Nikon D50

...suggest a visit to the Nikon website. My review is a personal one - from a camera users point of view.

I am writing this particular review in response to the rather lacklustre offerings that I have read about this particular camera. I really was hoping that my favourite review sites would point me in the correct direction over the choice of my first D-SLR - Digital Single Lens Reflex camera, but sadly, no, that did not turn out to ...
...not actually even handled a Nikon D50!

I am no expert photographer, I can take as good a shot as the next person, having read quite a lot about the subject, maybe my framing techniques are better than average though. As with many other things in life I am a highly critical judge when it comes to a photograph, I know what makes a good shot and what does not.

Nine times out of ten, the cost and make of the camera and ... more

FOR: Brilliant Photographs. Quicker witted than I am! Excellent Value For Money.

AGAINST: Very Complex Controls. Not a camera for beginners.

This is NOT a technical review, if you need all the techie details I suggest a visit to the Nikon website. My review is a personal one - from a camera users point of view.

I am writing this particular review in response to the rather lacklustre offerings that I have read about this particular camera. I really was hoping that my favourite review sites would point me in the correct direction over the choice of my first D-SLR - Digital Single Lens Reflex camera, but sadly, no, that did not turn out to be the case.

Without the aid of up to date consumer reviews, just how did I end up investing in this particular piece of kit? Well, several factors came into play; price, reputation, previous experience and a stack of magazine articles, the latter of which in a sense proved about as useful as the consumer reviews published by existing owners - some of whom I rapidly became convinced had not actually even handled a Nikon D50!

I am no expert photographer, I can take as good a shot as the next person, having read quite a lot about the subject, maybe my framing techniques are better than average though. As with many other things in life I am a highly critical judge when it comes to a photograph, I know what makes a good shot and what does not.

Nine times out of ten, the cost and make of the camera and lens have little importance on the quality or beauty of the actual photograph. Two things are more important in photography, the eye of the photographer - his or her skill at taking a good shot, and the subject matter being shot - although in some cases it may well be possible for a good photographer to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. Two friends of mine, an elderly gentleman with ALL the gear, fancy Cannon SLR and multiple lens kit, another a lady with a small compact Canon Sureshot. The lady had an "eye" for a photograph, the gentleman did not - her little £70 camera gave excellent results 95% of the time - maybe one in 100 of his pictures were of acceptable quality.

RICHADA rambling off topic as usual? Well, humour me if you will……

……My wife and I were late entrants into the field of Digital photography, but having so many friends and family abroad, found the whole concept irresistible in the end. At Easter 2005 we purchased our first digital camera - almost on impulse - a Sony Cybershot P100, yes a compact, the first one of those that I had owned since I was 13 years old! By default, it turned out to be an absolutely superb choice, over the last twelve months we have taken around 3,000 pictures on that camera, many of which you have seen published at the bottom of these articles.

A problem soon reared its head though, I very rarely got my hands on the little Sony, it lived in Mrs R's handbag and my skills as a photographer started to go rusty…….

……then, on New Years Day, I broke my ankle. Having finally arrived back in England, I discovered that I had a lot of time to kill, being off work for a prolonged period, I sat at this computer almost all day every day. For whatever reason, my mind kept returning to photography. My father, always a keen amateur photographer, was also popping in from time to time with a supply of camera magazines for me to look at.

Having decided that I really wanted to get my hands on a "proper" camera i.e. an SLR, with which you see and frame pictures through the lens - much better for proper framing - with the added benefit of interchangeable lenses, I set about reading up on them.

In realistic terms, partly due to budget, it came down to a straight Canon / Nikon choice. I had previous experience with both and in terms of image viewed Nikon as a "quality workhorse" and Canon as a more "modern and innovative" manufacturer. I had never had a problem with my Nikon SLR kit, whereas my two Canon camcorders, whilst excellent in service had both terminally broken down, rather sooner than I would have expected them to have done.

Now came the puzzling bit, the magazines all came down heavily in favour of one OR the other. Commenting on this to my father, an existing Nikon D70 owner, he remarked that there was a tradition of this, that certain magazines were partisan in just favouring certain manufacturers' products, not totally helpful from the consumer's point of view.

