand grip angle, rather than trying to grasp it straight-on. It’s not the end of the world, just different, and both Richard and Chris say it became a non-issue in short time.

Across the top, there’s a lone command dial, mode selection dial, dedicated ISO button, video record button, on/off switch, hot shoe, pop-up flash and, of course, a shutter button. The command dial gives users some control to make adjustments in P, A, S or M modes, but it’s rather under-utilized in the more automated modes. This is because the camera has a very touchscreen-focused user interface.

The fully articulating rear touch screen is the main intended way to interact with the camera, allowing many direct adjustments such as tap to focus, and featuring screens explaining the mode you’ve just selected – all in the service of a beginner-friendly UX design.

Part of this is the Creative Assist mode, which displays a series of icons representing options such as brightness or color. It’s pretty simple to use but, while the command dial can be used to adjust the settings, it’s only active while you’re in the adjust settings screens. While you’re actually shooting, the command dial does nothing, which feels like a waste, since your finger is likely to be resting on it.

Autofocus

The R50’s most compelling feature is probably its autofocus system. It’s a relatively simple-to-use but powerful system that combines a series of subject recognition modes with tenacious tracking. In a lot of circumstances (and particularly when photographing people) you can just pick where you want the camera to focus and it’ll track whoever or whatever you pointed at.

In particular the R50 has been trained to recognize people (eyes, faces and heads), animals (specifically dogs, cats, birds and horses) or vehicles (motorsport cars and bikes, trains and aircraft). There’s also an ‘Auto’ option that will try to identify which of these subjects are in front of the camera.

We’ve found it to be very effective, at least in stills mode, and the interface makes it easy to take whatever level of control you want over proceedings: you can just let the camera pick a subject, or place an AF point if you wish to position the focus yourself.

The R50 also gains an AF mode designed for vlogging, which prioritizes anything close to the camera but otherwise uses face detection mode. This is expressly designed for vloggers filming themselves who want to hold an item up and have the camera quickly refocus on it, then back to them when the item is lowered, for example to showcase some kind of product.

A+ Creative Assist mode

The R50 has Creative Assist, a mode which has been seen on other Canon cameras in the past such as the R10. In this mode users can tell use the touchscreen to select a color filter (vivid, warm, cool, etc) or use the live view to increase the brightness, contrast and color saturation with a +/- slider scale. The slide scale and terminology is similar to what you would see in the TV settings menu.

The Creative Bracketing mode tells the camera to take four different images with various different creative settings for each shot. The camera then allows users to select which output they like best.

Advanced A+ is a JPEG-only mode that shoots multiple images when the camera determines it to be necessary. In this mode, the user doesn’t decide if multiple exposures are needed; the R50 examines the frame and decides for itself if the scene warrants HDR, noise reduction, or other stacking remedies. We’ve seen modes like this in other cameras for years, though never one capable of evaluating scenes and choosing the appropriate multi-shot processing mode to make what it decides is the perfect photo.

As a whole, these Creative modes are purely automatic, meant to be beginner-friendly, and thanks to the R50’s touchscreen-first UX design and avoidance of camera terminology, they should be familiar for smartphone users. In A+ mode the dial doesn’t operate and all setting changes are made through the touchscreen. Likewise, to navigate the menu and choose options the touchscreen is the only option. Within the menu, the dial can be used to scroll left and right but is otherwise under-utilized.

Everything about the R50, from its design to its touchscreen information prompts and emphasis on automatic operation, screams that this camera is meant to be simple to shoot with, aimed at users who want to easily make good pictures without adjusting exposure and settings. It’s taken everything from the point-and-shoot era (light and mostly automatic), borrowed emphatically from the smartphone era (touchscreen-driven, terms like ‘brightness’ instead of ‘aperture,’ color modes such as ‘Vivid’ and B&W’ reminiscent of app filters) and updated it all into the modern-camera era (AF subject-based tracking, HDR video, the power of interchangeable lenses).

Battery

The R50 uses the same LP-E17 battery as Canon’s other small ILCs. It’s a 7.5Wh battery, which isn’t a lot to power a mirrorless camera.

If you’re taking pictures on and off throughout a day, you may be able to stretch the battery for all your needs, but if you plan to take many images and/or video in longer stretches, you’ll soon see the dreaded low battery indicator.

The R50 is rated to last 370 stills per charge if you use the LCD in standard mode, but just 230 stills through the viewfinder. An energy saver mode boosts the numbers to 440 and 310 shots, respectively. It’s normal to get around double these rated values, depending on your usage, and these are reasonable numbers for such a small camera.

The battery can be charged by the camera via the USB port by a USB PD (power delivery) charger.

