Canon EOS M50 (NOT) The Vlogging Camera You Have Been Waiting For

Yesterday Canon introduced several new products in preparations for the CP+ 2018 expo in Japan this weekend. One of them was the M50 mirrorless camera which seems to spark quite a heated debate from the moment that it was announced about its capabilities and in particular about its level of functionality as a vlogging camera.

As a vlogger you typically want a compact light camera with good image quality, long battery life for video, good AF performance, and an LCD which flip sideways so you can view yourself. The new M50 supposedly ticks all these “boxes” but when you dig a little deeper you find out that Canon didn’t really go all the way with this camera and like it did many times in the past the camera is crippled in a number of important aspects.

So while the M50 has a 24 Megapixel APS-C sensor that can shoot up to 30p 4K video and has a built in Dual Pixel AF technology for video (which is arguably the best in the industry), Canon decided that the camera won’t be able to use the Dual Pixel in 4K mode (you can see the resulting AF issues in Peter McKinnon’s video above) and even more frustratingly – you get an extra crop (besides the 1.6x crop of the APS-C sensor) when you shoot 4K with this camera (basically another 1.6X~ crop) so even wide angle lenses such as the 15-45mm will function more like ~normal~ lenses (38mm-115mm) which is really hard to vlog with (unless your arm is super long or you really love your entire face filling the screen all the time).

To top everything up the battery life of this camera is really short – 235 shots (which is not going to give you much in 4K video either so you will get a few extra batteries if you are doing anything of more than a few minutes (or you are sure you are going to nail it on the first take – which trusts us – is not that easy).

Gordon Laing had very similar thoughts but with more in-depth look at the specs

So that is enough bitching about the downsides of the M50 as a vlogging camera. As a normal compact mirrorless camera, the M50 is actually a very reasonable option (if you can live with the short battery life, 4K crop and no Dual Pixel aspects in 4K).

Here are some of the specs for this camera:

Sensor: 24.1MP APS-C CMOS
Image Processor: DIGIC 8
Viewfinder: 2.36m-Dot OLED EVF
LCD: 3.0″ Vari-Angle Touchscreen
Video: 4K at 30p (1.6X crop) and FHD at 60p and 720p@120 with Dual Pixel CMOS AF (up to 1080p).
Connectivity: Built-In Wi-Fi with NFC, Bluetooth.
ISO: 100-25600.
Image Stabilization: 5-Axis IS.
Price: $780 body only or $900 with the 15-45mm lens.

You can find many more photography gear announcements and new products on our photography gear section here on LensVid.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.