Canon EOS 50D

SLR camera ranges used to be the same year after year – manufacturers wouldn't release new ones for long stretches of time.

But with digital SLRs things are different and the march of time requires new models regularly.

The EOS 50D is the successor to Canon's EOS 40D and before that the 30D and the 20D. It competes directly with Nikon's D90 and the Olympus E-30, which we'll be reviewing soon. All of them cost around £1000, with the 50D coming in a penny under £1100 with the kit lens.

It's an impressive camera. The construction is in both plastic and metal, but with a metal lens mount for stability. It's not overly heavy, but it's a touch bigger than the D90. The 3in screen on the back is clear and sharp and features the new Canon menu system as introduced on the 40D, making features and options easier to find.

It includes Live View which gives users the choice of using the optical viewfinder or composing images using the screen. Unlike the Nikon and Canon's own more expensive EOS 5D Mark II, the EOS 50D can't take video clips.

Image quality was excellent throughout, as you'd expect of a camera at this price, but the included 17-85mm lens isn't the greatest we've used, despite image stabilisation and Canon's USM technology for faster focusing. We would recommend getting it without the lens for £849 and picking out a brighter lens of your choice.

Light sensitivity goes up to ISO3200 in normal use (it can go higher using a bit of trickery but this results in a lot of noise). As with most SLRs there's no shutter lag to speak of, but the motor drive hasn't been enhanced from the 40D's 6.5 frames per second.

If you're upgrading from a cheaper SLR or compact camera, the EOS 50D is quite intuitive and allows users to get straight into the action without much work required.

There are several shooting modes (night, close-up and so on) available from a dial on the left, and new users may find these useful, but for creative control it's better to switch to the manual modes (in which the user sets shutter speed, aperture or both).

Other than the increase to 15 megapixels from 10 though, there's not much that the 50D adds that users of the 40D don't already have (there are several neat minor features such as the countdown that shows how long it will take to switch off if you power it down while it's still recording images to memory, but these alone don't make it worth the upgrade).

Users of the 30D or earlier, on the other hand, will find much to cheer, and it's well worth considering for those people.