Nikon D50 Review

In the price war for the favor of DSLR fans, camera manufacturers have so far managed to undercut the price bar set by the competition. With the D50, Nikon has set the bar very low itself, and whether or not this will cause back pain for the competition is a question we would like to explore in this test.

Brief assessment

Pros

• hardly limited functional range
• fast response times (AF, tripping delay, switch-on time, etc.)
• iTTL flash exposure metering and control
• enormous choice of lenses
• excellent resolution values (at least with our test lens)
• very well tuned sharpness and noise reduction
• “ready to use” pictures (beginner-orientated coordination of the picture preparation)
• excellent price-performance ratio
• very well implemented “savings concept” (restrictions hardly noticeable compared to the D70/D70s)

Cons

• USB 2.0 High Speed not better exploited
• z. T. Limited backward compatibility (especially when using flash)
• no mirror lockout
• glaring AF-assist light
• no battery handle available as original accessory
• Dimmer button and grid rationalized
• strong vignetting in the wide angle range with some lenses
• partly pronounced moiré formation (also a problem with the D70/D70s)
• Competition already on the market with 8 megapixel models

 

The D50, Nikon’s latest entry-level digital SLR camera, costs only 750 EUR. And sooner or later street prices will probably break through the EUR 700 mark downwards. Not that this is still a lot of money for the normal earner, but you can ask yourself how much camera you get for the money. So here is where I try to give an answer to this question.

Ergonomics And Workmanship

The trend towards miniaturization does not pass Nikon by either. Although the D50 is not quite as small as the smallest of the small DSLRs from the “Bonsai” class (e.g. Pentax *ist series, Canon EOS 350D, Olympus E-300), within the family it is the most compact of all digital SLR cameras from Nikon with its 133 x 102 x 76 mm. To the 636 grams of the case (including battery, shoulder strap and memory card), one has to add – depending on the lens – several hundred grams up to several pounds or kilos in order to find out how heavy the camera weighs on the shoulder. In both the silver and the black version available to us, the D50 looks and feels good. Of course, you have plastic in your hand (metal is available in places inside the case and in important places like the tripod thread, the bayonet and the hot shoe), but it doesn’t look fragile and the workmanship is generally clean. The “fake”-leathering on the handle is not particularly of quality, however, and gives a feeling of slipperiness rather than safety. Otherwise, the D50 is firmly and well balanced in the hand; even those who have five thumbs on their hands can operate the Nikon comfortably and without any problems.

Digital camera Nikon D50 [Photo: Nikon]

The placement of the control elements, which is almost identical to the D70 and D70s in terms of “layout”, also plays a major role in this. Although the D50 lacks the low beam button, the bracketing button and – most importantly – a second dial, the operation hardly suffers. As it is already the case with the D70 and D70s, the mania that is otherwise typical for Nikon is kept within limits in the D50, as nearly every control element (switches, rings, buttons) is protected from accidental adjustment by a latch and dangerous functions (exposure correction, formatting command, erasing or similar) are only accessible by a key combination. A bit of finger acrobatics is only required when setting the aperture in manual exposure mode, when entering an exposure correction and when resetting to the factory settings (Reset); handling is also a bit uncomfortable when shooting in portrait mode, as there is no optional battery handle with portrait shutter release for the D50 like there is for the D100.

Nikon D50 with Nikkor AF-S 18-70/3.5-4.5 G ED [Photo: Nikon]

The absence of one or the other control element or some key functions results in a slightly more menu-driven operation than with the D70 and D70s. Thus, for example, there is no more shortcut for formatting the memory card and one has to get already into the menu in order to find there the formatting command or the setting of the light measuring mode. The menu has 47 options (divided into playback, recording, custom functions, and basic settings) with 170 settings. If desired, for the sake of clarity or simplicity, you can hide several menu items in the menu so that only the most important settings are displayed. By the way, the layout of the menu is similar to that of the D70s, and if you update the firmware of the D70  (update 2020, there is now firmware available), you’ll get the menu presented in a similar form.

