Should I trade my Nikon d3100 for D50/70?
I got my Nikon D3100 a year ago. Not really thinking, or researching, it was kind of a rash decision.
Well, I've invested into a lot of AF lens. Being that the Nikon D3100 doesn't have the focusing motor built in, it's becoming a pain in the ***. I don't want to keep spending $300 per lens. I'm a college student, don't really have the money to keep blowing on the newer, more expensive lens right now.
I was wondering, should I keep my D3100 or trade it for a D70 or D50? Will that be a bad trade in your eyes? I do photography of course and I'm currently whipping together a home based studio.
What do you guys think?
Are you sure that the AF lenses used by the older D50 and D70 cost that much less?
As a college student, I suggest that you stop buying any lenses until you finish school and can afford to buy the newer AF-S lenses. They are faster at auto-focusing than the older AF Nikkor lenses so are worth the little extra vs a Nikkor AF lens.
The sensor performance of the D3100 would have me keeping it vs either the D50 or D70.
The 18-55 mm lens will cover everything you really need except for maybe a 50 mm f/1.8 portrait lens and those do NOT cost $300. For $220 you can buy an AF-S 50 mm f/1.8 lens. If you do not mind manually focusing your lens, then you can spend even less for a Nikkor AF 50 mm f/1.8… After all, most photographers manually focused all their lenses until around 1988 and many still do. Using manual focus slows the photographer down, to they can pay more attention to the subject and the composition of their images. It instills shot discipline, something you will eventually have to learn in any case
The cost of a home studio may eat into any budget you could use for more AF-S lenses, so I would hold off on that and use your schools studio for any studio work I would need to do for my assignments.
If you really, really think you have to have auto-focus, enough so that you would be willing do downgrade to a camera that is over 8 and 9 years old. I would look for used AF-S lenses instead.
The D50 and D70 were great in their day, and not bad even today. However, besides having fewer megapixels, their sensor generation is showing its age on things like noise levels. The little LCD display for reviewing images is annoyingly affected by viewing angle. Even the old D40 (which is not a candidate, because it won't autofocus with the lenses the D3100 can't) was a noticeable step up.
If you are considering a higher grade model, and can't afford a D7100, I don't think you should drop back any earlier than the D90.
You really have not had time to master the D3100 yet. Give yourself some more time to get to know all its features.