Canon EOS 50E is the camera I use most of the time now. Keeping in mind the crucial fact that, as I mentioned in the introduction to this section, a camera is just a 'mere tool', EOS 50E is loaded with more functions than necessary. Besides what is standard in middle and high-end modern cameras (a number of exposure programs, mirror pre-lock, depth-of-field preview, second curtain synch, and many many others), it has a number of more or less useful 'custom functions' and... look for details somewhere else.  Generally, it is a camera that can satisfy everybody, whether you are just starting your adventure with photography or consider yourself a professional photographer. Indeed, I met a number of professionals who use it as a second body or even main camera. If you do not work on Formula 1 races, it is fast enough (well..., almost), it certainly gives you enough control (under- and over-exposure, both in the natural and flash light; automatic autobracketing; eye-controlled three autofocus points; matrix, partial and center-weighed metering; high-speed flash synch, etc.). Autofocus belongs to the best I have ever used. With good USM lens you can barely hear it, and it is next to impossible to find a subject or lighting conditions that would fool the autofocus. Thanks to near-IR assist light the camera can focus easily even on completely white subjects without any structure. In most circumstances it will even focus on plain, almost completely black subjects! It gets a bit worse with dark lenses with maximum apertures around 5.6, but that is not surprising and common for all AF cameras. 

The camera handles different existing-light conditions correctly under MOST circumstances. Unfortunately, like its predecessor, EOS 100, flash pictures tend towards underexposure, and in macrophotography it gets a SORT of rule. With my Canon, photographing at around 1:2 to 1:1 ratio always requires at least +0.5 flash compensation for medium-gray subjects. Even when photographing very dark subjects, such as, e.g., dark-brown beetles or almost black butterflies, the best results are usually obtained around no compensation or -0.5 at the most. What is the worst, the results are generally not very consistent and this is probably my major complaint about this model.

However my greatest surprise was the film transport: what was absolutely perfect in EOS 100 - the VERY quiet and reasonably fast film transport (ca. 3 fps), was almost ruined in EOS 50E. The films transport is slower (around 2 fps) and so significantly more noisy that I was convinced that the camera I bought was damaged! I learned later that this is characteristic for this model! Dear Canon engineers - I will be very glad if you let me know why did you make worse what was good?!

The end of complaints? It would be the case until last July, when I went for a trip to Africa. The African experience was, however, a special story. As I climbed mountains, hiked long miles across the country (it was Kenya - for those more interested), and generally traveled a lot, I limited the camera equipment to one reasonably 'small' photographic bag, which was used to ride on the top of my huge backpack under the top cover. Unfortunately, it happened once that when trying to throw that bloody-awfully-heavy backpack, the camera bag slipped-out from under the  top cover and felt to the ground. The fall was rather mild and from not very large height (that is not from the top of mine almost 2 m). Still it was enough to break the lock of my camera back. OK - things happen, I thought. Be more careful next time! However, when I disassembled the camera at the nearest hotel (hoping to fix the lock somehow), I have got furious: the lock is a tiny, single piece of plastic that, when you look at it, is hard to believe it does not break itself every time you lock or unlock the camera! Russian Zeniths as well as my tiny idiot-camera, Olympus mju II, both have not only much more sturdy but also double locks! Wow, that really drove me crazy - I was close to throwing my camera away to the lake I was just passing by! No need to mention that there was no way to fix the camera before returning to Poland. In Kenya I ended up with a camera wrapped with a Band-Aid bought in the nearest drugstore! Imagine yourself how comfortable it was to change a film; especially on safari! Still, it worked and saved me from finishing the trip without making any more pictures (OK, we had another body and that fantastic idiot-camera, but...).

If I did not know there is no an 'ideal camera' on the market, I would probably change my EOS 50E to somewhat sturdier after that accident. But I know that other Canons have the same problem (possibly except EOS 1 - I hope!), and Nikons, Minoltas, Pentaxes have their own flaws. The Canon system, on the other hand, has some of the nicest features I have ever seen, especially appealing to nature and travel photographers like me. The image stabilizing system in some of their modern lenses is just amazing and no other company offers that. Their eye control if fun and useful sometimes. They are probably most ergonomic cameras ever made. And I have a lot of equipment already... So. I will probably stick to Canon for the coming years and will simply carry a piece of duct tape and a screwdriver with me all the times. Annoying? Certainly, but is there any other choice (at least in this price range)?