More important than for the display of the menus is the relatively large diagonal of the LC color screen of 2″ for the playback of the recorded images. Due to its architecture, the monitor only works in playback mode or when setting the functions; the screen resolution of 130,000 pixels is sufficient for a rough focus control (especially when using the magnifying glass function). The optical viewfinder is better suited for this purpose. With an ideal eye relief of 18 millimeters, it shows the viewer a 0.75 times enlarged image with 95 percent coverage (compared to the image actually captured by the camera). An adjustment to individual visual acuity can be made by adjusting the diopter (-1.6 to +0.5 dpt.) next to the eyepiece. The DK-20 eyecup attached to the eyepiece is a bit larger than the DK-16 of the D70 and D70s. For this purpose, you have to do without the insertion of a grid on the viewfinder screen. Actually, it should even be called “in the viewfinder matte screen”, because the marks on the matte screen are “turned on” and “turned off” by liquid crystal technology (if you want to do the test, you can take out the battery and see how the viewfinder gets dark immediately). The D50’s BriteView Type B Mark V screen displays only the AF area markings and a metering circle relevant to the exposure metering. Nikon probably thought that D50 owners don’t need a fade-in grid and replaced it with a warning display that works in the same way. If one forgets to insert a memory card or if the battery tends to be exhausted, this is signalled on the screen. When displayed like this, the warning can hardly be overlooked! Further information and setting data is still displayed in the small green LCD bar at the bottom of the viewfinder and on the status display (unfortunately no longer illuminated compared to the D70/D70s) on the top of the camera.

Optics

What can one say, except that the D50 has a vast array of lenses to choose from? With the original lenses from Nikon, the choice is already so great that there is something for practically every budget and every requirement. Older Nikon lenses or “Nikkore” like the Ai and Ai-S lenses as well as the AF lenses of the first generation from Nikon are mechanically compatible, but due to the lack of a distance chip (more about this in the section “Image Quality”) and/or electronic aperture transmission, they lead to more or less severe functional losses (3D measurement, matrix measurement, program automatic, aperture priority). If you want to make full use of your camera’s capabilities, you should either study a compatibility list (you can find one in the manual of the D50, among others) or only buy lenses of newer types. Rumours about so-called back-focus problems (where the camera does not focus precisely) as it is the case with Canon can be found in this or that forum in connection with Nikon cameras, but in most cases, these horror messages turn out to be operating errors. As an alternative to the original Nikon lenses, there are lenses from Sigma, Tamron, Tokina & Co.; so if you can’t find what you’re looking for at Nikon, you might find it elsewhere.

 

However, the right lens must be chosen correctly. With digital SLR cameras, image quality is more closely tied to the lens than with 35mm SLR cameras, and not every lens that is mechanically compatible with the D50 will perform at its best with the camera. This is especially true for old lenses that you may still have lying around at home. A new purchase is no guarantee for highest imaging performance, but newer lenses are often specifically designed for use with digital SLR cameras. Corresponding lenses are marked with the abbreviation DX at Nikon; at Sigma with DG/DC, at Tamron with Di and at Tokina again with DX. Further abbreviations provide information about other lens characteristics. At Nikon, for example, the abbreviation AF-S denotes lenses with so-called “Silent Wave” technology (the Nikon counterpart to the USM lenses from Canon); VR stands for “Vibration Reduction” and reveals that an optical image stabilizer is built into the lens. You should also remember the terms ED (lenses with an especially low refractive index) and G (lenses without aperture ring that do not work with mechanical Nikon cameras). All that has to be considered is the focal length extension factor and/or the image angle reduction; thanks to the uniform sensor size of the cameras of the D-series of Nikon, one only has to multiply the focal length indication on the lens by 1,5 in order to calculate the 35mm-equivalent.

