Nikon D50 or Olympus E500? (1 Viewer)

[Helena_Eklund]

Hi,
I want to buy a dslr camera and thinking of either Nikon D50 or Olympus E500.
Together with the Nikon camera comes a Sigma lens and together with the Olympus camera comes the standard kit with two lenses. Primary I will use the camera to birding photography and intends to buy other lenses later on.
Pros/Cons?

/ Helena

 

[Mark43]

The same 2 cameras i am looking at as well Helena.

The Nikon D50 seems to have scored highly in reviews with good performance right up to ISO1600 (little noise) plus ease of use etc although missing a few things which are available on the D70s.

The E500 also isn't doing to bad with reviews although it appears to suffer noise more at ISO800 upwards.The viewfinder is small apparently making manual focus more difficult.

The Sigma 50-500 (Bigma) will be available for the E500 in June so that will be equivalent to 100-1000 with the x2 multiplication factor.

 

[yossi]

I'd wait with the decision re the Olympus. I'm not sure about the future of the 4/3 format. Nikon (or Canon) has a big selection of lenses and accessories which are available everywhere and have a good second-hand market value.
The x2 crop factor seems great for tele work, but stability is more critical than a x1.5 crop factor (the frame has to be enlarged more - so every tiny blur becomes bigger). Noise is also an important factor, sometime one must shoot at high iso due to lighting conditions.
I do not see a clear advantage of the Olympus over the D50 or the 350D besides "being different". Sometimes, going with crowd is not that bad...
And there's also the service issue. Almost every repair shop knows Nikon and Canon's gear and has spare parts for it. I'm not sure that's the case for Olympus.

 

[Mark43]

Well Sigma seem happy to provide lenses for the 4/3's system Yossi with a whole raft of new ones appearing soon.

Panasonic have gone into partnership with them on the new DMC-L1 utilising 4/3's also.

Yes i agree though Nikon and Canon has the greater availability of lenses.......at the moment.

 

[yossi]

I understand Mark, but what are the real advantages of this format?
The cameras are not smaller as promised.
Obviously, one can decide for himself what suits him best, but until one of the big guys in photography will adopt this format, I'll not consider it.
Did you see the price of the Olympus 300/2.8 lens? It looks on the camera as if it is a 600mm, but is it really?

 

[Mark43]

Well i am no photographer Yossi and i don't pretend to understand any of it.

My leanings are towards the D50 anyway due to ease of use,low noise and punchy out of the camera pics.

Here is a link to Olympus's reasoning behind the system and it's apparent advantages although i am sure you are aware of this anyway.

http://www.olympus-europa.com/consumer/dslr_7045.htm

I certainly wasn't arguing that it's the way forward as i don't have enough expertise to even argue the point.

But i do have to say that the E500 is a nice looking camera,feels good in the hand and has some great features and a good price if you look around in the right places.

You are probably right though that until the big boys adopt this system it will never properly take off.

 

[creeek]

4 to choose from! (from a Minolta A200)

I just bought the Nikon D50 (in UK) for £404 with lens Jessops NOW doing it for £399!! (jessops.co.uk)

I considered 4 cameras:
Minolta 5D (8 mpix)
Canon 350D (8 mpix)
Nikon D50 (6 Mpix)
Olympus E500 (6 mpix)

They are in my personal order of preference, but when you look at the specs, there is VERY little to seperate them. Except megapixels, which really dosnt make THAT much difference!

Main reason for selecting the Nikon... PRICE I was on my way out of the country and 'Dixons' were doing it duty free for the best price.

My 1st impressions were.... mmmm not TOO complimentry, but they soon went as I got used to it. Bearing in mind that I was used to the Minolta A200, which is a 'near DSLR', meaning video viewer!! Which of course has some advantages.

Now that i have used the D50, I really like it. I LOVE the manual focus and auto focus is really fast and precise.

All I need now is some decent lenses

 

[Chris Oates]

All I need now is some decent lenses

Everyone ends with with a Sigma 70-300mm F4-5.6 APO Macro DG
Very useful (and cheap) lens for birding/nature at fairly close range.
Macro feature is handy for flowers & butterflies etc.

 

[Cashie]

I have just bought a D50 as a backup body while my D100 is in for a repair to the screen which droped out & i think i'll be using it a lot more than the D100 as it's much more accurate at focusing & i dont get any underexposed pics as in the past, the D50 is an excellent little camera.

 

[greypoint]

I've been using a D50 for about 5 months -sold my D70 as i preferred the D50. Having just bought a Fuji S3Pro [great for white so a boon for swan photographers - but soooo sloooow!] has made me appreciate just what a great camera the D50 is in terms of sheer useability. The things it lacks are'nt really too much of an issue for most bird photography enthusiasts and it more than makes up for them in other ways. The quality of the Fuji images direct from camera has really pleased me but I just can't part with the D50 unless I have to, as it's the perfect take anywhere camera.

 

[Mark43]

Well i made up my mind and purchased the D50 yesterday. :t:

Now which lens to get.?

 

[Cashie]

Well personally Mark i would go for a Nikon AFS-300mm f4 as they work realy well with a teleconverter, you can get one at warehouse express at the moment for £865.

What do you think greypoint ?

 

[Mark43]

Well personally Mark i would go for a Nikon AFS-300mm f4 as they work realy well with a teleconverter, you can get one at warehouse express at the moment for £865.

What do you think greypoint ?

Was thinking of the Tamron 200-500 or the Bigma tbh.

 

[sheifert]

My setup is a D50 with a Tamron 200-500mm f/5-6.3 ID. I love it. The D50 has been praised by everyone I talked to even shops that sell the D2X. They love the D50. Clear images, with a super fast autofocus. I even had a guy at a camera store tell me that the auto focus is better on the D50 than it is on the D2X... I'm not sure if it is true, but he had no reason to lie seeing how I already had the camera. The only thing I would love to have is Commander Mode which is available on the D70. Besides that it is a great camera and look forward to using it for a long time.