The headline specifications do not really do the Nikon justice; most people seem to judge a digital camera purely by the number of pixels that it packs in. The D50 has a resolution of 6 megapixels, its' closest Canon competitor 8. However, comparative tests between the two actually demonstrated the falsity of merely going for the camera with the highest pixel rating. The light metering sensor, white balance controls and the focusing system all have a major bearing on the end result and the fact is that all things considered, in the hands of a professional, the Nikon produced the better resolved pictures.

I looked in my camera bag and saw all those Nikon fitting lenses, remembered just how old the camera itself was - at least 20 years and resolved to go to Jessops and "play" with a D50 at the first opportunity.

After handling my father's, considerably more expensive, D70 when he first bought it around eighteen months ago, I was aware that these new digital Nikons did not share the considerable weight and "hewn from granite" build quality of my original 35mm Nikon film camera. Unlike, I suspect, the majority of you, I actually prefer a larger, heavier camera and have always felt that the pictures are crisper - especially in low light conditions at slow shutter speeds where camera shake becomes inevitable no matter how steady a hand you have.

Three things struck me when I actually first picked up the D50 in Jessops. Firstly that it still carries a fair weight - 851g compared to the Sony's lightweight 183g - secondly that the camera itself appeared to be extraordinarily well built. You may notice that I was very specific there - I agree with many articles that I have read in that the standard "kit" lens, a Nikon DX branded 18-55mm zoom, is nowhere near the quality of the camera body. But that is jumping the gun. Lastly, and obviously this is rather subjective, the D50 has a lovely feel to the touch, mine is the crackled black version, but even the silver one has soft rubberised contact points where your hands find a natural holding position. I think that it may well have been this last, and rather seductive, quality that actually sold this camera to me!

The canon, by comparison, felt lighter, was noticeably smaller - it is an incredibly compact SLR, however it just did not suit the shape of my hand and fingers. For me, in terms of both handling and ergonomics, on the day the Nikon was the preferable choice.

In early March when I walked into Jessops they were asking about £450 for the D50 with the above mentioned lens. I had my heart set on one of these cameras from that point on, but I was determined not to spend a penny over £400 on it. Following the prices on both Amazon and the Jessops online shop I was watching it fall bit by bit, finally Jessops had it at £418 including the lens, and were throwing in a £20 online purchase voucher! Being the canny shopper that I am, I even collected treble Nectar points on my purchase by buying before the end of April through the Nectar site!

The buying experience on the Jessops site was excellent. That is not the subject of this review, but I would nonetheless wholeheartedly recommend you having a look at this site if you are in the market for a camera, or any associated kit. Two days later a courier arrived as promised with my camera.

Let the review proper begin!

IN THE BOX

Whilst not the work of origami art that is a Sony Box, the Nikon one has a real look of class about it. Opening it you find the interior split into two compartments. In the rear are to be found the Nikon D50 body and packed separately the 18-55mm zoom lens. In the front compartment, the excellent hand book and two really useful "Quick Start" guides, along with a variety of connection cables, the battery and charger, a shoulder strap with Nikon rather too loudly emblazoned upon it, and a CD containing Nikon software.

ASSEMBLING YOUR NEW TOY

This is the work of seconds. Remove the rear lens cap, take off the matching item from the camera, mate the lens to camera, twist very gently until it clicks home and hey presto! Well, not quite. Two more components are required, the insertion of the battery, once charged on its docking station and a memory card.

THE SECURE DIGITAL (SD) MEMORY CARD

Oh, nobody told you that Nikon, unlike Sony, do not supply even a low capacity memory card with their new camera! This means that unless, like me, you took the precaution of pre-ordering an SD card at the time you bought the camera, you are not going to be able to use it straight away. Incidentally, I was had by Jessops on this - I paid £45.99 for their own brand 1GB SD card. I have recently purchased for half the price a better quality (it reads and writes to hard disc faster) 1GB Kingston Technology "Ultimate" one following an internet search for SD cards.

THE FIRST PICTURES

If, like me, you have become used to taking good pictures with a digital compact camera, I will lay odds on you initially finding the Nikon a disappointment, I certainly did. It has an automatic setting and the temptation is to do as with a compact, leave it set there and shoot away.

