Canon M50 review: A pocket monster for on-the-go photographer in you

The fourth camera of Canon's M-series has a smaller form factor, making it a great companion for street photography

Compact mirrorless cameras are significantly lighter. And Canon's latest cropped-sensor mirrorless camera, the EOS M50, competes for the top spot.

The EOS M50 features a 24.1 megapixel (MP) APS-C CMOS cropped sensor and is also the first Canon camera to come with a DIGIC 8 processor. The image output is impressive, to say the least. In bright daylight, the output had end-to-end detailing with a good dynamic range and decent colour reproduction. The lowlight photography is also impressive. The M50 is remarkable with its considerable image detailing across ISO sensitivity of 100-25,600 (extended to 51,200). While there is considerable noise in high ISOs, the output was incredible. The new processor enables the camera to shoot 4K (at up to 24fps), a feature that was, astonishingly enough, missing in Canon’s mid-range cameras. You can also shoot 4k timelapses and pull out 8 MP stills from the footage.

The dual-pixel autofocus (PDAF) with 143 focus points is good, but it does not work while shooting 4K and is restricted to 1080p. While handheld shots were stabilised, the 5-axis image stabilisation faltered when taking moving shots. Panasonic mirrorless cameras do it better.

Although Canon already has a line-up of 7 EF-M lenses, the EF-M adapter is a saviour for people with older Canon lenses. I would have loved to see the EF-M adapter bundled with the device, but competitive pricing means that one has to spend an additional Rs 8,000. The M50 has moved to the CR3 14-bit raw file format, which creates full-resolution raw files half the size of standard raw files. While the storage optimisation is a smart move, the tiny 875mAh capacity manages to produce a maximum of 250 shots that left me wanting more.

Overall, the Canon M50 is a fun, user-friendly device that offers great image quality and 4K video recording. Priced at Rs 55,990, the camera gives serious competition to the Panasonic G7 and Sony A6000.