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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tannin" data-source="post: 1444837" data-attributes="member: 2018">Not remotely strange: the Canon entry-level new models have always been pushed through pretty quickly, generally once a year. The 500D is a year newer than the 450D which was a year newer than the 400D. Totally standard release schedule.Nor is it at all strange to see the latest xxxD come close to the existing xxD. That too is 100% normal for Canon. The 20D and 350D had essentially the same 8MP sensor; the 400D was the first one with 10MP (it was out before the 10MP 40D), the 450D had a higher  resolution than the 40D, and now the 500D is the same res as the 50D. Again, completely normal. Anytime they release a new camera, Canon use the best sensor technology they have available and ready for production, and they never worry if that is going to equal or even exceed the next model up in the range. The 5D II is another example: it has a sensor possibly even better than that in the much more expensive 1Ds III. 50D sales will slow a bit, just as 30D sales slowed when the 400D came out. Apparently, Canon aren't worried about that. Presumably, they don't care too much which Canon camera you buy, so long as you don't buy one of the other brands. And of course, as Macshark points out, the 50D nevertheless retains a strong set of features that, to many people, will make it worth the extra money. Because it is a DSLR. It's designed from the ground up to be a DSLR, and the video function is (a) something all the other DSLRs are starting to offer (Nikon D90, Canon 5D II, all the others will follow one by one), and (b) something that is very cheap and easy to graft onto your existing DSLR design. If the camera can already do Live View (as everything can these days), then all you need to do is figure out a way to send the senor output to the flash card in movie format, which is a simple matter of tweaking the signal processing electronics. ("Simple" is a relative term here, obviously - but it's simple by camera design standards, much easier than (say) designing a new autofocus system or a new lens.)Being a grafted-on feature in a tool that was primarily designed to be an SLR, it is feature poor: no autofocus for example, and the video frame rate is poor (which it has to be, because a single Digic 4 chip couldn't go much faster, and they aren't going to put twin SP chips in a cheap little entry-level camera the way they do with the 1 Series monsters. What do you expect for nothing? And nothing, let us remember, is pretty close to what it cost Canon to put the video feature into the 500D - a bit of chip reprogramming, that's all. If it does what you want in movie mode, that's great. If it doesn't, buy a proper movie camera in the first place. (For myself, my old 20D does everything I have ever wanted in a movie camera, which is to say nothing at all.)Stopgap how? I honestly can't see what Canon could have done with the 50D that they didn't do already. It's a superb camera that ticks all the boxes and as a package, is a much stronger offering than the no-change 30D or the lack-lustre 40D ever were. Nonsense. Nikon have zero ISO advantage over Canon in the APS-C market. 50D vs D300 vs D90 vs 450D vs 40D ... pick 'em with a pin, they are so close to one-another in the high ISO stakes that you can't sensibly claim any of them is the winner. (But the previous generation Nikons - D200 and D80 - were very poor high ISO performers, so Nikon have at least drawn level now.) The only place where Nikon have the ISO advantage is the same place that they have the reach disadvantage - in the pro sport market (1D III, D3 and D700) - and the advantage is small and the two factors, of course, are directly related to one another. Use bigger pixels and you get better high ISO at the cost of pixel density (which equals reach). Build in more reach and you get lesser high ISO performance. Pick whichever one is the lesser of two evils for your own particular needs. But this has zero relevance to the 500D. Or indeed the 50D, the D90, or any other APS-C camera.</blockquote>

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