Camera Labs

Hi,

I know this might have an easy answer to the question but I'm after user knowledge, especially in one key area, noise!

Far too many times I've been editing pics in lightroom and have not been happy with the 50d noise levels, even around 320 and 400, when i push a little higher and have a lot of dark areas i get banding a red streaks from the sensor. That happens around 500.
Apart from that i love my 50d. the size of the body with a battery grip suits my gorilla like hands and when coupled with my 24-70 f2.8 im happy with the image quality. my original plan was to buy a 5d mk2 and keep my 50d as a second body, but with money how it is im just going to have to sell my 50d for another semi pro body.
I use my camera for mainly portraits so im not sure if id use the 7d to its full capacity, but do other portrait togs use the 7d for portraits? hows the noise levels? I also do a few live gigs now and again anyone use semi pro bodies in this area??

suppose i shouldn't be too hard on the 50d, it was released around 2007 and i suppose technology has moved pretty quickly in the iso area of dslr's!

I might just have to suck eggs an buy the 5d mk2

Thanks in advance

Mark

At low ISO there isn't much between the 50D and 7D (or other Canon 18MP APS-C sensor bodies). But it sounds like you're recovering from deep in the shadows regardless of the ISO, and using any method to increase exposure will help out. The 18MP sensor does suffer much less from banding though.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

From a high ISO perspective and all around use I really don't think you can get much more bang for the buck than the 5D MkII. Except from maybe Nikon D90/D300.

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Canon 5D MkII -|- Sigma 24mm f/1.8 | Carl Zeiss 35mm f/2.0 | Canon 50mm f/1.4 | Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro | Lensbaby Composer
Canon A-1 -|- Canon 28mm f/2 | Canon 35mm f/2.8 | Canon 50mm f/3.5 Macro

My friend has an entry level Nikon (forget which one) and iso performance on that seemed to rule over the 50d very easily, i did think for about 1 min about jumping over to nikon but ive ruled that out. I'm not up for selling my lenses and finding my way around a new camera.

I'm playing with iso more at the moment to test out the 50d in different situations, hopefully this will prolong our 'relationship' while i save or find other ways of getting my hands on a 5dMk2!

thanks for the replies