EOS M50 Mark II Focus Help & Dark Eyes

[jlc517]

I just recently purchased a Canon M50 Mark II and could really use some tips. I love photography, and wanted to purchase a camera to take photos of my babies, rather than just use my iPhone. I am a beginner though, so I am having difficult with focusing. It seems the photos never look crisp, especially when taken indoors. I’m experimenting with settings, rather than using the auto mode 

Also, it seems that everyone’s eyes always look black. Half my family has blue eyes, and they always look black. Do you know what I could be doing wrong?

I really appreciate all of the advice you can provide! Thank you so much! 

[jlc517]

Thank you for your advice, and letting me know.  Ugh...that is frustrating news, since I bought the camera earlier this year, and can't return it.  😞  I always seem to pick the items that get discontinued. 

[krahe]

A close-up shot should reveal eye color if you have enough light. As for focus, make sure you have Touch & Drag enabled. That lets you touch the screen to indicate what you want to focus on. The M50 will also take cues from that point to adjust exposure. This even works when you're taking a shot using the viewfinder, which is my normal mode for most shots (i.e. looking through the viewfinder, touching the screen to indicate the focus point).

[jlc517]

Great tip!  Thank you so much!  

[rs-eos]

Regarding images with eye (iris) color.  The following conditions will lead to not seeing much or any iris color:

• Eyes are too small within the overall frame.
• Eyes are within shadow (e.g. strong light source directly above; aka racoon eyes)
• Subjects are squinting.  Try to re-position them so that the sun is now to their backs.
• You're in a dimly lit area (pupils will dilate more and you'll have less "iris real-estate").  While it may seem that flash/strobes could help, since they are only on for a brief moment, the change to the eyes will last long enough.  Using a continuous light source is better in this situation if maximizing iris real-estate is desired.

[jlc517]

Thank you!  From all of the replies, it seems that more light will definitely be helpful.  

[ebiggs1]

"...  it seems that more light will definitely be helpful."

See you are learning already. At this point advising you to return the gear isn't helpful. You need to learn how to use and use the gear you have. It is always better to use what you have opposed to what you wish you had. The M50 Mk II is a capable camera, not one I would have chosen perhaps, but it is what you have. Remember basically any camera is just a storage device. It is the lens and the editor that you use that makes or breaks a great photo.

Do get DPP4 first off and explore its abilities there are tutorials all over the place. You can do as easy as you want or drive in as deeply as you want. You already u/l to a computer, DPP4 will do that and automatically convert the Raw images to viewable photos. Because the second most important part is to use Raw format and not jpeg. A faster constant aperture lens would be nice especially if you do a lot of indoor low light photos. Best to shoot in good light though as nothing replaces good lighting.

Think about this, all the great photos that you see and admire in print or media or video go through post editing. In addition Raw is the full total ability of the camera to capture an image. When you use jpeg the camera decides what you want and deletes the rest to never be used or recovered. In DPP4 you decide by looking at the image what you want the image to be.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

Sorry for being the bearer of not-so-great news.  I wasn't aware of your timeline.  The M series was a nice line.  Practical and capable.  Its just limited now due to its discontinuation and lens availability.  There are only 6-7 lenses for it available.  I think there was a total of 9 at one point. Unfortunately, EF-M lenses cannot be adapted to other mirrorless bodies so they will only work with the M and if you upgrade your body which we all do, its lenses will not be unusable. 

Something to think about in the long run.  Your lenses are the real investment in photography.  Body's will come and go.  If done with forethought, the lenses you can buy today might move a head with you as you upgrade.  It might be 2 yrs from now or even 4.  However, not with the EF-M platform.  I felt this was worth mentioning for the longer term. 

As far as getting better shots,  you've already received a bunch of really great advice.  These gentlemen are seasoned pros with a huge amount of experience under their belts.  There is really nothing I can add that hasn't been mentioned or that you won't figure out the more time you spend using your camera.

The 15-45mm kit lens included with the M50 mkII is a nice all purpose lens.  Does ok for wider angle and casual daytime photography.  There just isn't one lens that does everything, and as you spend more time taking pictures, you'll come to appreciate what different lenses can do for you.       

[krahe]

Actually, there is no adapter that lets you use RF lenses on an M body/EF-M mount, nor could there be, because the portion of an RF/RF-S lens that extends inside the flange (to hold the lens in place) would collide with the M body. So the only lenses that you can get for an M50 that are portable to other mounts are EF and EF-S lenses. I have a couple of those myself, though not for that reason - I just like the lenses. I don't have any reservations about investing in EF-M lenses, though. In fact, I've been trying to obtain the ones I didn't have initially that I think I might want before they become hard to get. (I only expect to upgrade my camera body perhaps once every 10-15 years, so having lenses that aren't portable to a future body I may obtain isn't that much of a concern.)

[shadowsports]

Kevin,

You are right.  I mis-spoke.  Let me correct that.  This was all in line with why I suggested going in another direction.  Then I learned her purchase timeline would make that impossible.  

Your 10-15 yr upgrade plan doesn't work for me.  The amount of changes that occur in as little as 5 yrs is typically huge.  I don't need to have the latest greatest, but could not wait that long between upgrades.  Computer, camera, mobile device, etc.   😄

Thank you for correcting me.  👍

[krahe]

I actually went 20 years between my last purchase of a high-end camera (high end as far as a typical consumer is concerned, anyway) and when I got my M50, though for the last 5 or 6 years of that period I relied on cell phone cameras rather than the Olympus C-3040Zoom I bought in 2002. I like to take nice photos, but at most photography is an occasional hobby for me rather than anything approaching a professional endeavor. At my level I just can't justify such a big purchase until what I've got starts to come up way short of current expectations or there are practical reasons to replace it (e.g. the scarcity of SmartMedia cards for the Olympus, which still works fine and takes very good photos in decent light).