nikon d50 questions

Hi
I am thinking about the purchase of a Nikon d50 (my first digital slr)
Some questions that I have:

Can I have the shutter stay open for more than 30 seconds, as specified
by nikon.com (such as hour long shots)

Will it shoot in RAW?

If I shoot in RAW, will there be a lag between piuctures due to write
times (as in a few seconds)?

Should I but it with the kit lens, or would it be worthwile to go with
a better lens form Nikon?

And....Would you buy this over a Canon Digital Rebel

Thanks for any help!

Don't worry about anything but the kit lens and the choice of
Nikon/Canon (which also has a dumpy kit lens). Hold them each in your
hands to decide. The D70 kit lens is good but it's about $300 instead of
$100. You could also add a 50mm f/1.8 lens to either brand for about
$100. They are both fine cameras.

acprkit wrote:

Hi
I am thinking about the purchase of a Nikon d50 (my first digital slr)
Some questions that I have:

Can I have the shutter stay open for more than 30 seconds, as specified
by nikon.com (such as hour long shots)

Will it shoot in RAW?

If I shoot in RAW, will there be a lag between piuctures due to write
times (as in a few seconds)?

Should I but it with the kit lens, or would it be worthwile to go with
a better lens form Nikon?

And....Would you buy this over a Canon Digital Rebel

Thanks for any help!

According to acprkit :
Hi
I am thinking about the purchase of a Nikon d50 (my first digital slr)
Some questions that I have:

Can I have the shutter stay open for more than 30 seconds, as specified
by nikon.com (such as hour long shots)

It should be the same as the D70 (which is what I shoot), and
after the 30 seconds position there is "bulb", which of course requires
you to be there to hold the button down. Note also that unless you want
a lot of pattern noise in the long exposures, you will need to turn on
the "Long Exposure NR" (Noise Reduction), which will keep the camera
tied down for an equal time to develop the internal noise pattern to
subtract from the actual image. (And I'm not sure whether it works in
"bulb" mode.)

Note that the sensor can be set to higher ISO ranges, 1600 in
place of the default 200, or anywhere between those two values. That
would make a 30 second exposure the equivalent of a 240 second one (4
minutes). Do you want the long exposures to capture something like the
motion of stars at night, or just to capture more light?

Will it shoot in RAW?

Of course.

If I shoot in RAW, will there be a lag between piuctures due to write
times (as in a few seconds)?

The delay (if any) would be more a function of the write speed
of your media. The D70 uses CF cards, and I've only used 80X and 133X
speed cards in that camera -- but the camera has a buffer which will
allow four images before it has to wait on the card anyway.

And the D70 (with a reasonable speed CF card) can save the RAW
images more quickly than some of the JPEG images which are smaller --
because the camera *shoots* in RAW, and has to convert to JPEG if you
want to save in JPEG.

I have no idea what speeds are available in the different media
(SD isn't it?) which the D50 uses.

Should I but it with the kit lens, or would it be worthwile to go with
a better lens form Nikon?

Get the kit lens from the D70 (18-70mm f3.5-4.5), which covers a
greater range than the D50's kit lens (though there is a second kit lens
to extend the range).

Or -- if you want to do occasional macro shots, spend even more
and get the 28-105mm lens -- but that will lose you the wide angle
capability which the 18mm gives you. This is equivalent to a film camera
with 42mm on the 28mm's wide angle end, and equivalent to a flim camera
with 27mm on the 18mm's wide angle end.

Otherwise -- you need to specify what kind of subjects you
expect to photograph to enable us to give reasonable advice as to
lenses. (And perhaps also financial limits. :-)

And....Would you buy this over a Canon Digital Rebel

*I* would -- because I already have Nikon lenses and no Canon
lenses. Actually, I bought the D70 before the D50 came into being, and
I still would have bought the D70 in preference to the D50. And -- I am
being seriously tempted by the D200 these days. :-)

Good Luck,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Hi
Thanks for all of your posts. My limit for the body and lens is sub
1000. I will mostly be shooting landscapes and people. My friend also
has a Minolta 7d which he is happy with, but I have not had a chance to
try it. I looked at the rebel, and it was a weird feel in my
hands....not worth it. Does anyone have any other dSPR's that I should
look at? (The nikon looks good though)

I got the D50 and the lense kit. I'm pretty happy with it so far. I also
bought the Quantaray 70-300 MM lense. It was fairly inexpensive. It works
great for still shots, and so-so for action shots. I really got it to take
photos of my daughters soccer games. The only problem is the auto focus.
That lense is a little slow to focus, and it often doesn't focus well on the
areas I want...even when I change the focus mode on the camera.

Good luck.


