Auto focus on the Nikon D5000?

I'd been using the standard 18-50mm and 55-200mm lenses on my Nikon D5000 and the Auto focus feature works on those 2. However, I recently bought the 50mm F1.4 D lens, which understandably isn't fully compatible with Nikon D5000 but can still be used manually. However, after using the 50mm, the other 2 zoom lenses seem to have now lost Auto focus and will only work entirely manually! Is that something common? Could there be a fault? I checked all the settings in the camera, and everything's geared to AF, and the AF button on the lenses themselves has also been activated. Could the 50mm have ruined the camera body!

This is odd, as the 50mm f/1.4 lens is supposed to work with Autofocus, even on bodies that don't have it. It's the 50mm f/1.8 that you need to manual focus on cameras like the D5000.

I'm guessing something happened to your camera's electrical contacts. Best case scenario, they're just dirty and you can wipe them off with a microfiber cloth. I would take your camera into the repair shop. I'm guess they have a quick solution for you if there's one. Otherwise, you could be looking at a minor repair.

I'm afraid I can't actually solve your problem. However, I can tell you that it's very unlikely that the 50mm AI (or any AI lens for that matter) would damage your camera. The reason you can't autofocus with the 50mm is you camera lacks a screw and motor to focus this lens. The new autofocus system (with a motor in the lens instead of the camera) works via the electronic contacts between the camera and lens. Since the two systems work entirely separately from each other they can't affect each other.

Go through your manual slowly and try and find out if any of the settings on your camera could be causing it to stick to manual focus.

If the 50mm had ruined the camera, you would have heard a crunching of gears…

sounds like a fault with the body… Take it to a Nikon registered repair shop and get it checked and fixed under warranty…

Tobasco, the 50mm 1.4 G AFS will autofocus, the 50mm 1.4D is the earlier version, no autofocus on the D5000 and similar.

The 50mm shouldn't ruin the autofocus. You might need to flip the AFS AFC M/F switch, or do a reset to factory default settings. The usual problem is someone has a camera like a D70, with a motor, and mounts an autofocus lens, and spins the lens while the motor is engaged. That can damage the camera or the lens. With the 50mm 1.4D there's no mechanical connection, only electrical. Even taking a lens off with the camera powered on doesn't hurt the camera, not the right way to do it, but it's been done before. If nothing works, then something is damaged in the electronics, take it to a shop.

Even using a manual focus lens on an autofocus camera doesn't hurt anyhting. I use a 600mm F4 manual focus on a D300, and have used it like that for almost 2 years.