Getting a D50 - couple of daft questions first!

Scam · 30 Mar 2006 at 20:47

Hi all. I've all but decided on getting myself a shiny Nikon D50, i'm literally waiting for a cheque to arrive then i will be ordering. It's my first camera, and i've got a couple of daft questions first

- Memory card. Am i right in thinking i need an SD memory card, not a compactflash, smartmedia or anything else? eg. a 'Kingston 1GB Secure Digital Card' is suitable?

- Is 1GB enough? What size cards do you all have? How many full-resolution pics would i roughly get with that? I take it i can get my pics off my camera through USB right?

- Insurance. I've read the sticky and had a look at the sites there. Seems like i'm looking at ~£25/year. I take it it's a very good idea to get insurance? Who are you insured with? Who's recommended? What smallprint should i look out for?

- RAW/JPEG? I think i understand what RAW format is all about. Should i start off shooting with JPEG and then move into RAW? What is the 'norm'? :confused:

Thanks for any advice! Better to be safe than sorry/silly

nolimit · 30 Mar 2006 at 20:57

1. Yes it only takes Secure Digital.I used the Sandisk but Kingston should work perfectly.

2. 1GB should be enough to start with but if you plan to travel a lot then you better get another.
1GB at raw will give you around 150-160 shots. RAW+JPEG will give around 130-140.

3. I'm bought mine in november from famous retailer and it cost me £65 for 3 years insuance it covers accidental damage etc. (but no use now as I've already moved onto D70)

4. Just shoot with RAW, you can make easy post production changes. If you shot a really good picture in JPEG but it needed little tweaking, you will loose some quality.

divine` · 30 Mar 2006 at 21:23

D50 should be able to shoot RAW + Jpeg at the same time, use that for a while

Scam · 30 Mar 2006 at 22:07

Cool, so shooting RAW+JPG will what, give me two versions of each picture i take?

Any other insurance recommendations? I'm sure this camera will last me a good while so i would be interested in deals longer than a year.

Thanks

Geffen · 30 Mar 2006 at 22:11

You may be worth just adding the camera to your household insurance rather than getting a dedicated policy for your camera, as it will normally be a lot cheaper. If you do go down the household route makes sure the cover is outside cover and work out if you want accidental damage or just theft cover.

Scam · 30 Mar 2006 at 23:24

Geffen said:
You may be worth just adding the camera to your household insurance rather than getting a dedicated policy for your camera, as it will normally be a lot cheaper. If you do go down the household route makes sure the cover is outside cover and work out if you want accidental damage or just theft cover.

Thanks. It did occur to me about household insurance. The problem being that i'm a final year student (4 weeks left woo!) so [a] there's no point getting it on my current house insurance, i'm not sure where i'll be living after my break (i.e. where i'll be working), oh and just for fun [c] my mum's probably moving soon after i graduate anyway heh.