Nikon D50 Camera Review

The Nikon D50 was the first Nikon DSLR that I could afford to buy. It came with a 28-80mm kit lens and was around $500 for the kit. Prior to owning the D50, I had a N60 35mm film SLR camera that I loved. Film was too expensive to waste shooting practice shots, and thus I moved into the more affordable point and shoot digital cameras when they first came out. I missed having the versatility of an SLR camera though and was thrilled when the D50 hit the market in my price range. It's a nice 6.1MP camera and I've really enjoyed it over the past year. Images from this camera can be printed up to 30x40 inches, when in RAW mode and 20x30 inches in Fine JPG mode. I've yet to print anything that big, but have printed several 12x18 inch pictures and they've turned out great.

Now that the D50 is all but discontinued, I'd recommend buying the Nikon D80. It's a step up from the D50, whereas the D40 is a step down. The D40 does not have an auto focus drive built in, so you're stuck with lenses that have auto-focus capabilities built-in. This severely limits the variety of lenses available, and choice of lens is the best feature of an SLR camera, in my opinion.