"acprkit" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi
Thanks for all of your posts. My limit for the body and lens is sub
1000. I will mostly be shooting landscapes and people. My friend also
has a Minolta 7d which he is happy with, but I have not had a chance to
try it. I looked at the rebel, and it was a weird feel in my
hands....not worth it. Does anyone have any other dSPR's that I should
look at? (The nikon looks good though)

According to Mbt6 :
I got the D50 and the lense kit. I'm pretty happy with it so far. I also
bought the Quantaray 70-300 MM lense. It was fairly inexpensive. It works
great for still shots, and so-so for action shots. I really got it to take
photos of my daughters soccer games. The only problem is the auto focus.
That lense is a little slow to focus, and it often doesn't focus well on the
areas I want...even when I change the focus mode on the camera.

Hmm ... is your camera's mode set to "Auto"? If so, then (among
other things) it will select whichever object is closest to auto-focus
on. Switch to "Program" mode instead, and you get most of the same
automatic features, but the autofocus zone will stay put -- unless you m
move it with the tilting poker chip controller. (And, if the D50 has
the same switch as the D70, there should be a nearby switch to lock the
autofocus zone where you put it, so an accidental bump on the poker chip
won't move it without warning you.

The menu item (Pencil icon menu) is "03 AF-area mode", and set
it to single area, not "Dynamic Area" or "Closest Subject" and it should
help. You may also wish (for sports work) to set menu item "03
Autofocus" to "AF-C" (continuous), so it will track what you are
shooting, instead of taking one autofocus attempt as you half-press the
shutter release, and then lock that in until you either take the shot or
release the shutter release.

Also, turn on "18 AF area illumination", which will light up a
box around the current autofocus area, so you *know* which area is being
used.

(I'm presuming that the menu items are similar enough to the
ones on my D70.) If they are not, you may have to search for the proper
location of the menu items.

Good Luck,
DoN.

--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

"acprkit" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi
Thanks for all of your posts. My limit for the body and lens is sub
1000. I will mostly be shooting landscapes and people. My friend also
has a Minolta 7d which he is happy with, but I have not had a chance to
try it. I looked at the rebel, and it was a weird feel in my
hands....not worth it. Does anyone have any other dSPR's that I should
look at? (The nikon looks good though)

The Nikon is indeed good enough, but if your limit is below $1000 you can
now get the Nikon D70s with 18-70mm lens for that. It's evidently being
discontinued, hence the lowered price. I would definitely take the D70s over
the D50 at a similar price.

John Falstaff wrote:

"acprkit" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi
Thanks for all of your posts. My limit for the body and lens is sub
1000. I will mostly be shooting landscapes and people. My friend also
has a Minolta 7d which he is happy with, but I have not had a chance to
try it. I looked at the rebel, and it was a weird feel in my
hands....not worth it. Does anyone have any other dSPR's that I should
look at? (The nikon looks good though)

The Nikon is indeed good enough, but if your limit is below $1000 you can
now get the Nikon D70s with 18-70mm lens for that. It's evidently being
discontinued, hence the lowered price. I would definitely take the D70s over
the D50 at a similar price.


It is only being sold for $200 off, so I don't think that means it is being
discontinues. I have seen that price off and on since it was first released.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

"Thomas T. Veldhouse" wrote in message
...
John Falstaff wrote:

"acprkit" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi
Thanks for all of your posts. My limit for the body and lens is sub
1000. I will mostly be shooting landscapes and people. My friend also
has a Minolta 7d which he is happy with, but I have not had a chance to
try it. I looked at the rebel, and it was a weird feel in my
hands....not worth it. Does anyone have any other dSPR's that I should
look at? (The nikon looks good though)

The Nikon is indeed good enough, but if your limit is below $1000 you can
now get the Nikon D70s with 18-70mm lens for that. It's evidently being
discontinued, hence the lowered price. I would definitely take the D70s
over
the D50 at a similar price.


It is only being sold for $200 off, so I don't think that means it is
being
discontinues. I have seen that price off and on since it was first
released.

Well, I bought my D70s with 18-70 lens a few weeks ago for $855. That looks
like a closeout price to me -- it's way below what I ever saw it selling for
before. Now the same dealer is selling it for $949, which may mean there
aren't many left. I've seen this pricing pattern before on models being
discontinued -- first a big drop, then a rise apparently when the remaining
supply gets low.

My guess is that Nikon wants the D200 to be the mainstream consumer dSLR,
prices eventually easing toward the D70s level, with the D50 for entry-level
users -- not leaving much room in the stall for the D70s. The D70s probably
won't be officially discontinued until the existing stock is just about
gone, but I'd be surprised if they're still being manufactured.

Similarly with the D2H -- it's still listed as a current model, but do you
think they're actually still making it? I certainly don't.