nikon d50 buying guide

This is a rewrite of an earlier piece of mine, Canon Digital Rebel XT Buying Guide, except it's geared for the Nikon D50. This is my advice (based on my lessons learned from previous purchases) for first-time digital SLR buyers. Hopefully this piece will be of some help.

Most retailers sell the Nikon D50 in a kit that includes:

• D50 (6.1 megapixel) camera body
• AF-S DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED Zoom-Nikkor Autofocus Lens
• battery charger
• battery pack
• camera strap
• camera-to-USB interface cable
• camera-to-video cable
• body, eyepiece, and accessory shoe covers/caps
• software CDs
• documentation

Note that the camera kit does not come with any (SD) memory. Some independent retailers might offer it as part of the kit, but most of the mainstream retailers do not. I've also seen this kit packaged with different/multiple lenses.

Problem: The lens that comes in the kit is not-so-great.
First, what does AF-S DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED really mean? AF-S indicates a silentwave (ultrasonic) motor, DX is a series of Canon lenses that work only on digital SLRs, 18-55mm indicates the focal length range of the lens (think of it as the zoom range), f/3.5-5.6 indicates the maximum aperture of the lens (think of it as the minimum amount of light necessary to use the lens), G is a new series of Nikon lenses that only work on newer camera bodies, and ED stands for extra-low dispersion glass (a better quality glass). Now for some gritty detail about lenses...

DX
DX lenses are lenses specifically for Nikon digital SLR cameras. Although the DX lenses physically fit the film bodies, they cast an image that is smaller than the non-DX lenses. This is because the sensor in the digital SLR is smaller than the 36mm by 24mm film frames (measure your old negatives if you want to verify). The D50 however is capable of using both the non-DX and DX families of lenses.

18-55mm focal length (zoom) range
On the D50, 30mm (normal) focal length is roughly equivalent to what your eye normally sees. So 18mm (wide) to 55mm (telephoto) gives you roughly +/- 2x of zoom towards wide or telephoto (so I guess that's 4x total). 18-55mm is generally considered a mid-range wide-to-telephoto zoom. Just keep in mind that the D50 has a 1.5x conversion factor. So 18-55mm on the D50 is equivalent to 1.5 x (18-55) = 27-82.5mm, almost equivalent to the 28-80mm lens on a full frame film camera.

f/3.5-5.6 maximum aperture
This is the real problem. Zoomed out at 18mm, the lens is f/3.5. Zoomed in at 55mm, the lens is f/5.6. The higher the f-number, the more light you will need to take a decent picture. This means, don't plan on zooming in and taking pictures indoors very well -- you'll need bright sunlight or a powerful flash to take good pictures. We know what happens on our point-and-shoots when we use the flash indoors: any trace of oil on skin reflects flat bright white light, skin tone looks horrible, the blood vessels at the back of the retina reflect red light and cause red-eye, and the photo is most likely overexposed (too bright). Nothing wrong with fun pictures like this, but if you're paying the big money for a digital SLR, I figure you want a little better. Just remember, the lower the f-number, the better. With a low f-number, you can take pictures in either low light or bright light, where with the high f-numbers, the lens requires bright light.

Solution: Buy the body and lens separately.
The body comes with everything in the kit mentioned above, except the lens, and usually costs about $100-150 less than the kit. (Kits sell for about $700, body-only sells for about $550.) This lets you buy a lens of your own choosing. The lens is the technical limiting factor of the quality of photos your digital SLR can take. With a low-quality lens, you get 6.1 megapixels of low quality images. With a high-quality lens, you get 6.1 megapixels of sharpness and color. (The other limiting factor is the human element: composition skills of the photographer.) Chances are you'll have more than one lens in the future, but let's assume you want just one lens to start with. Some of my recommendations:

A Better Zoom Lens
The Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 EX DC (be sure to check for Nikon mount) is a third-party lens that sells for around $400. Note that the lens has constant f/2.8 aperture, regardless of the focal length (zoom). Compared with the kit lens, this lens not only performs better in low light, but performs consistently regardless of the focal length.

A Normal Fixed Lens
By normal, I mean normal focal length, 30mm. As I mentioned earlier, 30mm is roughly what our eyes see. The Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM (Nikon mount) sells for around $400 and performs really well in low light without a flash. This lens requires eight times less light than the kit lens to take a picture. By fixed, I mean there's no zoom. The lens is fixed at 30mm. Step feet forward to zoom in, step back to zoom out. However, giving up the zoom wins you a benefit: spectacularly sharp photographs. As in magazine-quality sharp. Examples tagged as 30mm are in my flickr photostream.

An Inexpensive, High-Quality, Fixed Lens that Does Portraits
If you're looking for quality bargains, the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor, sells for around $100. (Even cheaper than the kit lens!) It feels like a cheap piece of plastic, but the optical quality of this lens is hard to beat -- the resulting pictures are also magazine-quality sharp and it works well in low light. Being fixed at 50mm means that you will always be at 1.5x zoom relative to your eye. If you're in a small room, this might be an issue because you might not be able to back up enough to take a group photo, for instance. However, because it is slightly telephoto (zoomed in), there is some compression in the image, which means that when you take portraits, facial features (particularly noses) will be slightly compressed. Your subjects will probably agree to that. Not to mention, if you are taking a picture of a baby or a pet, you won't have to stand quite so close to get a good portrait shot. It's f/1.8 maximum aperture (low light capability) also means you don't have to fire the flash indoors, sparing your subjects' eyes from annoyance. Of course, you can use this as a general purpose lens too, not just for portraits.

The key is not buying the kit lens. If you look at some point-and-shoot cameras, some of their lenses are actually better than the kit lens in terms of range and aperture. If you're going to get a digital SLR, you might as well get a good lens so you can feel good about your purchase and know that your camera is taking better pictures than a point-and-shoot that's less than half the price.