Nikon D50

[Groucho]

Congrats! It sounds like you got a decent deal on the camera and lens, but $60 for three 1-g cards is not exactly a bargain, far from it...

I'm not a big fan of extended warranties, either, but I know some people like the extra security.

Oh well. You got a great camera out of it, I'm sure you'll be happy with it.

 

[ukcatfan]

It sounds like you used JPG. The next step is to play with RAW. It is a slippery slope though. Once you see how much more you can do with it, you end up spending too much time PPing.

Kevin

 

[poohluvrs]

Congrats on the D50! My friend has it & her pictures smoke mine on a regular Canon digital!
She had me talked into getting one, but now Im leaning toward the D40. At under $600 it seems like a bargain.........am I crazy?

 

[YEKCIM]

Congrats on the D50! My friend has it & her pictures smoke mine on a regular Canon digital!
She had me talked into getting one, but now Im leaning toward the D40. At under $600 it seems like a bargain.........am I crazy?

Just so you know, the D40 does *not* have an internal focus motor, so any lenses you may have or may want that do not have focus motors in the lens will not AF with the D40. They will focus manually, but who wants to do that?

If you don't already have Nikon lenses, though, you're probably pretty safe with a D40, if you are careful to only buy AF-S lenses (focus motor in the lens) for it.

Also, with the introduction of the D40x, I wonder how much longer Nikon will manufacture the D40.

~YEKCIM

 

[garris3404]

Congrats on the D50! My friend has it & her pictures smoke mine on a regular Canon digital!
She had me talked into getting one, but now Im leaning toward the D40. At under $600 it seems like a bargain.........am I crazy?

I'd go with the D50 over the D40 series. Or you could go with the D80.

 

[Groucho]

Congrats on the D50! My friend has it & her pictures smoke mine on a regular Canon digital!
She had me talked into getting one, but now Im leaning toward the D40. At under $600 it seems like a bargain.........am I crazy?

Under $600 for a DSLR isn't that much of a bargain any more, you can get four different manufacturer's DSLRs for that price (Nikon, Pentax, Canon, and Olympus). The cheapest DSLR is the Pentax K110D which is a little over $400 with kit lens after rebate (and it has the same sensor as the D40 and more features, though a smaller buffer).

Like the others have said, a D50 is preferable to a D40 if you can find one.

 

[poohluvrs]

Under $600 for a DSLR isn't that much of a bargain any more, you can get four different manufacturer's DSLRs for that price (Nikon, Pentax, Canon, and Olympus). The cheapest DSLR is the Pentax K110D which is a little over $400 with kit lens after rebate (and it has the same sensor as the D40 and more features, though a smaller buffer).

Like the others have said, a D50 is preferable to a D40 if you can find one.

Wow, thanks for the replies! I found the D40 for $539 & thought it was a bargain. My friend only paid @$800 for the D50 w/ the lens so I guess the D40 is not worth it...I will look into finding a D50 then! Another friend has the Canon Rebel which she loves too....havent done any research on that one! I have to admit Im a complete nvice so Im looking for something simple to operate that takes crisp clear photos.

 

[Ratpack]

Anyone know if the D50 will work with a 4GB SD card? I am thinking of getting the Sandisk Ultra II 4GB card so I don't have to change as often. Since I shoot in RAW, my 2GB cards only hold 135 photos, that is easily used up at a park in a short time.

 

[Gdad]

Not sure on your question but I find it odd your 2GB SD cards only hold 135 shots. Something sounds wrong there. I use 2GB CF cards in my D70 and (going from memory here- mines at Nikon Service at the moment) I think I get about 378 shots on a card. I always shoot RAW- w/ JPG its over 500. 2GB should be 2GB regardless of memory type- right?

 

[handicap18]

Are you shooting RAW+JPEG or just RAW. Just RAW on an empty 2GB card should say about 270 images. Realistically you should get closer to if not over 300. IIRC with a 1GB you'll get 135 (which would make sence if my D50 is telling me an empty 2GB card in RAW is 270)

As for the 4GB card. The short answer is no. I believe the majority of 4GB cards are SDHC and the D50 does not support SDHC. You'd have to find a 4GB card that is not SDHC then it might be ok. I still think there may be some firmware issues.

Make a post or do a search in the D40/D50 Users Forum over at Nikonians.org. I've seen this brought up a few times over there, but don't recall the final result.

 

[GrumpyOne]

Sort of depends how big the RAW images are. On my 7MP Oly, RAW takes about 10MB and the highest quality JPG can take up to 4MB. At 14MB per shot, 135 pics is about right on a 2GB card.

