Hmm. I just read that Ken Rockwell article/review.
He reckons the D40 is better than the D50.
I have the D40X which has a higher megapixel count than the D40 but other than that is more or less identical.
The D40X, of course, can only take AF-S lenses, that is, with the auto-focus mechanism built into each lens rather than the camera body. I didn't realise that when I made my purchase. This doesn't affect quality, as far as I know, but it sure as hell does affect the lens pricing
Still, I digress. To my mind, Chris's D50 takes better pix than my D40X from what I've seen of his postings.
Either that or I've been lazy and haven't RTFM and experimented enough.
The latter is probably the case, I suspect.
As to the noisy pictures, the two pix posted here actually look quite good to me. I'd need comparisons, probably, to discern a difference. Can anybody else see noise present in those pix?
And Chris, I'm not familiar with the D50 settings but what you've posted looks ok to me. I was merely suggesting you double check everything in case you've missed something obvious.