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Replace my Nikon D50?

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MKCurtis

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With Father's day around the corner and some birthday money to spend, I thought I would buy a new lens or an external flash for my D50. Then the thought crossed my mind to buy a new Nikon body. With this in mind, I went to my local Wolf Camera to do some shopping and research. After a brief conversation with the sales guy, who shoots Canon stuff, asked me if I had alot of money invested in Nikon lenses. I told him I had the 18-55 kit lens that came with my camera and the 35mm 1.8 Nikon lens. He recommended that I take a look at the Sony a500. He said that the features on the a500 are similar to the features on the D90, but for less money. He said that he is really impressed with the Sony cameras and that if he didn't have so much money invested in Canon glass, he would buy either the a850 or a900. I am tempted by the a550, but that is just out of my price range.

I use the D50 for general day-to-day photography. I take pictures of my kids and pictures while on vacations.

Is the a500 the natural progression from the D50?

Any thoughts or opinions on the matter would be appreciated.

Thanks...
 
I have friend that just bought a A500 and a Canon shooter recomended it and he is very happy. I don't like to tell people what to buy as far as brands but I don't believe you will be unhappy with that choice. It is a very good camera for the money and the Sony system is a good system.
 
You already have two Nikon lenses, and one of them is fantastic 35/1,8. I think that D90 is better choice in your case.
 
Keep D50 and save up for another good lens. If you have not got any ext flash go and get the SB900
--
Mark K
 
MKCurtis said:
With Father's day around the corner and some birthday money to spend, I thought I would buy a new lens or an external flash for my D50. Then the thought crossed my mind to buy a new Nikon body. With this in mind, I went to my local Wolf Camera to do some shopping and research. After a brief conversation with the sales guy, who shoots Canon stuff, asked me if I had alot of money invested in Nikon lenses. I told him I had the 18-55 kit lens that came with my camera and the 35mm 1.8 Nikon lens. He recommended that I take a look at the Sony a500. He said that the features on the a500 are similar to the features on the D90, but for less money. He said that he is really impressed with the Sony cameras and that if he didn't have so much money invested in Canon glass, he would buy either the a850 or a900. I am tempted by the a550, but that is just out of my price range.

I use the D50 for general day-to-day photography. I take pictures of my kids and pictures while on vacations.

Is the a500 the natural progression from the D50?

Any thoughts or opinions on the matter would be appreciated.

Thanks...
Click to expand...
Since you already have an investment in Nikon you should think long and hard on switching to another brand.

I think you should evaluate your shooting style. What do you need to do that you can't do with your current D50? The main selling points of the A550 IMO are SSS and quick-LV. If you think that quick-LV would be useful to you then I suggest you consider the A550. If not, you may be better served with another lens/flash or an upgraded Nikon body such as the D90.

Good luck!

--
Rick
 
Hello, I had a D50...nice camera, with 2 lenses. I moved to Sony A300 then to A500, now own A850. I liked the D50 alot. But I had a lot of Minolta lenses from the old days. When I got the A500, I was really happy with it. Do not regret it. The SS in the Sony's and the use of my minolta lenses sold me. Yes to me...it was a natural progression. Completely happy with it...nah...but I would not be happy with 800 bars of gold. Just my nature I think. But the A500 is a large step up from the D50 no matter which way you look at it.
 
I like my A500, but I don't know that I can answer your question.

I think you need to play with a D90 and the A500 and such in the store and decide what you like. Focus on what feels good in your hand and what you find enjoyable to use.
 
I wouldn't let owning just two lenses, one of them a kit lens sway you. If the other lens is so good, you will be able to get a good price for it anyway.

I think at this early stage in a system you have the opportunity to look at what potential the different brands have for you. If Nikon comes out top, great, if it's Sony then likewise.

--
Malcy
 
Maybe I can help you a little bit more cause I owned D50 than bought D80 and Alpha 200. Both systems have some cons and pros. What I don't like about D80 and D90 is matrix metering which works completely different than matrix metering on D50. You will have much more overexposed photos and it was so annoying that I finnaly switched to central weighted metering. They also changed response to colors and now they are more cold and very often too unnatural for my taste. Fortunately it can be corrected to large degree by fine tuning auto white balance. Everything else is better on D80 and D90 compared to D50. I like very much large viewfinder, grid in the viewfinder, better and bigger LCD, faster AF, all important functions are easy to change by buttons, and great customization through menu.