 

[MICKEY88]

4 gig sd card


http://www.oempcworld.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=SD4096-150X&Category_Code=SDSTD


mwave.com


and ecost.com

also have 4 gig sd cards

it appears that 8 gig are sdhc

 

[Gdad]

Sort of depends how big the RAW images are. On my 7MP Oly, RAW takes about 10MB and the highest quality JPG can take up to 4MB. At 14MB per shot, 135 pics is about right on a 2GB card.

D50 and D70 have the same sensor so I assume the files are the same also. I took a look at the 2GB card still in my card reader right now- 364 RAW files on it and 1.88GB used.

 

[Gdad]

Sorry- Double post. DIS is running S-L-O-W tonight.

 

[Ratpack]

OK, my bad. I actually did have the 1GB card in, so yes the 2GB holds 270. I probably should be OK then with the 2 2GB and 2 1GB cards I have, but sure would be nice not to have to download as often. I'll check out Nikonians and see what is said.

Thanks all!!

 

[Gdad]

I have always been a little worried about that many pics on a single card. It seems like if it got corrupted somehow you would loose a lot of pictures.

 

[MICKEY88]

I have always been a little worried about that many pics on a single card. It seems like if it got corrupted somehow you would loose a lot of pictures.

that is a possibility,

however I believe you stand the greatest risk of corruption, by more frequently taking cards in an out of the camera, greater risk of dropping etc.

I'm fairly sure that pros that shoot a lot, use the largest size card possible, for this reason, plus it really bites to be doing a model shoot, just get into a good rhythm and have to stop to change cards...

I just bought an 8 gig card yesterday

 

[jonestavern]

Hi All,

I just tried out a new Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens on my D50 and had problems. The only setting which would work was if I stopped it down to f22, the minimum aperture for this lens, and locked the aperture ring. If I unlocked the aperture ring and took it off f22, then the lens would not auto focus. I was able to manually focus, but still was unable to take a picture. The LCD display on top of the camera would give me an error message of f EE ("Lens aperture ring is not locked at minimum aperture"). So my questions are, is the lens incompatable with my camera? Was it possibly a bum lens? Did I do something wrong? The guy that I dealt with at the camera store is one of the more knowledgeable of their staff, and we also tried this out on a D80 and a D200 with no luck (actually on the D200 it would auto focus at other apertures, but still would not shoot).

I would really like to find a fast, sharp lens for low light that won't break the bank, so If this lens is truly incompatable, then is there any comparable lens that would work for me?

Sorry for running off at the mouth (or fingertips as the case may be...), but a big thanks in advance for any help or info anyone can provide.

Chris

 

[handicap18]

Hi All,

I just tried out a new Nikkor 50mm f1.8 lens on my D50 and had problems. The only setting which would work was if I stopped it down to f22, the minimum aperture for this lens, and locked the aperture ring. If I unlocked the aperture ring and took it off f22, then the lens would not auto focus. I was able to manually focus, but still was unable to take a picture. The LCD display on top of the camera would give me an error message of f EE ("Lens aperture ring is not locked at minimum aperture"). So my questions are, is the lens incompatable with my camera? Was it possibly a bum lens? Did I do something wrong?
Chris

You have to lock the ring on f/22, leave it there and adjust the aperture in the camera body. This is the way the D50 works as does the rest of the Nikon dSLR line IIRC. It still works as if you were using the aperture ring, just in camera instead.

The lens is very compatable with the D50. I've been using my 50mm f/1.8 for over a year with my D50 with very good success in aperture priority.

An aperture ring isn't really necessary with today's dSLR's. Many new lenses are coming without the aperture ring, ie: 70-300mm VR, 70-200mm VR, all Nikkor DX lenses and others. I think the only VR lens WITH an aperture ring is the 80-400, even the $5000 200-400 f/4 VR lens does NOT have an aperture ring. All the primes except the 200mm f/2 VR and 300mm f/2.8 VR do have aperture rings. But there are still many pro's who use film SLR's that need the ring for their camera bodies.

Now it would be an issue with say a Nikon N70 if you want to use aperture priority. The 70-300mm VR works great but only in shutter priority and Program, as it does not have the ring and with the N70 (I think the N80 and a few other older film SLR's) you need an aperture ring for aperture priority.

Thus the distinction betwen 'G' (no ring) and 'D' (ring) Nikkor lenses.

 

[jonestavern]

THANKS!

I just called the store back and let them in on this info too.

Chris