Dan,

The D50 is a good camera and part of a good lineup. However the quality of your shots will have more to do with having good lenses than a good camera body. You should look at what other companies offer.

You should compare the
Canon 400D (Rebel XTi)
Nikon D50
Pentax K100D
Pentax K10D
Sony Alpha 100

The advantage to the last three (pentax and Sony) is that they have in body image stabilization. That makes a big difference, particularly when you get up close. Nikon and Canon offer it as well, but only in the lenses and that can sell at a premium.

One big thing you should consider is the way they feel in your hands. No two people are the same, so you should go to a Camera Store, Best Buy or Circuit City and handle each one. Find the one that fits your hands the best and has the nicest LCD screen. Determine which ones have the most accessible buttons. You don't want to have to fumble through a bunch of menus to make a simple adjustment.

Here's a comparison of them - www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_post.asp?method=sidebyside&cameras=canon_eos400d,nikon_d50,pentax_k100d,pentax_k10d,sony_dslra100&show=all

In order to capture wide angle shots you might want a lens that goes around at least 17mm wide (on a DSLR). Then you want a macro lens in the 70-90mm range. A good choice might be the nice Sigma 17-70 macro. It gets down to 1:2 macro, and is very well regarded by reviewers.

You should also look at some of the fixed lens cameras out there. Several of the advanced point and shoot cameras are very good, but their smaller sensors tend to produce noisy images at high ISO.

As for megapixels, anything over 5 is plenty. I have printed 8x10s from a 3.2 megapixel camera and they looked fine. I regularly print 8x10s from my 6.1 MP camera, even with significant cropping.
-----
Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Show Entire Thread ]