Canon EOS R50V Review: A Pocket-Friendly 4K Camera For Content Creators

Content creation is fun until you decide to pick up a camera. Amongst all the technical specifications and jargons, switching between various modes, taking care of ISO and aperture - yeah, it can get chaotic. That's why most creators start their journey with a phone camera. There is also a belief that phone cameras are now as good as professional cameras. While this stays true in most scenarios, a good professional camera can definitely improve your content. It can also offer quality that most smartphones would fail to match. Oh, and more love to them if they are in a compact form factor, because travelling with such equipment is a headache, believe me. This is where cameras such as Canon EOS R50V comes into the play - a slightly video oriented

version of Canon EOS R50V (that explain “V” in it’s name), that came out about 2 years ago.It has a 24.2-megapixel APS-C sensor with a RF lens mount and 10-bit 4K 60p recording, all in a package that’s easy to carry in a backpack. I’ve used it for a month, across a lot of indoor and outdoor shoots, and I have a few thoughts about it. Content creators, make sure you give it a good read if you’re planning to buy a reliable camera at Rs 74,499.

Canon EOS R50V Review - Specifications

Before I share what my experience with the Canon EOS R50V was, let me tell you what specification it packs. Sensor resolution - 24.2-megapixel APS-C CMOSVideo - 4K@60fps, 1080@120fps, 10-bit video, supports Canon Log 3Body - Alloy body with tripod mount on sideDisplay - 3-inch articulating screenConnectivity - USB Type-C, external microphone input, HDMI microImage formats - JPEG, HEIF, RAW, C-RAWProvided kit lens - RF-S 14-30mm with power zoomBy now, I’m guessing you’re aware that this camera is video focused and on that front, it delivers. It can shoot un-cropped and oversampled 4K video at 30fps meaning it takes a 6K sensor readout and downsamples it to a high-quality 4K file. This as a results provides sharp, detailed, and clean footage. This is great especially if you look at the price, where almost all the cameras offer a cropped 4K or lower quality video. There’s support for 10-bit colour and Canon Log 3 that is a flat video picture profile with a very high dynamic range and it was very beneficial to video editors in adjusting colours in post.

Canon EOS R50V review: Design and display

The Canon EOS R50V is a typical mirrorless DSLR camera that is compact enough to be carried anywhere. But the reason I’m writing this section is because of addition of record button, right along the lens. This makes filming very easy as if you’re somebody who shoots alone, and struggles to find the recording button in order to start the recording - which a lot of times shakes the camera/framing if the tripod isn’t stable, resulting in a ruined shot. So you can just press record, roll your shot and voila. It’s one of those things that you realise makes a lot of sense once you have access to it.

Rest, to help creators who prefer to shoot in a vertical format for Reels and YouTube Shorts, there’s a mount on side on the left. This can be super useful you can position your camera accordingly and do not have to shoot in landscape in 4K and then later convert it to 9:16 ratio in edit. This also saves a lot of money that you would have to spend in an external cage that houses side mount. Another one of those feature that makes a lot of sense after you start using it.There’s a 3-inch screen that can be fully articulated front and back. If you’re a solo filmmaker/creator, I need not to tell you the hassle of constantly checking your frame, focus and other functions such as battery levels while shooting. Well, that’s not a problem there. The display is certainly not the brightest, but it can do the job.

Canon EOS R50V review: Image and video quality

After using the Canon EOS R50V for about a month, here’s what I think about its output. The images shot on it are sharp, highlight roll-off is quite good given the size and price of the product. There’s option to shoot RAW + JPEG, allowing professional’s to mess around in post. Speaking of autofocus, in my usage of about 20 days, not even once I felt that autofocus should’ve been better or had a footage with poor focus when it was set to auto. Speaking of colours and picture, the Canon EOS R50V delivers pleasing colours with mostly natural looking skin tones and general colour rendering. This can be helpful if you don’t want heavy post-processing. Highlight roll-off is manageable and the shadows and mid tones also land fairly well in decent light. Even if you don’t want to shoot in log, the overall colour science of default JPEG and video colours is still pretty good. Tweak the highlights and shadows a little, and you’re good to go for YouTube and Instagram. There is no in-body image stabilisation, meaning you’ll have to entirely depend on lens-based optical image stabilisation. If you’re using lens with IS, you can easily pull off handheld shoots and long exposure shots, but can definitely feel limitation if you’re using a non-stabilised lens. There’s a noticeable about of jello, so I won’t call it the most ideal one for the job of capturing fast moving objects.

Canon EOS R50V - Should you buy it?

Now that you’re aware of the entire thing, let me wrap things up.

Who should buy Canon EOS R50V? If your primary focus is video / content creation (vlogs, social media, talking-head videos for YouTube etc.), and you want a lightweight, capable mirrorless setup with good autofocus, colour, and video options.Who should look at alternatives? If you shoot a lot of stills, especially in challenging lighting, or need very fast lenses, or want wide-angle without crop, or rely on IBIS, this camera may feel limiting. Also, if are habitual to having a viewfinder for precise framing, you’re gonna have to look a the other options.I would call Canon EOS R50V a very strong step in a direction of affordable content-creation mirrorless cameras. Overall it delivers very good video and image quality, has a fast and reliable autofocus, and a compact, creator-friendly set of features. That said, it makes compromises in terms of stabilisation, viewfinder, etc.), so whether it’s the right pick depends on your priorities. As for me, for the price of Rs 74,499, I’m very much impressed with Canon EOS R50V.