Nikon D50 Dslr For Beginners By bigdane on Jan 31, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

To start, I love this camera. I got into photography randomly, when my friend started raving about this new camera he got. He showed me a few photos off his Flickr and told me how easy it was to do with his camera, and I was intrigued. I'd had a point and shoot for awhile at the time so I started playing around with that. The lack of things to do with it was disheartening. I wanted to make awesome pictures like my friend! He came up and let me mess around with his D50. It was so easy to use, I was hooked immediately. If you have the slightest experience in photography you will adapt to the camera very quickly; and those with lesser experience will catch on fast. There are several settings for various situations; portrait, child (for quick moving objects), landscape, macro, plus the fun one - manual. Manual is for people who want to learn their camera quickly, or those with a previous background. The D50's controls are very intuitive like an SLR, but you get the immediate gratification of a digital camera. The one pitfall is the mediocre lens included in the kit. You can just buy a body and find your own lens (may I suggest the 35mm prime); but if you get the kit, a 18-55mm lens is included. It doesn't work so well in low lighting and it's really fickle with bright lights. Other than that, I think the D50 is the best camera for a novice to DSLRs.