M5 vs. Black Friday M50?

Feigerou wrote:

Hi everyone! Looking for some advice here....

I've been a Canon DSLR user for quite some time, as an advanced amateur that plays around with the idea of making money with this photography stuff while mostly just taking great pictures of my family. I upgraded from an older Rebel XS to the M5 later last year - and it was a HUGE upgrade in almost every way. I don't really do much at all with video - heck it wasn't even an option on my old Rebel. There's some things I've really enjoyed about the M5 and some things that have surprised and frustrated me about the M5 -

The good -

• Multiple control dials

With the M50 you can set up a button to toggle between the functions of that single dial. Not as good as more dials, but way better than having to use the menus.

• C1 and C2 settings on the PASM mode dial
• MUCH more customization options compared to the Rebel (which was nearly zero)

The bad -

• Less ability to pinpoint where you want to focus unless you switch over to One Spot AF. I typically use Servo with back button AF to keep up with things that just won't stay in one spot (!).

The difference between the size of the smallest single AF-point is huge. The smallest single AF point of the M50 is only 1/4th the size of the surface of the smallest single AF point of the M5.

With the M50 it's easy to focus on an eye with that smallest AF point (which is usefull, because eye AF isn't that great with faces turned half away from you.)

• The extreme shutter lag - sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not! A surprise coming from a Rebel

Overall the move to mirrorless has been great, and the 'bad' side of the M5 makes me happier I didn't try to move over with earlier generations of M's. Those couple of negatives have had me wondering about other bodies that would help there without sacrificing the positives. Really, if that M5II would show up that's basically an M6II with an EVF and IBIS I'd be all over it. But.... since Canon is Canon,

Yup......

I've got another question for this group -

How big is the M50 improvement over the M5 in my two 'bad' feedback areas? My thought is that if it's a large improvement, I may look to get a cheap M50 on Black Friday / Cyber Monday and sell the M5. With the M50II it's possible I could do that at basically no cost. But if the M50 is a smaller improvement in those areas, I may just stick with the M5's extra control dials and C1/C2 settings until the next higher level M camera comes out. (Someday...?)

Thoughts?

I've used the M100 with the sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 which has the same AF system as the M5. I also used that lens with the M50. To my eye the difference between those AF systems is huge when shooting people. For landscapes it doesn't matter so much.

If you want to shoot people with relatively bright aperture lenses,  go M50mkII or M6mkII. I would get the M50mkII over the mkI, as the eye AF works better with smaller eyes in the frame. That could be nice with your f/2.8 Macro, but also with your f/2.8 zoom at the longest end.

Another advice: if you want to turn your macro lens into a better portrait lens you could consider to get a Viltrox 0.71 speedbooster. This turns you macro into a stabilized 70mm f/2.0 lens.