Canon's M50 middle mirrorless plays catch-up with 4K, improved AF

Canon took the opportunity to make quite a few changes when it configured the EOS M50 mirrorless. It uses a new Dual Pixel CMOS sensor with an autofocus system that covers more of the scene, can record 4K video, supports eye-detection autofocus and debuts with a new app that can automatically transfer photos from the camera to a device. 

If those sound familiar, well, they are. Sony and Panasonic have offered those capabilities for a couple years, and now those  once-advanced products have dropped in price to the same place as the M50. But they're all new for Canon.

Slated to ship in April, the M50 sits between the M6 and the M100 based on price -- it will be $780 for the body, $900 for the kit with the 15-45mm f3.5-6.3 IS STM lens or $1,250 for a dual-lens kit. I don't have pricing for the UK or Australia, but the body price converts to approximately £560 or AU$1,000.

According to Canon, the M50's updates were based on a wish list from current users, which included an electronic viewfinder -- the optional one for the M6 is built into the M50 -- an articulated, rather than tilting, touchscreen display and the return of the touch-and-drag focus on the LCD which had been dropped between the M5 and M6. It's smaller than the M5 as well.

The Canon EOS M50's design offers no surprises

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Though it lives below the M6 in Canon's product line, it's a lot more capable. The new sensor is the same resolution, but the on-chip autofocus system increases the frame coverage, jumping from 49 points to 99 points; 143 points with select Canon lenses (and it's a pretty big selection). The system should also perform a bit better in low light. 

In addition to enabling automatic transfer between the camera and a mobile device -- only for JPEGs, though -- Image Transfer Utility II finally lets you transmit files to your computer without having to go through Canon Image Gateway. Woohoo! And the new CR3 raw format (C-Raw) shrinks raw file size by about 40 percent: It maintains the same image dimensions, but performs a light lossy compression on the image data. (Canon's not saying what it's doing, but based on the histograms that's my impression.)

It uses an updated version of Canon's image processor, Digic 8, which enables most of the new capabilities I've mentioned, as well as 720/120p slow motion and 4K UHD/30p video recording. As with many of Canon's modern mirrorless models, it incorporates the company's Dual Sensing image stabilization, optical stabilization that incorporates gyro sensor feedback from the body into its compensation calculation. No sensor shift for Canon!

If you're a Canon mirrorless fan, this looks like a really attractive option.

Comparative specifications