Nikon D50

 

Viewfinder (7.5)
The D50's optical viewfinder is bright and full of contrast. It shows 95 percent of the image area both vertically and horizontally. The display shows five autofocus sites: one in the center of the frame, and the others to the left, right, above, and below. The sites are nicely spread out – the outer ones are about halfway from the center to the respective edges. The sites are all constantly visible, but the active one appears as a pair of black brackets, while the others are faintly outlined brackets. A circle denoting the most sensitive area in the center-weighted metering pattern is also always visible. It's about a third of the width of the frame, and is centered. A battery status indicator is also superimposed on the image, and a warning icon appears if the camera is switched on without a memory card in place.

Below the image, the D50 displays shooting data in a panel of green text, accompanied by icons: focus confirmation, focus area and focus mode, flash exposure lock, shutter speed, aperture, flash and ambient exposure compensation, shots remaining on the memory card or shots remaining in the buffer, white balance preset, flash ready indicator, autoexposure lock, analog exposure display, Auto ISO indicator, and USB connection mode indicator. It's quite a bit of information, and mostly useful while you're shooting. There are a couple exceptions: the autofocus area is already indicated on the image, so it's redundant; and the Auto ISO indicator seems like a setting that could be on the control panel display exclusively.

Interestingly, the focusing screen is dependent on power – when the battery is not in the camera, the display is dark, grainy, and uneven – and impossible to focus. Of course, without the battery, the camera is a paperweight anyway.

LCD Screen (5.5)
Color LCD
The 2-inch, 130,000 pixel color LCD on the Nikon D50 is roughly comparable to the screens on the camera's hottest competition, the Canon Rebel and Canon Rebel XT. That's too bad, because it's not good enough. It's not enough resolution to check focus, and kind of puny for show-and-tell at a party or event.

Pentax puts a 2.5-inch, 210,000 pixel display on the *ist DL, another entry level DSLR. We can only hope that Pentax gets a presence among consumer level SLRs that is strong enough to push market leaders Nikon and Canon to supply their entry level DSLRs with displays that are at least equal to their nicer compact snapshot cameras.

The D50's LCD looks best from a narrow angle of view, so it's really not the display for impromptu slide shows at parties. Its maximum magnification is only 4.7x, really not enough to check images closely, and well below the typical 10x or 12x. That's a shame, because the display's color and dynamic range are very good.

Control Panel Display
The monochrome display on the top right of the camera packs in a huge amount of shooting information. The display is full of contrast and sharp. It shows the following settings:

A fair number of these data are modal – you only see the Exposure compensation value when you hold down the proper button, for instance – but the display is still pretty crowded. While the D50 is Nikon's most simplified DSLR, the displays are still organized for control, not to insulate the user from complexity.

In fact, the D50 display feels a bit more jammed that the displays on Nikon's pro-level D2 series cameras, because they have a third display, and therefore a bit more room to spread out the information.

Flash (7.0)
The Nikon D50's pop-up flash is a small unit that pops up directly above the lens, which helps prevent ugly shadows when shooting horizontals. The flash has an ISO 200 guide number of 49 (in feet), which gives you f/5.6 at about nine feet. The small size of the flash reflector makes the shadows it casts very sharp, which would not be ideal for portraits – such harsh light plays up wrinkles and blemishes.

The camera's hot shoe accepts Nikon's excellent line of accessory flashes. The camera offers flash sync up to 1/500 of a second – a big advantage for users who want to use fill-flash outdoors. By contrast, the Canon Rebel XT syncs at less than half that speed at 1/200th of a second.

The D50 offers a wide range of sync modes: front-curtain sync, slow sync, red-eye reduction, red-eye reduction with slow sync, and rear-curtain sync.

Zoom Lens (8.0)
The D50 comes with an 18 to 55mm, f/3.5 to f/5.6 zoom lens that's comparable to a 27 to 82mm lens on a 35mm camera. That range will offer a variable perspective that begins as a reasonable wide angle and extends to a telephoto that's nice for portraits.

If Nikon is trying to be competitive with this lens, it's only on the basis of price. The 18-55 range is very common on kit lenses. The aperture is just as common, and it's a real problem. F/5.6 is not a useful maximum aperture for indoor, available light shooting – or for shooting with the built-in flash, for that matter. The flash won't light up a subject more than 9 feet away at ISO 200 at that aperture. The lens has a plastic mount, rather than metal, and feels insubstantial.

The lens offers only auto and manual focus modes, not the A/M setting available on some better Nikon lenses, which permits manual tweaking in autofocus modes.