Nikon D50 - Perfect for the Serious Amateur

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great feel, layout, function controls, smart camera.

Cons: NONE...no kidding!

The Bottom Line: 
Buy it if you want good, solid Nikon quality.

Author's Review
Okay, let's do some soul-searching at the front end. If you're looking for a pro digital, stay with the larger formats, not the digital replacements for 35mm film cameras. However, if you are a serious amateur, the Nikon D50 is perfect. I've used Bronica and Minolta large formats as main studio and field cameras and always had a Nikon 35mm as backup which I usually used for half the shots anyway. Now that I'm just a simple amateur folk, the D50 is wonderful. I've been using my Konica Dimage X (2M pixels)for the past couple of years and finally decided to move up in the world. The D50 is very similar in form, function and size to my old 1989 Nikon 8008 which is still working perfectly, thank you, as is my much older F. It handles well, feels good on the grip, nice view finder, easy to change modes and has a fairly quick shutter release. Not as noisy as I thought it would be, but still audible. But you gotta watch out for the digital nuances. Everything is not as seamless as they say it is. Yes, it's true that you can use all the lenses made by Nikon over the past 30 or so years with or without AF. I just tried my Nikon AF leneses and they all work well. Problem is that the image field of digital cameras is somewhat different that those of film cameras....by a factor of 1.5. This means that your old SLR film 28mm-XXXmm or whatever wide angle zoom lens appears as a 52mm lens on the D50. This is generic to all digital cameras. So, step up to the plate and buy the 18mm zoom lens for the D50...you have no choice if you want a wide angle zoom. My older AF Sigma and Tamron lenses work well on the D50. Using older flashes is a challenge. My older Nikon SB-23 works with the D50, but I have to switch the flash to M rather that TTL (it says so in the D50 manual). However, I'm still playing around with getting my older Sunpack Auto 555 handle flash (good for over 100 feet!) to work with my Nikon NE-2D adaptor which attaches to the flash shoe to provide auto operation of the powerful flash head. I may have to break my code and call Nikon. As for you younger pups out there, the older Nikons could be used to pound nails into trees in the field. I don't think the newer digitals could do the same, but the D50 feels pretty solid. A potential problem is that the LCD screen could be scratched or cracked or wacked sending the camera back to Nikon for an interesting fee. I think you can buy a protective cover for the LCD. The only negative I can think of is that the monitor LCD doesn't monitor what shows in the viewfinder as a non-SLR shows. It only displays what is seen after the mirror comes up to capture the image...true SLR feature. This feature would be great! I just don't know if it's possible. I'm glad that I bought the camera. Easy to use, lots of variations, good price. As a matter of fact, it is the same price I paid for my old 8008 a few years back. Also, buy the 1GB SD chip for the camera. At small and basic you get 3,000 shots! And keep your stress level to a minimum and buy it from an established house, not the lowest priced joint on the screen. I got mine from Crutchfield and they deducted an extra $40 to bring the price closer to the other houses. I've bought a lot of audio stuff from them and never have been disappointed. Ordered the D50 on Tue, overnited it and had it in my hands Wed the day day noon time. Doesn't get better than that.