Well, I've had an EOS M50 in my sticky little hands for about 3 hours now so I thought I would report on some of the differences I've noted between this and my M5. Here in the UK, the M50 is typically (with the 15-45) priced at £649, whilst the M5 with the 15-45 is usually £949, though there is currently a £100 cashback on the M5, so it's £849 after that. Some M5 kits, if they're older stock, also include the free EOS EF/EF-S adapter (but without its tripod foot) - I don't know what proportion of currently available stock has the adapter. The M5 15-45mm kit WITH adapter initially sold for £1149 in the UK, just to put the respective price of the two models into some sort of perspective, as I understand the M50 might be relatively more expensive in the US for example.
I'm a mirrorless nut, with a particular fondness for m43 (mainly Olympus), but will happily use any brand. I like to have customisation options and value compactness. With the Canons, I've used the EOS M, M3, M5 and now the M50.
My M50 is a white one - some may hate that but I think the colour suits it. It's gloss-white enamelled, which actually makes it feel similar to the original M in white, despite being plastic under the paint vs metal. The leatherette-pattern rubber on the front and back of the grip feels like the M5; the matching finish on the back of the LCD is actually a hard, matte finish painted plastic moulding. Weight and size feel similar to the M5, and ironically, to me it actually feels less "plasticky" than the M5 - maybe the high price of the M5 colours that for me. I suspect the fine, EOS 200D/SL2-like finish of the black M50 might make it feel more plasticky than the white one. I like that the M50's LCD is completely flush and surrounded (even at the base) by the body - it means it doesn't "waggle" as almost every other camera with a fully-articulated screen does.
I can elaborate more on handling and controls if needed - obviously many physical dials that the EOS M5 has are absent, but I prefer the position of the mode dial and power switch on the M50; the dial around the shutter button feels less gritty than my M5's and it is able to jump through playback images, which wasn't a function it had on the M5 (that was for the rear multicontroller dial, absent on the M50). I like that the M50 has simple, metal strap loops (no rattling, and the M5's Samsung-inspired ones often accidentally unfasten for me - probably due to some stupidity of my own handling style - which may yet result in disaster!).
I guess most of the above is pretty apparent from scrutinising reviews and photos etc. of the M50. Now onto the less obvious stuff. Admission: I’m not a video shooter, so I haven’t explored that aspect yet.
The EVF is as sharp as the M5’s, and the same size (with the same optional smaller format). Whilst the LCD image is a shade smaller (3 inches vs 3.2 inches), it’s not obvious. The slightly lower resolution of the monitor can be seen if you scrutinise the text for dots, but actually it is bolder and clearer – the M5’s text seems slightly soft by comparison. Interestingly, when shooting and when reviewing images, the two displays in the M50 ARE visually well-matched and seem fine – to me, the M5’s EVF is over-saturated and the LCD seems washed out. No such issues on the M50.
The Digic 8 processor seems to have brought with it a redesign of the user interface – not so much the Guided one, which the M5 didn’t have anyway, but the standard menus have been considerably reordered. Items are very often on different sub-pages of the categories than in the M5, and sometimes in different categories altogether. The Playback menu is permanently available, rather than only appearing when in playback mode. Whether the changes are beneficial or not, I've yet to decide, but often the wording of the feature does seem to be more clearly understandable - such as how the shutter release button will behave, regarding AE Lock and AF activation, for example.
Being a lower-end model, the M50 does lose some features, but not very many, really. It doesn’t have the night mode red-on-black displays, for example. You cannot configure the asterisk and focus point buttons to act as magnify/demagnify buttons in instant review as you can on the M5 (though many users may not have realised, or even done that), but they automatically take on these functions in proper playback. The end result is that if you did this customisation in the M5, you could use these buttons to zoom and move about in the instant review of a shot, whereas on the M50 you’ll be instantly dumped back to shooting mode, as on an EOS DSLR. Touch navigation is available in instant review though (as on the M5).
I am very happy to see that the metering timer is back (last seen on the M2 – I don’t know whether the M10 or M100 got it back?) – the M50 will now meter "live" in single AF mode for as long as you choose, rather than refusing to show any camera-selected exposure figures unless you half-press and thus lock the exposure, which I didn't like and happened on the M3 and the M5. I really value this as it’s my preferred way of using a camera – YMMV.
The layout of the graphics on the shooting screens are subtly different, compared with the M5. The level gauge is larger. The single frame AF target (still available in normal and small) is now a square, rather than a horizontal rectangle. Because there are more of them, the (still horizontal rectangular) multiple AF mode targets are smaller, with more coverage of the image, even with the 15-45, which is not one of the lenses which benefits from the largest increase in their number.
The shutter sounds the same, more or less, as the M5. However, there is now a true silent shutter mode, albeit only a scene mode – so it’s a less flexible mode when it comes to configuration tweaks and is program-only. Would have been nice to have it available in P, Tv, Av and M modes - this is a limitation similar to on the Olympus E-M10 Mark III and equally annoying (to me) - but at least here it's a feature the range didn't even have before, whereas the Olympus did this when silent shutter had been available in any mode on its predecessor. Nevertheless, silent shutter works as expected (no flash allowed, as with many brands). Rather helpfully – nobody else has done this, to my knowledge – it visually signals that the shot has been taken by momentarily illuminating a fine grey border around the image display on the LCD and EVF at the moment of exposure. Great idea! I’ll have to wait until after dark to estimate the scan time based on the number of bars caused by the silent shutter under LED light.
That’s it so far – any questions, please ask and I will check.
