D50 or 350D?
I’ve saved up a bit of cash and decided to get myself a digital SLR camera. My budget narrows my options to either the Nikon D50 or the Canon EOS 350D. Although about £80 more expensive, the Canon has a greater resolution (8 megapixels, compared to the Nikon’s 6 megapixels), though the 18-55mm lens on the Nikon is generally regarded to be better than the Canon. So, my question is, which should I opt for?
On another note, how important is the read/write speed of the memory cards? It seems you can buy a 1Gb Bytestor or Kingston SD card for about £40, but a friend who’s recently purchased a Canon 20D (jammy git) bought a SanDisk Ultra III card for £90, claiming that cheaper cards just aren’t worth it. Any enlightenment or advice is greatly appreciated!
Posted 2 years, 8 months ago on 27th January 2006.
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Comments
Well, I’m pleased with my D70 (similar to the D50), although I can fault it in certain areas, for example its automatic white balance is pretty poor, so I have to remember to manually set the white balance every time I shoot.
I wouldn’t really take the number of megapixels into account. The extra 2 megapixels just means the resulting images are a few hundred pixels higher and wider, which makes little difference.
I’m surprised the 18-55mm Nikon lens is considered better than the Canon, I think it’s the cheapest zoom lens Nikon produce. I would have thought the Canon lens would be better.
Not sure about read/write speeds of Memory cards really, just avoid the cheapo makes I guess.
Anyway, my advice, spend the extra £80 and get the 350D.
Matt, if you shoot in RAW you can effectively forget about white balance as it’s applied by the software when you 'render' the pics. I used to shoot JPEG all the time, but now that I rarely take pictures (I get a chance once a week if that), I don’t mind the extra work involved in getting them ready.
The canon 18-55 isn’t the best lens in the world, but it is light. That said, I’ve never had a problem with it :)
You’re right, I forgot about that. I do shoot in RAW, but there are times when I find shooting JPEGs a bit more convenient, especially as my Mac Mini is a little bit slow at handling RAW files.
IMHO, get the 350D with the additional battery grip so you can hold the camera with ease.
Goto to a camera store and hold both cameras. Whichever one feels better in your hands, buy that.
Interesting comments guys – I think Pete’s right, I need to get myself down to Jacobs and try them both out first hand.
I’ve been seriously considering upgrading from my Canon A80 to a Canon Powershot Pro 1. Great re-design by the way!
I have a D70, a friend has the 350D. One thing I found to be off putting about the 350D was the size, I have big-ish hands and found the 350D too small. The D70 is much nicer to get your hands round, the buttons fall right under your fingers were as with the Canon I had to keep looking to find the buttons as my fingers didn’t line up with them.
If your going to get a camera and only one or two lenses, then I’d go for the D50, the 18-55 is a bargain when you get the camera as well for that price, plus if you wanted a bit longer reach Nikon have brought out a new super-zoom 18-200mm with VR (Vibration reduction) which give you an extra 4 stops. You can get good sharp pictures at 1/10 sec without too much trouble.
Also, don’t forget the 'crop factor' will increase the lenses focal length by a factor of around 1.5 on these two cameras. So 18-55 is actually 27-82 and the 18-200 is 27-300. It’s great if your into long telephoto photography (Sport, wild animals etc) but does mean you need some *real* wide glass to get close to a 35mm wide angle camera + lens.
The Nikon will also take almost every lens Nikon have ever made, the ones without AF and AE need a bit of manual work, but the do still work. I believe Canon have a habit of changing the mounts on there lenses every so often, so if you were going to take advantage of Ebay for your lenses I’d make sure they fit your camera first.
Ultimately Canon are more popular than Nikon, so lenses and the like may be a little cheaper and easier to get hold of. But I have no regrets about buying a Nikon, it’s a far better camera than I am a photographer so I’ve got alot of learning to do before I come anywhere near close to using it to it’s potential.
If you want to try a D70 let me know, I’d be more than happy to go through it with you. sfoers[your know the sign]bigredorange.co.uk
Steven
Steven Foers · 2 years, 8 months ago
Thanks for the feedback guys – in the end I’ve got myself a Nikon D50. Bought as a birthday present by my lovely wife no less! See I knew this weblog would pay off eventually!
Once I’ve had a play with it I’ll post up a quick review (with some pics!).
Not sure about the difference between the cameras, however I will say the memory speed makes a whopping difference. Nothing more annoying than the wait when you’ve just fired off a quickfire round of RAW pictures... anything to reduce that can’t be ignored!
I’ve got a 300d (got it ultra-cheap last year) and it’s great. AFAIK the 350d is just a tidier version; bit smaller.
Just don’t do what they do in the adverts. Everytime I see that kid pointing his camera down while jumping in the sand it makes me hold my warrenty tight and weep silently. Sand :O
Andrew · www · 2 years, 8 months ago