SLR Nikon D50 Blog |

I have a Nikon D50 when I am walking around for say ten minutes looking at possible shots is it better to turn it off or leave it one.

The long answer is weather dependant. But over say 10 minutes it’s not going to make a huge difference unless you’re already getting the low battery signal.

On a cold day batteries are less efficient, you could be running out (from a fully charged, new battery) in perhaps 2-3 hours if you leave it on. However on a warm day you could go around all way with it in sleep and have a pretty full battery at the end of it.

Depending on what shots you do, it may be better to use MF to compose a shot and then switch it on, this is probably more important in the depth of winter.

I have a Nikon D50 and already own the Nikkor 55-200mm and the Nikkor 28-80mm. Am looking for a zoom lens that will capture wildlife (in detail) say, Dall Sheep way up on the mountaintops of Denali National Park in Alaska. What lens do I need to invest? What tripod would you recommend? Please note that all will have to be hiked in to the place I plan to shoot so weight is a factor.

You have a little overlap in your focal lengths.

You should have at least a 300mm (450mm with your 1.5x sensor factor). With all that beautiful scenery, I would suggest you get a 12-24mm zoom.

I shoot a lot of travel photos. I use a 12-24mm, 24-85mm and 70-300mm lenses for those assignments. When I shoot animals with a large "scare radius", I use a 500mm mirror lens on my D200.

Unfortunately, as the length of the lens increases, the costs go up dramatically. Just take a look at the 300mm f/2.8, 600mm f/4.0 and the 200-400mm zoom lenses

I’m mostly curious about the D40, D50 and D70 because I want to use them for infrared. Since I’m wanting the D90 I’d rather them be compatable with it so I could save money that way rather than have to have seperate lenses/accessories for each. Oh and I plan to use HoyaRM72 for infrared and NOT convert the camera untill I can afford to.

All of the cameras you mention can use AF, AFd, AFs and AFi lenses. With the D40 only the AFs and AFi lenses will autofocus but all of the cameras will have lenses that are interchagible with the D90 and will mount, meter and take photos. If you want to use older lenses you can use the AI series of lenses also but they will not autofocus on any of the cameras and will not meter on the ones you listed. they will still mount and take pictures nonAI lenses will not work unless you have the lens converted ( last I did one it was about 25 dollars)

Heres a good link on lens compatibility on nikons
http://www.nikonians.org/nikon/slr-lens.html

I use Nikon D50, with 18-55 lens, but I found that using histogram feature in Nikon D50 is bit hard. In fact I have not been able to use it. Does anyone know how to use it, and what are the benefits of histogram?

You can use the histogram to check if the exposure was correct.
When you review a picture and pull up the histogram, you’ll usually see a pattern that resembles a bell curve. If that curve is squished to the left of the screen, you’ve underexposed – a lot of shadow areas will be completely black. And if the curve is squished to the right of the screen, you’ve over-exposed – a lot of highlights are completely white. Here’s a detailed explanation: http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml
The common advice is to ‘expose to the right’. That means to expose the shot so that the curve is as far as possible to the right of the box, without actually blowing any highlights. Here’s more on the reasoning behind that: http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

I recently won a mint Nikon D50 (on ebay) i was wondedering if the camera can still hold it’s salt these days, and how it stacks against the D40.

The D50 is a good camera. It has a built in autofocus motor, which the D40 lacks. It has the same pixel density as the D40, but I think that the D40 has a little less chroma noise in the shadows than the D50. The D50’s back LCD is not quite as good, and the brightness of the reviewed image varies a lot with viewing angle. The D50 has a top LCD that some like. It is not backlit. It does not show the same data in the rear LCD display like the D40 does, and I think the D40’s display is easier to work with in the dark. The D40 has a weaker anti-alias filter. This actually gives the D40 a sharper image, however it makes the D40 more prone to moire artifact in some scenes.
Like the D40, the D50 has a mechanical shutter to 1/90th sec, and electronic above that. The gives the D50 the same x-sync speed of 1/500 sec.

The two lenses I’m looking into for my digital camera (Nikon D50) are

70-300 mm DI f/4-5.6 Digital Series AF Zoom Lens

70-210 mm f/4.5-5.6 high speed AF Lens

The main reason I am considering the second one, is it’s slightly cheaper. I was wondering if there was a benefit of it being high speed.
They are both Quantaray made for Nikon

http://www.wolfcamera.com/product/251666095.htm

http://www.wolfcamera.com/product/251664264.htm

These lenses are very similar. The only difference I perceive is the zoom and macro capability. These are 2 pluses. Macro allows more detail of an object, so if you want to take extreme close ups of say a flower or skin, macro would be ideal.
Considering the slight price diff. I would go with the 70-300 mm. A lens is one of the most important aspects of your photograph! I see you are looking @ Wolf Camera, a more knowledgeable dealer is Calumet photo, there prices are almost always better and you can ask a ton of q’s . Here is the link, happy hunting!

http://www.calumetphoto.com/

I have a Nikon N75 and want to purchase a slr digital camera (Nikon D50). But I’m trying to figure out if it is cheaper to purchase the body only and lens separately or if possible to use the lens I already have (Quantaray Lens compatible with Nikon N75). Do you know if the N75 lenses are compatable with the D50? Or is there a website where I can check?

The Quantaray will work with both cameras. I too have a Quantaray for my N75 that I am using now on my D50. I also have a Nikkor 70-300mm that works on both the N75 and D50. In general, the Nikon lenses for the Nikon film SLRs will work with the Nikon DSLRs, but not necessarily the other way around. Of course, manual focus lenses will not auto focus on either camera, and the older Nikon "non-CPU" lenses will lose certain functionality (like the different metering options and iTTL flash). Nikon has a line of lenses that are designed for their digital SLRs and will not work correctly with their film SLRs.

After a lot of research, I thought I found my camear. The Nikon D50. I am an amateur, who just wants to take great family shots. A new father, who uses a Canon SD500 point and shoot. This camera takes great photos in natural light, but in low light, the flash is bad. I started looking at ways to bounce the light off of the wall and such, and just realized I should look at A DSLR.

Long story short, I feel in love with the Nikon D50, or at least the reviews and postings. For me, it looks perfect, better then the Canon, even the new one they just released. But the Nikon D80 also looks great. Some have said the D50 has everything that I need and the features with the D80 i would not really need, but could grow with.

So if I buy the D50 for $550 plus some lenses, will i later regret the 10MP and faster/better processor of the d80? Are there other advantages? Please advise…again, not a professional, just want to take great photos of my son, and our family and travel.

When we fall in love with a type of a digital apparel, we tend to subsequently fall in love with their – naturally more advanced – successor models as well. If you’re in doubt, I suggest you wait. You seem like a budding photographer and once you’ve got a D-SLR I suspect you’ll develop into wanting/needing more capabilities from your camera, so why not wait. You can’t have too many features

A quick look at the D300 with battery grip attached. A more professional looking review will be added soon for the D300! Thanks for looking.

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little review of my cam and the new anti shake nikon lens

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