It took me quite a long time to settle on to this one. But this Nikon has fascinated me. The build quality is far superior to Canon. In fact it looks and feels so solid that it is far too much for the entry level SLR. All the buttons are of excellent quality. The grip is great. The camera looks solid from every angle.
The lens is good as far as an 18-55mm goes. It is good even at 55mm, though ittends to overexpose sometimes. But, you can always compensate it withthe fast shutter speed. What however I didn't like is that it does notfocus manually quickly. But that is also fine, when you get used to it. The auto focus works fine though. The close range is superb. I am planning to go for the 55-200mm lens for the long range.
Shutter speed is 1/4000 to 30 seconds which is again good. The D70s offers 1/8000. The Child mode is however useless. Anyway, you will surely not use any of the preset modes when you get familiar with the P,S, A and M modes.
D50's 6.1MP sensor is more than sufficient. Canon 350D is having an 8MP sensor but, it is rather pointless if you are going for anything above 15x10 inch print. The battery backup is again top class. Nikon claims it to be 1800 shots. So far, I have stretched it to 700 shots with the flash firing frequently. It is almost double than what my 1GB memory card ( 337 shots)can handle.
Ease of use is great, but I suggest you to have a tripod and explore all the options at various ISO settings. If you are willing to spend so much amount on an entry level DSLR, stretch a bit further and go for tripod.
Finally, it is a camera to buy if you can have only one Camera. 10/10 from my side.
Certainly, Nikon has redefined the entry level DSLR.
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