On Sony I like colors and better multi segment (matrix) metering. What I don't like is smaller viewfinder, no grid in viewfinder, AF is not so good as Nikon's, menu allows changing just some basic things. I also don't like very large RAW files - Sony doesn't offer compressed RAW. Problem with JPG engine is that noise reduction starts already at base ISO and it becomes worse on higher ISO and it cannot be turned off. Don't know about A500 but A200 corrupted my card several times when I turned it off while camera was recording images to card. I was able to retrieve pictures with some restoring software and format cards after that but it gives me a lot of sweat and never happened to me with Nikons. What troubles me most with Sony is some kind of BF issue when wide lenses are used. AF very often choose to focus behind main subject when background is brighter. Yet another problem in Europe is eye sensor which doesn't allow camera to go to sleep mode when you wear camera around neck or shoulder. They removed grip sensor what forced me to buy additional battery.
 
The OP is asking about A500 which is a completely different camera compared to A200. Besides, eventhough I haven't owned A200, I know that you are inaccurate in your "observations" below.
Dayd3 said:
Maybe I can help you a little bit more cause I owned D50 than bought D80 and Alpha 200. Both systems have some cons and pros. What I don't like about D80 and D90 is matrix metering which works completely different than matrix metering on D50. You will have much more overexposed photos and it was so annoying that I finnaly switched to central weighted metering. They also changed response to colors and now they are more cold and very often too unnatural for my taste. Fortunately it can be corrected to large degree by fine tuning auto white balance. Everything else is better on D80 and D90 compared to D50. I like very much large viewfinder, grid in the viewfinder, better and bigger LCD, faster AF, all important functions are easy to change by buttons, and great customization through menu.

On Sony I like colors and better multi segment (matrix) metering. What I don't like is smaller viewfinder, no grid in viewfinder, AF is not so good as Nikon's, menu allows changing just some basic things. I also don't like very large RAW files - Sony doesn't offer compressed RAW. Problem with JPG engine is that noise reduction starts already at base ISO and it becomes worse on higher ISO and it cannot be turned off. Don't know about A500 but A200 corrupted my card several times when I turned it off while camera was recording images to card. I was able to retrieve pictures with some restoring software and format cards after that but it gives me a lot of sweat and never happened to me with Nikons. What troubles me most with Sony is some kind of BF issue when wide lenses are used. AF very often choose to focus behind main subject when background is brighter. Yet another problem in Europe is eye sensor which doesn't allow camera to go to sleep mode when you wear camera around neck or shoulder. They removed grip sensor what forced me to buy additional battery.
Click to expand...
 
jpatel said:
The OP is asking about A500 which is a completely different camera compared to A200. Besides, eventhough I haven't owned A200, I know that you are inaccurate in your "observations" below.
Click to expand...
So, you haven't owned A200 and you KNOW that I who really own it and have oportunity every day to compare it with my other Nikon camera have inaccurate observations. :)
 
Dayd3 said:
Yet another problem in Europe is eye sensor which doesn't allow camera to go to sleep mode when you wear camera around neck or shoulder. They removed grip sensor what forced me to buy additional battery.
Click to expand...
Hmm, I turned off the eye sensor, but wouldn't the camera going to sleep prevent it from focusing while over your neck?
 
sodablue said:
Dayd3 said:
Yet another problem in Europe is eye sensor which doesn't allow camera to go to sleep mode when you wear camera around neck or shoulder. They removed grip sensor what forced me to buy additional battery.
Click to expand...
Hmm, I turned off the eye sensor, but wouldn't the camera going to sleep prevent it from focusing while over your neck?
Click to expand...
You can't turn off eye sensor. You can turn off AF which is triggered by eye sensor but eye sensor still remains active and prevents camera to go to sleep mode. Only way for camera to go to sleep mode is holding it away from body at least 1 minute (cause it's shortest time which can be set in menu for activating sleep mode). First month or two I turned off info display to save power (in that way sensor was active but didn't turn on LCD) and later on I bought another battery cause I wanted to see settings on the LCD.

That's why Alphas outside EU have grip sensor together with eye sensor but Sony screwed something with materials and was unable to import such cameras in EU. Than instead of doing something properly (for example adding turn-off feature in menu) they just decided not to put grip sensor for EU models.
 
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