This is partly the fault of Nikon and the photographic press, who have dubbed the D50, because of its price and RELATIVE simplicity, 'a Digital SLR camera for beginners'. This may well be so, I am no beginner when it comes to SLR photography, I've been practicing it for well over three decades now and I had to re-learn a lot of basic photographic principals before starting to get the best out of this camera.

It is no beginners camera, I prefer the semi-pro tag that some have given it, as they do with any SLR camera bearing the Nikon badge. The paparazzi are tough on their cameras and few are built like Nikons of any type, the D50 may be a lead in model, but use it properly, and as it turns out, it has the jump on the older D70 in several areas.

THE RUNNING IN PHASE

Our Sony came out of the box and took superb photographs from day one. Around two months after coming out of the box, I am now 100% satisfied with my Nikon D50, although it has taken an extended amount of use and much experimentation - 1000+ pictures to become so.

When you study the camera itself, the complex menus, numerous controls and settings, it begins to dawn on you that this, or any other D-SLR camera for that matter, was not designed to be used all the time in the automatic mode. This really is treated as an emergency "quick fire" setting now, for when I see a shot and simply have not got the time to make manual adjustments to speed or aperture settings.

Used thus, I can only comment that the Sony Cybershot does take better pictures, particularly from the point of view of light exposure and colour balance.

The other programs on the dial on top are actually very good indeed, there are eleven of them altogether, including automatic and entirely manual settings - plus the ones that you would expect, portrait, close up, sports etc. From experience, wise use of these settings will make a very real, and impressive, difference to your pictures.

From my point of view, although in truth as yet I have to use it, that entirely manual setting is really useful. Another real advantage to this, over the Canon, is that the D50 will take all Nikon lenses made since 1977, a cheap conversion to the lens mounts on all pre 1977 (back to 1959) lenses is also available. This means that you can pick up some very good second hand lenses, they may be manually operated (focus and diaphragm) but then that suits me, my previous Nikon 35mm cameras were manually operated!

WINDOWS, SCREENS, KNOBS AND BUTTONS

Initially there are a simply daunting number of controls to learn on this camera. There are a total of 17 knobs, buttons, wheels and levers, two screens, three opening flaps and the viewfinder on the camera body.

Particularly good on the D50, much better than on the D70, is the large 2.5 inch display screen on the back of the camera. Unlike the compact you are used to using, this one only displays a shot after you have taken it. You are unable to use the screen to frame a picture - that being done through the viewfinder as with any other SLR camera. Initially this took a little getting used to, now it is second nature.

When the picture is displayed though, it is in vivid and clear colour; you can enlarge any section of the picture and move around on a picture by using a button and the thumbwheel at the same time. The screen is also used for entering the menu commands - these being large and very easy to read, if not necessarily to navigate around.

The viewfinder itself contains the most comprehensive green LCD display strip across its bottom that I have ever seen, although this information is largely duplicated on the monochrome screen on the top right hand corner of the camera.

Then we have a (very good) pop up flash unit mounted in the top centre of the casing, with a traditional hot-shoe flash connector behind it. Whilst your old lens collection will fit and be perfectly serviceable on a new D50, your old flash gun apparently will not, and can cause short circuiting. The two recommended "speedflash" units, both of Nikon manufacture are not cheap (starting at around £120), and having made extensive use of the on-board flash, I would need some convincing of the value of adding a separate flash unit to my kit at all.

You can read through the instruction manual as many times as you like, but after over two months and around 1500 pictures I am still not fully conversant with all of these controls. I find that each time that the camera accompanies me on a day out, something else is discovered. The more of the controls you do learn to master, the better the pictures become, my latest photographs are proof of that.

THE "STANDARD" LENS

By "standard", I am referring to the lens supplied as a default if you order the body and lens as a kit - as I did. For every day practical photography it is a truly versatile tool. With my liking for landscapes and historic buildings, I find the 18mm, wide angle end of its' focal spectrum particularly useful. The only problem with that is the usual one whereby buildings look as though they are tipping away from you. At the other end of its range, 55mm, hardly qualifying as telephoto really, I have found that with judicious use of the cropping tool once downloaded to the PC, I can get as close as necessary to most subjects without feeling the need to carry around a long and heavy 200mm telephoto lens.

