One of the biggest and most heart-warming success stories in digital photography has been the Nikon D70. This camera succeeded in combining great looks, fine performance and a tempting price to enable Nikon to regain its rightful place chewing at the heels of arch-competitor Canon.
The Nikon D50 takes the formula further, offering a comparable feature count and improved performance in an even more compact and economical package. This pitches the camera headlong into a fray populated by the Canon EOS 350D, Pentax *st DS and Olympus E300. Let's see how well the D50 might do against this field.
The camera is available in a kit with the new AF-S DX 18-55mm f3.5- f5.6G ED lens. This makes a very neat, compact package and its rakish lines clearly show its Nikon ancestry. When you pick it up, it's heavier than you'd expect, thus helping to give it a reassuringly solid chubbiness. This marries well with the feel of the controls: firm and positive clicks all round.
The front of the body carries a lamp to the right of the lens mount to help focusing in the dark. A switch to the left of the lens mount selects autofocus or manual focus: where a lens carries its own switch one or the other switch is redundant. The one on the body takes precedence so if it's set to manual focus but the lens is set to autofocus, you have to focus manually. A potential source of confusion for new photographers.
On top of the body you find the usual DSLR controls: an on-off switch surrounding the shutter button, a display next door with self-timer, and exposure over-ride buttons. The self-timer button changes mode simply by being pressed. Given the button's location, it's too easily done and, because the LCD indication is tiny, it can be overlooked.
Mode dial
On the other side of the body, you find the mode dial: meatily designed, with over-large but clearly readable settings. These range from the usual exposure modes of Manual, Aperture and Shutter Priorities and Program, to full default Auto, and six useful special modes for Night-time Portrait, Close-up, Sports and other common situations. These modes determine not only exposure mode but other features too, such as colour rendering. The Child mode, for instance, attempts to bump up bright colours while leaving skin tones as they are.