The D50 has no dimmer button. This is more a marketing decision than a real cost saving, since the shutter is only closed electronically anyway and the dimming could theoretically also be controlled from the menu. However, there are no economy measures for the AF module. The D50 still makes use of the same Multi-CAM 900 module as several other D-Series models. Characteristic features of this component are the sensitivity range from IL -1 to IL 19 at ISO 100 (which means that the AF still responds even in brighter candlelight), the 5 AF measuring fields and their arrangement (1 cross sensor in the middle for the detection of vertical and horizontal structures, surrounded by 4 line sensors). If the light or subject contrast is insufficient for focusing, the autofocus can use the camera’s built-in bright white auxiliary light or the red-light spotlight of an attached flash unit; proper autofocus operation is only guaranteed with a lens speed of F5.6 or higher.

Normally, the autofocus works as one would expect it from a digital reflex camera: namely precise and extremely fast ). That the AF of the D50 may be a few milliseconds slower than the autofocus of a D70 or D70s has less to do with the AF module than with the focusing algorithms used. With the D50, Nikon is celebrating the introduction of a feature that has been available from other brands such as Canon (under the name AI-Focus) for some time. The AF mode, labeled AF-A on the menu, lets the camera’s “artificial intelligence” decide whether to focus on a static or moving subject and then automatically switches between single-frame advance and continuous advance. If you prefer to make this decision yourself, you can select the AF mode (AF-S for single-frame advance and AF-C for focus) at the same point on the menu. Incidentally, the D50 is a predictive focus tracking system; not only is the focus constantly adjusted, but the direction and speed of moving subjects are also taken into account to correct the focus based on the predicted movement.

With the directional pad on the back of the camera, you can specify the point in the image where the camera should focus. Thanks to the LCD technology in the viewfinder’s matte screen, the corresponding AF target marker “lights up”. This works even if the camera automatically selects the measuring field. But only with single-frame advance (AF-S) and when the closest object is being targeted (focus point control in the menu to “Night Object”). However, when the focus-priority or subject tracking mode is active, you will not know which metering area is active. Only the original focus area is highlighted; if the subject changes position to coincide with another focus area, the highlighting will remain at the original position. If you don’t trust the autofocus, you can switch the AF mode switch under the lens release button from AF to M and focus by hand. If an AF-S lens is used, it is also possible to rotate the focus ring directly in autofocus mode (both in single-frame mode and with focus tracking on); in this case, it is not necessary to turn the AF mode dial.

Flash

The D50’s all-in-one package includes a small built-in flash that pops up automatically in full auto mode and in some scene modes as soon as the camera thinks it’s necessary. If this is too intrusive for you, simply turn the program dial on the top of the camera to one of the “extended” modes (meaning the programs P, S, A or M) and then unlock the flash by pressing a button. We determined the power of the built-in flash with guide number 12 – which corresponds pretty much to the manufacturer’s specification from the manual at ISO 100-manual. For ISO 200, Nikon specifies an output of LZ 15 or LZ 17 (automatic, manual), which then results in a maximum flash range of 4.1 to 4.8 meters with the lens we use (AF-S DX 18-70 mm f/3.5-4.5 G IF ED). The flash sync speed of the D50 must not be more than 1/500 sec. short; if you accept a loss of flash power, you can fall back on the high-speed flash sync function of various system flash units, which also allow shorter shutter speeds or sync speeds (up to 1/4,000 sec. with the D50).

The light dispenser hidden in the viewfinder box is sufficiently distant from the optical axis when extended to avoid shadowing effects (at least when using normal sized lenses) and to keep the phenomenon of red eyes to a minimum. This is also a good thing, as the “headlight” (lamp between the lens and the handle), which serves as a red-eye reduction device, cannot exactly be described as discreet. There is no function for the electronic retouching of the “demon’s gaze” as with the little sisters of the Coolpix series. The flash illuminates satisfactorily and evenly and, as far as we can judge, does not produce color casts.

