Upgrade from Rebel To Mirrorless: Advice

[e_scotty]

Hello there!

My name is Erica and I do photography mostly as a hobby. I have had my Rebel for almost 8 years now, It is my baby. However, it is time for an up grade. I do mostly portraits and nature fine art photography. I don't want to spend over $1,000 or so - but I do want to upgrade to mirrorless. I have been having the hardest time figuring out which camera is best for me. Here are the top few I am thinking of: 

- EOS M50, Mark II, Mirrorless (I tried this one in the store and it felt so small! I think I would rather a full frame)

- EOS RP Mirrorless 

Or another one?? I want to be able to enlarge my prints quite a bit. I attached some photos of my photography style for reference. Any help would be HUGGGEEEELY appreciated. I have spent months trying to figure it out and haven't gotten that far!!! 

P.S. I also love using my 85mm. So I will prob get a similar lens 🙂 

[e_scotty]

Now that the R50 is out - what are your thoughts on this? Would love to hear. Eager to perhaps purchase the R50!

[e_scotty]

I love this reply!  I have a have a EF-s 18-55mm and a EF 75-300mm. The later is my favorite...

I have the Rebel t3i. So a bit older than 8 years, I guess! I want to upgrade because I am looking for higher quality and the ability to enlarge photos. It would be great to have the wifi capability too. 

Thank you so much for your thoughtful recommendation. The R sounds like the way to go! Do you have any thought on R50 vs. R10 vs. RP? Looking forward to your response! 🙌

[e_scotty]

Another thing to add is that I really like the weight and technical feel of the camera. I didn't like the M50 because it felt like an old digital point and click. It sounds like the R50 is like that too?? 

Not sure how you all decide on cameras so easily! There is a lot that goes into it. SO appreciate everyones help so far!!

[krahe]

The R50 looks very good, and closes a bit of the gap that existed between the M50 and R10, which wasn't that big of a gap to begin with. It sounds like the advantages of the R10 over the R50 will be appreciated more by people who are looking to exercise more control over shooting parameters rather than going with auto modes as many newbies do - i.e. it has more buttons and wheels than the R50. As an M50 user who appreciates compact gear, my only concern about the R50 is the possibility that there may never be as many RF-S lenses as there are EF-M lenses, at least from Canon, and that's acknowledging the limited number of EF-M lenses they ever produced. Sharing a mount with full frame cameras can be both a positive and a negative. For instance, one of my favorite lenses is the EF-M 22mm f/2, which is so thin I can practically put the whole camera in a pocket with it mounted. Canon is reportedly working on a version of that lens for the RF mount, but it will likely be a larger RF version rather than RF-S. Given that the R50 itself is already a centimeter thicker than the M50, you probably won't find too many pockets able to take the R50 with an RF lens. Crop sensor R camera users may not have a lot of clout when it comes to getting RF-S lenses. Canon is probably often going to say, "Just use the RF version." A related concern is that Canon is not currently permitting third parties to make auto-focus lenses for the RF mount. Will they ever? I don't know.

[krahe]

You might learn something from my journey. I only got my M50 nine months ago. It's my first IL camera, and I got it because I was planning to take a big road trip to the western U.S. during the summer and I knew a cell phone camera was not going to do justice to the sights I was hoping to see. I originally thought I wanted a T7, because that's the one I had heard the most about over the past few years. However, I quickly discovered that it's based on some pretty old technology (DIGIC 4), and decided that if I was going to spend that kind of money I wanted something more up to date. I started looking at the SL3 and T8i, and was almost ready to pull the trigger on one of those when I discovered mirrorless cameras. After learning about the differences between a DSLR and mirrorless, I decided there were things about DSLRs that I couldn't live with, mainly the fact that they use a different auto-focus mechanism when shooting with the viewfinder vs. the live view screen. (I want the best auto-focus mechanism available no matter how I'm using the camera!) That's when I found the M50. I looked at other brands, including Panasonic, Fuji and Sony, but decided that the M50 gave me the best value and was the most capable of the modern cameras that I could afford (I really didn't want a design that was more than 3 or 4 years old). The R10 and R7 were announced about the time I got my M50, but it wouldn't have mattered even if they were already available, as they were too expensive to have popped up on my radar screen. If I were to start the process today, I would have found the R50, and likely would go with it over the M50, though I wouldn't have comprehended the concerns I have about lenses for the R50 that I described in my earlier comment above.

[rs-eos]

There's definitely something to be said about having a larger/heavier camera.  The R50 is virtually the same size as the M50 (just 1 cm deeper).   For video, having extra weight is nice to help out with stability when hand-holding.  I believe for photo work, extra weight can also lead towards a bit more stability.