A few questions.

[Kohaku]

Hey, I'm an amateur photographer with a few questions. I bought a Canon Powershot SX50 almost a year ago now, and I love it, especially the Zoom, but I'm really debating the Canon EOS Rebel T6 as a step up, especially since it's on sale at a few places where I live. I just have a few questions.

Can I use the same battery for my old Canon Powershot SX50 in the T Rebel?

What's the zoom like in comparison? Can I get up close and personal to the moon?

I mostly take scenery, landscape and astrophotography or photos of the moon in general. Would the T Rebel be a better camera for this?

[ScottyP]

Rebel cameras take you into the world of Interchangeable Lens Cameras. The camera is just a body. You have to buy lenses for it.  Good lenses can be very expensive but there are bargains out there. 

As as for getting really close to the moon, the kind of lens that would take would be very very expensive. The superzoom compact cameras like yours are the cheaper way to go.  With their tiny sensors they can give a very high telephoto with a very inexpensive built in lens. 

[ScottyP]

And no, the battery wouldn't be interchangeable.  

What at the Rebel gives you is a larger sensor, which together with the ability to use bright/fast lenses translates into much better performance in low light.  I had a superzoom a while back and I know its image quality suffered in low light.  The problem is digital noise and grain and an inability to get an acceptable image of anything moving indoors due to the tradeoff of a high ISO required to get a decent shutter speed without that large lens aperture to help you. 

Google a couple of short free video tutorials on "The exposure triangle" and watch them. The triangle is the whole central concept of photography, and for understanding your superzoom's limitations.  It explains the tradeoff you pay in low light when you don't have a lens that can open up to a large aperture, and when you instead have to increase ISO to compensate for it.

[ebiggs1]

The Canon Powershot SX50 has a built in zoom lens that has am optical zoom and a digital zoom.  The digital zoom is a software added 4x power.  It is really undesirable, IMHO.  All Rebels will not have that feature.  As you move up the camera offerings you get more and more professional models.  The more professional models will have less and less novice user features.  My 1DX for instance has no 'auto' control mode.

All cameras in this class will require separate lenses.  The type you select should be the one that suits your current requirement.  They come with no built in zoom or digital zoom effects.

"Can I get up close and personal to the moon?"

With a Rebel T6 you will need a lens in the 600mm range to, "... get up close and personal to the moon."

[RobertTheFat]

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@ebiggs1wrote:

The Canon Powershot SX50 has a built in zoom lens that has am optical zoom and a digital zoom.  The digital zoom is a software added 4x power.  It is really undesirable, IMHO.  All Rebels will not have that feature.  As you move up the camera offerings you get more and more professional models.  The more professional models will have less and less novice user features.  My 1DX for instance has no 'auto' control mode. ...

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But I'll bet it has a "P" mode, which is, for all practical purposes, the same thing.

[ebiggs1]

Robert even you know better than that.  It has a P mode but that is not the same as Auto.  P allows several individual settings where Auto does not.  Refresher in case you forgot.

BTW, P stands for "Professional" !