The D50 is also not lacking in functions and settings. In addition to the usual functions (flash auto, forced flash, forced flash off, red-eye reduction), there is a flash exposure correction setting and a long-term synchronization function – the latter of course with optional synchronization on the 1st or 2nd shutter curtain. However, the wireless control of external flash devices has to be partly abandoned. The control electronics have fallen victim to the red pencil, allowing the D70 and D70s to trigger wirelessly with the built-in flash, while retaining all automatic functions for flash units that are freely positioned in the room (as far as they are compatible with the technology). If desired, even with distribution of the flash power and triggering on different channels. To enjoy this function, the D50 requires an iTTL-compatible system flash unit to be mounted on the camera’s hot shoe. Here, Nikon follows the same approach as Canon, where you have to buy the wireless TTL flash control via optional accessories. Otherwise, the D50 is fully iTTL-compatible. The i-TTL exposure metering and control system stands above all for a plus in precision in flash exposure. Already in “analogue times” Nikon included the distance information transmitted by lenses with distance chip (all lenses marked with D) in the determination of the exposure. Before iTTL times a separate measuring cell was dedicated to lightning. ITTL technology eliminates the need for the flash metering cell; the electronics are now powerful enough to measure natural ambient light and flash light from a single metering cell. To do this, the camera sends out an ultrashort (invisible to the human eye) measuring flash immediately before the main flash. The 3D color matrix metering cell, which is actually dedicated to measuring ambient light, which has just measured the ambient light, then measures the flash light reflected from the subject, determines the correct flash exposure and matches it to the exposure for the ambient light – all before the actual exposure begins. The result is a much more natural match between the two light sources.

Of course, this requires perfect synchronization of camera and flash as well as a correspondingly fast processor that is capable of evaluating all information coming together milliseconds before exposure. The demands on the electronics of the flash unit are correspondingly high, but the built-in miniature flash and the system flash units SB-800 and SB-600 (as well as compatible products from other manufacturers such as Metz) are equal to the task. But while the professional DSLRs of Nikon still afford the luxury to integrate a flash measuring cell in order to be compatible with the “old” D-TTL technology, the entry-level models fully rely on the iTTL technology for cost reasons and thus do without backwards compatibility. As a result, only iTTL-compatible flash units will work together with the D50, D70 and D70s. If one still owns a flash device that is not up to date with the current Nikon technology, it is inevitably necessary to operate it in the self-automatic and make some adjustments by hand. If you want to benefit from the precision and convenience of iTTL technology, there is no way around a new purchase with Nikon’s entry-level DSLRs, and you may have to dig deep into your pocket.

Image quality

Many people associate the brand name “Nikon” with quality. With analog cameras, this was especially true for the quality of workmanship (the F3 has a reputation for being a camera that is indestructible) – but also for the lenses. With digital cameras, electronics have replaced film, and so the coordination of the electronic components (image sensor, signal processor, etc.) with the optics is another quality factor. The demands of electronics on the optics – and vice versa – are very high. The fact that the optics can certainly meet these requirements is demonstrated by the AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED from the DX series, to which the assessment of quality in combination with the D50 refers in the following. The combination of this zoom with the camera thus ensures excellent resolution values. In any case, the resolution is extremely high at short and medium focal length and hardly falls off towards the edges of the image. At the telephoto end, the performance is also excellent in the center and halfway, but falls off a bit more clearly towards the image corners. However, the resolution is not always uniformly high, as it depends – depending on the adjusted focal length – sometimes on the direction in which different image structures run, sometimes it is higher in one color channel than in the others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nevertheless, you can already see with the naked eye how well the camera uses the resolution reserves provided by the lens and CCD. The efficiency is extremely high to excellent, depending on the focal length set, and the images look superfine both on the monitor and on paper. The aggressive detail processing shows that Nikon wanted it that way and that a considerable part of the images was electronically “post-processed” in the camera to flatter the eye. This does not bother the casual photographer who simply wants “ready to use” pictures; but those who want to get at the pictures with an image processing program might want the pictures to look less “retouched”.

