That was the sad note I found on the receipt for my camera this week after it was returned from the Nikon service center. My DSLR, a Nikon D50, was already a few years old when I bought it 2 years ago, but it came highly recommended as one of the best cameras Nikon had made in that generation. Pre-‘bells and whistles’, it was just a good, sturdy little camera, that did what you needed, nothing more. No live-view screen, no video, nothing fancy.

But at the zoo a month or so ago, it started acting up. Suddenly all my pictures were coming out overexposed, and blurred, even in auto mode. I futzed around with it and ended up making most of my shots in manual mode, and got a few good shots, but something was not right that day.  Many of them were coming out looking like this, which is only cool when it’s a bird, not so nice when it’s a bear!

A week or so later I grabbed it and ran outside to take pictures of a spectacular sunset, and they all came out black. Well, that wasn’t a good sign. I searched around on the net for a solution (first I grabbed my old Canon SX10IS and got those sunset pictures) but couldn’t find a solution beyond sending it in for repair. I tried resetting the menu, using the magic button reset on the bottom, things like that. Everything on the camera seemed to be working except the images were black. I boxed it up and sent it away.

Nikon sent me a bill for $150 to take a look at it. I waited a couple weeks until I had the money and paid up, and entirely too quickly it was on it’s way back to me, and the receipt said Beyond Repair! They refunded my money so it cost me nothing, except now I have no DSLR at all! Oh no! So I’m pretty bummed about that.

For the past week I’ve been researching the different Nikon DSLRs available. $500 will get me a newer one with live-view flip out screen on the back, and movie capability, but $200 will get me another old D50. I liked the D50 just fine, it was doing everything I needed. But what if I spend $200 and it only lasts 2 years like this one did? Decisions, decisions! Not what I wanted to worry about in the middle of our moving adventure. I guess I’ll use the Canon for a couple more weeks until we settle down, and then go searching for the D50’s replacement. I’m spoiled by the sharpness of the high quality images I got from the D50, but the Canon is a pretty good little camera too. I’m just going to have to be patient!

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