Which one for me D50, D70s or D80?

owsballa

My wife has finally decided to buy me a DSLR for my birthday next month. I am trying to decide between the above cameras & have read just about every article & post regarding them. I have narrowed the field to Nikon as my brother has a Tamron 75-300, f4-5.6 for a Nikon he will give me. he now shoots with a 20D. First question, is this a decent enough lens to make me want to marry the Nikon system or should I not even consider it?

I want a camera body that will allow me to grow in my hobby & in my experience level. From the reviews I have read it seems that the d50 is a great camera & at the lowest price it will allow me to afford other lenses & such goodies. Will the d50 suit my needs or do the d70s or even the d80 have more features & growth potential to warrant the price difference? all are within my budget, I will just have less left for the goodies

My primary use will be to take family photos especially my 4 week old, the kids baseball games & for my anual trip to Arizona to watch baseball spring training. I also go to Yosemite each summer & enjoy taking tons of photos of the scenery.

Sorry for the long post, but any advice is greatly appreciated. Any other camera sugesstions are also welcomed.
Thanks, Chris

photodoug

It doesn't seem you outta make your choice based on a free lens...and it's not really great glass from what I can tell. Sounds like your brother is generous...enough to let you use his good Canon glass? Then get a Canon and have more in common with him.

If you're concerned w/cost as I was, I opted for the D50. I've got a gob of old Nikon glass, so my choice was easier. Yep, gets you some pretty nice features and a chance to learn digital. You can buy the body only for quite a song nowadays....or I got mine from Costco with two nice kit lenses.

anyway....welcome to the fray!

illuminati919

Wow this is a tough one. While the Nikon D50 is a great camera I believe you will want to upgrade about a month later, hehe. My suggestion is the RebelXti, at only 899(circuit city price, thats where i work, we also offer no interest financing for like 12 months usually, haha jeeze im trying to make a sale here), its a 10 megapixel, 9 af pts, and 3 fps. Another reason is that Canons lens choice is a little more versatile in my opinion and you can buy a great telephoto for only 500 bucks in the future(70-200mm), its a little pricey but would definitely be worth it in the end.

Do some research and try to figure out which one would be the best for ya. Ohhh and make sure to be nice to your wife for the next month until you get the camera, . And beg for some added on goodies .

I'm glad you decided to join the DSLR world, you're gonna love it.

Marko Knezevic

owsballa

I had considered Canon however the Xt or XTi are too small to be confortable in my hands. I had thought about getting the 20d for myself but thought that since it was a few years old I might fare better with a newer camera. Is that wrong?

Harryb

owsballa wrote:

I had considered Canon however the Xt or XTi are too small to be confortable in my hands. I had thought about getting the 20d for myself but thought that since it was a few years old I might fare better with a newer camera. Is that wrong?

No, its usually best to go with the camera that feels best in your hand. I would go with the D70s or the D80 though. Here's a good site for info on the various Nikon cameras and lenses. http://bythom.com/index.htm

Shane422

I have the D50 and am quite happy with it. The only thing I wish it had was the "Commander Mode" to use Nikon's Wireless Flash system. But this can be done with a few addons. I too chose it for the feel in my hands over the Canon Digital Rebel, even though I owned a Canon Film SLR.

Some think that going to 10MP is a big advantage, but you can print quite large sizes with 6MP and it saves quite a bit of hard drive space, as well as it eats less RAM when you're working in Photoshop.

SpeshulEd

owsballa wrote:

I had considered Canon however the Xt or XTi are too small to be confortable in my hands. I had thought about getting the 20d for myself but thought that since it was a few years old I might fare better with a newer camera. Is that wrong?

Personally I think the 20D can still hold its own against many of the cameras that are just being released.

SteveM

I have a Canon 20D that's about a year old or so and I still love it. I've cycled almost 10,000 photos through it and I'm still quite pleased. I still have no interest whatsoever in upgrading to a Canon 30D. What was touted as the photojournalist/wedding photographer midrange to buy, still makes me happy, especially with the low noise.

But the truth is, any of the current dSLR are going to make you happy. The D50 is old, the D100 even older, but both are still fantastic cameras, especially if you're coming from point and shoot. The D70 and D70s are great rigs. I do have to say, the Canon Digital Rebel/XT were small, plasticy and felt too much like toys to me. I haven't held an XTi although they say the sensor and noise levels should be comparable to the 20D/30D now. The Canon 20D and 30D are hulking chunks of man-camera, but you're also not going to get one for $700 at Best Buy.

Steve
http://www.downriverphotography.com

AndreyD

I did a research myself about that subject. Planning to buy soon my
first DSLR, after happy usage of G6.

And been told several times, and by professional photographers also, that, for me, not a pro (and I will not be a pro, I have another source of income) type of "body" dose not matter. Glass matters! So a have been advised to save on body and buy a good prime first and then, to grow to a more expensive glass if want to (zoom?)

Regards


Andrey
Moscow, Russia

Justiceiro

The tamron lens is OK, but I wouldn't base my body choice around it. You can get a new 70-300 of average quality for cheap for both platforms. I agree with you about the 350D, I went for the 20D because of how it felt in my hands.

I have been using mine for about 1 1/2 years- I still think that, image wise, with a decent lens the only way to really "step up" is (perhaps) the 5d or definitely the d200 from Nikon, but these cost beaucoup dollaz.

As far as the nikons go, I have a feeling that the d50 is a little cheap. Now that the d80 is out you should be able to pick up a d70 very inexpensively; the same goes for the 20d now that the 30d is out.

Going canon isn't such a bad idea if your brother can throw you some sweet glass from time to time. Otherwise, I might go nikon.

It all depends on what you do with your camera. What finally sold me on the 20d was the following;

a) at the time Nikon had nothing in the price range which was anything near "pro" quality (this was before the d200).

b) I hual my camera to rough places, and the mag alloy body is super tough. The rebel and the nikon d series are plastic. Ugh!

Anyway, if you want to pick up some lenses to go with your new body, a really great place is adorama's used department . You should definitely check it out.

greenpea

owsballa wrote:

I had considered Canon however the Xt or XTi are too small to be confortable in my hands. I had thought about getting the 20d for myself but thought that since it was a few years old I might fare better with a newer camera. Is that wrong?

If the XT and XTi feel too small in your hands, you probably won't be happy with the D50 and from what I've read the D80 has the same sized body as the D50. And if you are considering the D70s I would definately look at the 20D which I believe is actually new technology.

Ultimately you should probably go down to a good camera store, pick up each camera and see how it feels.

I wish I had your problem when I bought my camera, the only *affordable* choices back then were the XT and the D70.

ziggy53

I haven't found that the XT was too small, but I did find that adding a vertical grip gave me more to hold onto for larger lenses and a much better feel in the portrait position. It also seems to help that the grip takes two batteries, which feed the camera in parallel, and they seem to run cooler, plus they are more distant from the imager, so any heat disipates away more quickly. All good stuff.

As far as the XT being too plastic, all modern cameras are surrounded in plastic, a polycarbonate usually. The XT uses a "stamped" metal chassis, but the lens mount is machined stainless steel, just like the big brothers. I haven't had any problems with lens alignment or body deflection, even with the 70-200mm, f2.8L and an old 500mm, f6.3 all-metal monster. (Yes, I have hand held it, but it's not too practical.) (The mirror box is also plastic, and that contributes to the lighter weight, but it's a non-stressed part, so it doesn't need to be metal.)



ziggy53