In combination with our lens, more or less pronounced moiré effects appeared on the images on horizontal as well as vertical and diagonal structures. There are various reasons for this, including low-pass filtering and color interpolation. However, there is hardly any image interference due to excessive sharpness. In fact, the D50 has an exceptionally well balanced sharpness pattern that only gives the impression of sharpness where the eye would not find it disturbing. And this in the medium brightness range. In the highlights and shadows of the image, the sharpening is much more restrained, resulting in little or no overdrive effects (so-called “clipping”). It is important to know that sharpening works by locally increasing the contrast, and if the contrast is increased in areas of the image that are already light or dark enough, image distortion may occur. But not on the D50, where the sharpness algorithms work “gently” at critical points.

Similar to sharpness, noise is also very specifically tuned. The Nikon engineers have done a great job with the noise reduction or attenuation, and especially in the shadow areas of the image, the noise is surprisingly low. The image noise is most pronounced in a brightness range shortly before the average brightness, whereby it is never really disturbing to the eye. At low sensitivity levels, there may be a slight formation of individual bright and dark pixel areas (local brightness noise) in places; however, even these “noise nests” are hardly noticeable visually. The tonal value reproduction of the D50 is also very eye-friendly. The camera can cope with differences in brightness of up to 8.9 f-stops (at ISO 200) and distributes the 248 (of 256 possible) brightness levels very precisely and exceptionally evenly in the image. Lights and shadows are reproduced in a beautifully differentiated way. And because precise exposure also plays a major role in tonal value reproduction, the D50 once again uses the proven 3D colour matrix measurement. This time, however, in a slightly “slimmed-down” form, since the exposure measurement is no longer performed by a 1,005-pixel CCD metering cell, but by a metering cell with “only” 420 pixel elements. But this does not change the way the exposure metering works. Thus, in addition to the usual information (light distribution), color dominants are also determined. Together with the distance information provided by a chip in the D, G and DX series lenses, the camera’s “artificial intelligence” can use this data to create a “profile” of the subject, which is compared with the information in a kind of “subject database”. This form of “scene recognition”, which is called “scene detection” in Nikon 3D color matrix metering, works very reliably even with 420 pixels, and in the short time the D50 was available to us for testing, we couldn’t find a subject that was “nasty” enough to mislead the exposure metering of the latest Nikon DSLR.

There is also nothing to complain about in terms of colour reproduction, white balance and compression. But probably with the vignetting, which at least with our test lens was so clearly visible that you could see it not only on the shots but even in the viewfinder before the shot was taken. However, only in wide-angle position and with open aperture. This shows how the image quality of digital SLR cameras is strongly dependent on the lens used and how even for components that are matched to each other (the DX series lenses are specially designed for the D series cameras) it is difficult to maintain image quality at a consistently high level. If you adjust the focal length, the distortion is still visible, but from the middle zoom position it is not as strong (it drops from about -1 to about -0.5 f-stops); alternatively, you can dim the lens to reduce the vignetting effect. The AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED DX in combination with the D50 does not perform particularly well in terms of distortion. In the short focal length, straight lines are reproduced very strongly to extremely curved (inwardly in a barrel shape), and even in the telephoto range, a slight distortion (this time of a cushion-like nature) is noticeable on the images. In the medium focal length range, there is also a pincushion distortion, but it is only slightly visible. So the 18-70 zoom is not for purists.

Other Functions

It’s hard to believe that Nikon hasn’t taken the red pencil to its heart when it comes to functions and settings, but the D50 is hardly inferior to its big sisters in this respect either. What a D70/D70s doesn’t have (e.g. voice memo function) or a digital SLR generally doesn’t have (e.g. video function), the D50 doesn’t have either, but otherwise it can keep up quite well in terms of function. As an entry-level camera, the D50 features full auto and six scene modes (portrait, landscape, children, sports/action, close-up, portrait at night) and advanced shooting functions including a bracketing function, selectable metering characteristics (matrix/multi-field, center-weighted integral, spot), variable light sensitivity levels (ISO 200-1,600), various white balance settings (auto, preset, manual), and a remote shutter release function. However, the remote release only works with the optionally available infrared remote control ML-L3; there is no connection possibility for a mechanical cable release or an electrical cable remote release (as with the D70s) with the D50.

