That’s right, First to walk out of the camera store, the day before the Official release of the New Canon EOS 50D. I only just put my deposit down on Saturday (3 days ago) and I got the call today to say its sitting there with my name on it. So I managed to get off work an hour early and high tail it to Teds Camera store at Garden City shopping center. So now I have it home, what next ? ?  Get it open and play with it *duh*.

I opted for the Body only, A. because I couldn’t afford the lens, and B. I already have some older Canon EF lenses to use with it until I can gather enough cash together to get some decent gear. Also only got myself a Ultra II 8 gig Compact Flash card. Not the fastest at 15meg / sec. but I’m not intending on doing a huge amount of high speed shooting in the first few hours
Open it Open it!!

Inside the nicely packaged box, what you’d expect , the EOS 50D body, Software, Battery and charger, manual, cables, etc etc. I also got the extended warranty. I recommend getting the extended warranty for any gear, it doesn’t cost much and can save you a ton of cash if something goes wrong. One thing I like is the EOS 50D logo printed on the strap.  looks kinda cool.

Shes a biggun. Im so used to my old Canon EOS 300 film camera, and digital’s are sooo much bigger.  I guess this has to somehow fit an enormous 3″ screen. Tad on the weighty side as well. But feels pretty good on first impressions. I have used the Canon EOS 300D at work a fair bit but its quite a bit smaller then the EOS 50D.

Straps on, and time to attach my Manfrotto foot, for my quick release tripod head. I have one of these for every stills camera and video camera , this makes it easy to quickly change between cameras using one tripod.

On with the Lens. I only have low end EF lenses, a 28 - 80, and a 75 - 300. Not the best but it will have to do until I can invest in some decent EF or EFs lenses. Ive managed to pull off some impressive work with these but I’m looking forward to upgrading. First impressions are very good however I haven’t even turned it on yet.  I’m hanging to run some test on this thing but for now, I have to wait for the battery to charge! Full review and test findings coming soon. Official Australian Release Tomorrow (1st October 2008).

- DOWNLOAD Canon EOS 50D Brochure
- DOWNLOAD Canon EOS 50D User manual