Why not first try P mode where you can vary either the aperture or the
shutter speed to suit your needs (called shifting the program).  Also, can
you select the exposure point or bias it to the center of the view (don't
have any experience with your camera)?

Actually, manual exposure is not all that tough; but why not experiment with
P mode first?

White balance affects color and should be set to match the light source
(e.g. daylight or flash).

ISO is sensitivity and can be boosted for low-light shots or where you'd
like a fast shutter speed.

I don't understand what the problem is. Forget what you find daunting in
the D50 manual and just start taking photos in manual mode as you did with
the 2020, adjusting exposure as needed.

'Sucked' is not exactly a definitive description of your problems.  If
you could be more specific, maybe post an image or two so we can see
what you are talking about.  On the surface at least, all modern dSLR
cameras from any of the big makers - Canon, Minolta/Sony, Nikon, Pentax
(in alphabetic order in case some zealots charge me with bias) - do very
well with automatic exposure and focusing, and at a far greater speed
than is possible manually.

Lacking any detail to go on, some of the most common problems are:
playing with the new camera and inadvertently altering some setting like
exposure compensation so that shots are incorrectly exposed; running at
very high ISO and getting noisy images; improper use of the various
metering modes, e.g. spot metering on the wrong tone; setting the image
size too small in order to get more shots on the card and then trying to
get good 10x8's; and more that don't come to mind.

Then there is the possibility that your shots are ok, but your computer
setup is not appropriate for handling images.  What sort of monitor are
you using, and how old is it? Is it calibrated, or at least set for
6500K and a reasonable gray balance?  Some lcd monitors are just plain
horrible for displaying images.

I set my camera to no exp. comp; either (P)rogram, or Av if I wish to
maintain a known aperture; ISO usually 100 to 400 depending on light and
motion factors, White balance to auto, unless I am in difficult lighting
and then I will custom balance from a neutral gray card, usually Adobe
RGB, and almost always shoot RAW.  This is on a Canon, but a D50 should
be similar.

Tell us more,

Colin D.

You might find this website very helpful. Costs nothing to look  :-)    Good
luck !
http://www.digicamhelp.com/index.php

Why would you use Auto mode when you know how to use manual? Auto mode
is for newbies who don't know anything about exposure control, or when
you ask your neighbour to take a shot for you, etc.

There is nothing really daunting.

Forget about the instructions and do it the way you know works. Set
the camera in manual mode, adjust aperture and shutter for the
exposure you want to achieve, and start shooting. Digital cameras work
the same as film when it comes to exposures - the only difference
really is the recording media.

The only time you should need to use the manual is to learn about a
feature, or to find out how to adjust a specific setting or control
that you haven't used yet. Keep the manual handy for those times. I
just recently bought my third digital camera (Nikon D80 I bought last
week and had fun with it on the weekend), so I don't really have much
use for the manual since most of the controls are familiar, but I have
it in the camera bag in case I need to refer to it for a feature or
control I have yet to use.

I use all of the settings in the creative modes (P,A,S,M).

I tend to use aperture priority mode the most for static subjects
because I like to have control over depth of field, be it shallow or
deep. For moving subjects, I often use shutter priority to get the
effect of motion I want. I use manual mode for odd shots like shooting
the sky at night, the moon, star trails, scenery, etc. But that's just
a very general guideline...I've probably used almost every mode on the
camera for all of the above, depending on what I want to obtain in the
shot.

The automatic modes with little pictograms, like full auto, portrait,
landscape, night portrait, etc., I generally have no use for them. I
always take a few snaps in each mode to ensure they work when I buy a
new camera, but I've never really had an interest using those settings
myself. They're on the camera for inexperienced users who don't know
how to adjust the camera to obtain the results they want.

In the end, who cares what others use? There's a reason why there are
so many different settings on cameras, and you selectively use the one
that best suits the conditions and your own personal needs.

Normal handheld outdoor photography I use S mode as I like to have a shutter
speed of about 1/100 sec and let the camera choose the aperture, although I
will drop the shutter speed a bit to get a smaller aperture if need be, but
if I'm shooting indoors I will set f2.8 and let the camera set the shutter
speed.   A lot of shots will blur, but I still get quite a few acceptable
handheld shots even at slow speeds like 1/10s.   I was shooting inside a
cathederal at the weekend and this guy was asking me about what settings I
was using and he said that he would be shooting ISO 1600 and "tidying up in
photoshop", and he seemed shocked i was using iso 200.  I'd rather get a few
blurred shots than sacrifice image quality by using a high ISO as my
subjects were static.

Cheers - Adrian www.boliston.co.uk

...

I have found that (for me) the way to go is to shoot in jpg+raw (D70).
I found that worrying about additional settings (above film's f-stop &
shutter speed) such as contrast, colour saturation, and white balance,
make for too  difficult shooting.  The results without setting those
properly can turn what could be a great shot into at best okay.

So by shooting raw, I can effectively make all those settings after
the fact.  I shoot -0.3 exposure, so as to avoid blowing out pixels,
and generally use aperature priority auto since that's my habit from
the old FE2.  I also switched to d-SLR from 3040 for two main reasons:
decreasing minimum DOF, and eliminating shutter lag.  For the first
reason, I like to work with DOF and find it more logical to do this
through f-stop.  For the second reason, I like to avoid having to
worry about additional settings when shooting.

Anyway, that's the way I do it.  I find Photoshop lets me do a lot
of adjustment.  I chose it over Nikon's program because of the
ability to map colours to grey scaling, so making conversion to
B&W very powerful.  (The same as adding filters before shooting, but
with the great advantage of experimenting after the fact).

Here is a link for D-50 instructions:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d50/d50-settings.htm

It has many things that you have asked about AND it is specific to the
Nikon D-50!

Hope that this helps.

Warren