The delay for wireless triggering of the D50 can be set using one of the 20 individual functions (25 on the D70/D70s). We find the individual function number 10 very smart. It allows automatic adjustment of the light sensitivity level depending on the lighting conditions. This function goes a little further than the ISO automatic of other digital cameras, as you can set a shutter speed between 1 and 1/125 s as “limit”. The camera will then attempt to maintain this value by automatically increasing the sensitivity in a range between ISO 200 and ISO 1600.

In continuous shooting mode, the D50 is slightly slower than the D70 and D70s. The image sequence rate officially falls from 3 to 2,5 images per second; our measurement value table gives information about the serial image speed we determined. With the memory card I used (SanDisk Ultra II with 512 MByte), the – generously sized and efficiently managed – buffer memory was emptied so quickly that there was always enough space left for new pictures; and that at any resolution. Only when shooting in RAW format did the camera have to take a little “breather” after the fourth frame, although the D70 and D70s can’t do any better. But those who do not shoot any RAW images and have a sufficiently fast memory card can theoretically keep on it until the card capacity is exhausted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very useful are the special functions for adjusting and/or selecting the image parameters (sharpness, image contrast, color space, color saturation, hue) and for switching on noise reduction. Unless set otherwise, spot metering is linked to the active AF area so that light is measured precisely where the focus point is. Another setting causes a JPEG image (BASIC quality level) to be automatically generated when an image is captured in RAW/NEF format. Because of the SLR architecture, the technical possibilities are quite limited in recording mode, most of the functions are found in playback mode. An almost infinitely variable playback zoom allows for closer examination of certain parts of the image; the recorded images can also be rotated (automatically), deleted, protected, displayed as a slide show, labeled (via a virtual keyboard) and printed or marked for printing. Also new is the ability to make a low-resolution copy of an image in playback mode. The D50 also supports the PictBridge USB direct printing standard, allowing the camera to be connected directly to a compatible printer and printing can be controlled from the camera. Furthermore, in playback mode, various image information (recording parameters, histogram, highlighting of highlights/shadows) can be displayed on the LCD screen and folders can be renamed, also using the virtual keyboard. Not yet mentioned is the fact that the D50 is the first digital SLR camera from Nikon to use SecureDigital memory cards. Nikon doesn’t even mention in the manual if the D50 is compatible with MultiMedia-Cards, but with my MMC from Hama the D50 had no problems at all. For image data transfer, the D50 has a USB 2.0 high-speed interface. The theoretical maximum speed of 480 Mbit/s or 60 MByte/s isn’t even nearly reached (very few USB 2.0 compatible devices do that), but the data transfer is in any case much faster than with USB 1.1. Thanks to PTP and USB Mass Storage Class compatibility, no driver installation is required on computers with a reasonably up-to-date operating system. The equipment is rounded off by a high-capacity lithium-ion battery of the type EN-EL3a; this differs from its predecessor EN-EL3 (as supplied with the D70) by its slightly higher capacity (1,500 vs. 1,400 mAh).

Conclusion

With the D50, Nikon’s development department has managed to meet the marketing department’s specifications without making the camera look like a “cheap” version of higher-end models. The differences to the D70 and D70s are kept very subtle, and for the beginner there are few reasons that would justify the purchase of a more expensive model from the D-series. But it will also be interesting to see how long it will take for any of the competitors to dare to undercut the price of the D50. That shouldn’t take too long, because there’s still a lot to be done to rationalize away. Only when we see the first digital SLR cameras with plastic bayonet, without built-in flash and exclusively with automatic exposure (program automatic + scene modes), the end of the line will probably be reached. Because all this has happened before in analogous times. Until then, DSLR fans can look forward to cameras with an even better price/performance ratio, and the Nikon D50 is without doubt one of them!

Nikon D50 data sheet