There is no doubt however that the lens has the feel of an object build down to a price, unlike the camera body itself. It rattles and feels slightly loose in the hand, I cannot imagine it lasting the life of the body somehow, time will tell, unless at some stage I trade it in for a better one!

By comparison with all of those camera controls however, the lens is refreshingly simple and conventional to use, especially in its excellent fully automatic mode. Auto focus on this camera has been a revelation; none of my previous Nikons had this feature and relied purely on my eye judgement in accurately focusing a subject.

BATTERY STAMINA

There is nothing worse than running out of battery power mid-shoot. I have read many reviews, usually on small compact cameras which take AA type alkaline batteries which have to be constantly replaced. The Nikon NiCad re-chargeable battery has incredible staying power. It will last somewhere around 600 photographs before requiring plugging into the mains, certainly during a days extensive shooting I have never come close to running out of power.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT SPEED

One of our number asked me if this would be a good camera for taking "snatched shots" of their children. Having now fully familiarised myself with this camera I have to say an absolute YES to that!

Accept its limitations in fully automatic mode and you can switch on and fire in less than a second. Having used our otherwise brilliant Sony Cybershot to take pictures of the Nikon this morning, I can tell you that the compact feels incredibly slow witted by comparison.

Not only is it quick to take the first frame, but it is also fast at focusing and working out the all important light metering values. It is the fastest responding camera that I have ever used and by a big margin.

In answer to the children photographs question, speed has two further facets here, one the incredibly fast maximum shutter speed - in bright light conditions allowing you to "freeze" the fastest possible moving object and a very rapid multi-burst (equates to motordrive on a traditional film camera) feature.

YOU HAVE TAKEN A BATCH OF PICTURES, THEN WHAT?

In a sense you are spoilt for choice. We actually prefer to take the memory stick out of the camera, insert it into the card reader on the front of our PC and copy the files onto hard disc. Periodically I make up CD or DVD albums to file away and as security should the worst happen to our computer at any time.

You have the option of plugging the whole camera into the computer via a supplied USB lead. You can of course also download and print direct to a Pictbridge printer, although I find now that I tend to be cropping and editing my pictures on the computer. Finally you can transfer your pictures to a video or DVD recorder via a video lead, the camera also has a program that will display the pictures as a slide show direct onto a television.

On the subject of programs, the ones contained on the CD accompanying the camera contain a notoriously poor editing suite, Nikon are attempting to entice you into paying for their full house version. Photoshop is the industry norm and provides far better tools for general editing and handling of digital photographs.

Incidentally, I should not leave this review without mentioning the word RAW. This is another prime advantage over a compact camera which processes all photographs to tiff or jpeg, computer ready files. The D50 can be set up to store all files in unprocessed RAW format. The pros will tell you that this is the best way to handle digital photography. If you are going in for printing big images - up to A3 or even poster art size, then by all means. However these files all need converting to conventional format before you can store them on a computer and for the mere mortals amongst us who do not have the time or inclination for advanced processing, I have found that leaving my camera set on JPEG Large / Fine produces beautifully detailed, well colour balanced photographs which are stored in compact jpeg format ready for viewing on slideshow or downsizing for publication or email attachment.

THE NIKON D50 IN DAILY USE

Yes indeed, daily use it has had. Once you become familiar with the complexities and conveniences of this camera, you can indeed have a lot of fun with it. I actually purchased a "Digital Field Guide" book, an American publication, in order to help me get the best out of my camera. This is full of tips and information and is an excellent supplement to the already very comprehensive instruction manual.

Through this camera I am re-discovering an interest in "proper" photography and having taken the time and patience to learn something about it, am now taking the best pictures that I ever have done. I do not need to extol the virtues of digital photography as a hobby or art here, suffice to say that the D50 is a very rewarding tool with which to practice it.

You can judge for yourselves the worth of my investment - all of my reviews since and including Scotney Castle Gardens have been accompanied by photographs taken on the Nikon, the quality of the downsized ones you see here are not a patch on the originals either!
 

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