Ports

On the right side, there’s a USB-C plug, which can be used to charge the battery, and a micro HDMI port. The HDMI port can be used to plug directly into a HDR display for viewing 10-bit HDR video from the camera, much like family camcorders did with VCRs in the 90s; it’s meant to make it easy to quickly share videos on the family TV. The USB port is notable for being unusually fast on the R50: Canon opted to include a USB 3.2 Gen 2 with a type C socket, where other cameras at this entry level point are still using USB 2.0 / Micro B. This is the difference between an upper limit of 10Gb/s and 0.48Gb/s transfer rates.

Along the left side of the camera is a mic jack for external audio, but there is no way to connect headphones for audio monitoring from the camera.

Next to the battery in the base of the camera is a single SD card slot. In keeping with the camera’s relatively modest ambitions, it’s the older, slower UHS-I type.

Where it sits

The Canon R50 is essentially Canon’s replacement for the M50 and sits below the slightly larger R10 in the RF mount’s growing APS-C lineup. As the least-expensive RF-mount camera, it’s also the most noteworthy addition in the entry-level/under-$800 ILC category that we’ve seen for some time. The R50 does everything the M50 did and more, and slots into the RF-mount system that has seen greater company support.

We must acknowledge, though, that while Canon has produced a load of high-end full frame RF-mount lenses thus far, there are as yet not many “RF-S” (APS-C) or even low-end lenses in the system. The R50 can accept the full frame RF-mount lenses, but it’ll impose a crop factor of 1.6x on them. In other words, any 50mm lens on the R50 will have the field of view that an 80mm lens would on a full frame camera.

For the beginner photographers whom the camera is targeting, however, there are kit zooms to start shooting with, and perhaps the key point about the R50 is that Canon is showing a commitment to its RF lens mount even in compact APS-C bodies. That likely means long-term support for the RF-mount system.

The R50 also borrows some features that punch up to the R10, such as AF tracking and video from 6K capture. The main differences for the R50 from the R10 come in the form of its smaller body, fewer control dials and buttons (including a lack of simple switching between MF and AF), no joystick, fewer manual control options in certain modes, a slower burst rate and buffer, no support for faster memory cards and no fully mechanical shutter.

Ultimately the choice between them comes down to how the user intends to use the camera. If you’re looking for a step up from a smartphone that is still compact, lightweight and has the pick-up-and-play ease for capturing memories during a night out or producing videos for social media, you may opt for the R50. If you’re a photographer looking for greater control, who wants more tactile buttons, a better hand grip and the ability to make more advanced videos, and you don’t mind a slightly larger body, then the R10 might be worth a look.

So, is this replacing the M50?

Side by side, the R50 and the M50 are very similar in appearance. The R50 is nominally only 2mm (0.08″) taller and 10mm (0.4″) deeper (though its shoulders are rounder and rise up higher, making it look bigger than this implies).

The similarities between the two cameras are plentiful. Both cameras offer video and photo, an interchangeable lens mount and some manual controls, but with limited external buttons, a preference for their touchscreens and a design ethos built around being an automatic camera first and a manual one second. In short, they seem to be targeting the same user base of casual users, beginners and those seeking a small, simple camera.

So what does the R50 mean for the M-mount?

Canon hasn’t said anything official on what the future holds for the M-mount, but it’s been four and a half years since the last EF-M lens launch and two and a half years since the last new EOS M body. The M50 was one of Canon’s best-selling EF-M mount models and yet we haven’t seen any movement or new support to expand on the EF-M mount in years. Now, in addition to having no new news, we’ve gotten what looks like a direct upgrade/replacement of the M50 II, new and improved in every way.

The writing seems to be clear: Canon has likely moved on from the M-mount and will be consolidating around the RF-mount for their future releases.

It begs the question: is there any reason to update within the M-mount or buy into it? Everything seems to suggest that EF-M mount lenses and cameras are already dead, just not declared so just yet by Canon.

Body color options

The Canon R50 will be released in two color options: the traditional black that we’ve come to expect from all camera manufacturers and a white version. Aside from color, the cameras are identical operationally and functionally.

Price and availability

The EOS R50 arrives in March 2023 in three packaged variations. The body itself will be $679.99 MSRP. A kit with the retractable RF-S 18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM will sell for around $799.99, and a two-lens kit that adds a new 55-210mm F5.0-7.1 takes the recommended price up to $1029.99. Canon has plans to add a fourth ‘Content Creator Kit’ variant later in 2023, which will be packaged with a microphone, grip and a lens. Canon hasn’t stated which lens that kit will have or the exact date to expect it.