A dx camera makes absolutely no sense for this user. Probably why he has a Pentex 645D/Z.
Still confused on why he thinks the way he does, makes no sense at all. Downplays a camera intended for sports/wildlife users predominantly, but shoots long exposures of cityscapes with a medium format camera....
Played with a D500/D5 at CES today. Here are some initial notes. More to come:
Regarding the camera's actual buffer depth, when I half pressed the shutter I saw r14 for all NEF modes except 12-bit which displayed r16. On the D5 I saw r99. With an XQD installed the D500 achieved the quoted 200 raw images before the camera slowed down (I used14-bit compressed) . Interestingly the Nikon rep said the limit at 200 is for heat considerations. With an SD installed (260 MB/s rating), the D500 did 74 NEFs before running slowing down.
Regarding IQ, I took a raw series with High ISO NR disabled from ISO 25,600 through 1 Million+. Even with NR disabled I could see evidence of NR in the resulting image (mottling of uniform areas) . It's hard to judge noise performance due to this but the resulting images had relatively clean deep shadows at ISO 25,600. At ISO Hi5 the image was a full magenta blog with some broad areas of blotch in, not unlike what an A7s looks like at its highest ISO setting.
Regarding the auto AF tune, none of the Nikon reps I spoke with knew how to activate the feature and I couldn't find it either.
snapsy wrote:
Played with a D500/D5 at CES today. Here are some initial notes. More to come:
Regarding the camera's actual buffer depth, when I half pressed the shutter I saw r14 for all NEF modes except 12-bit which displayed r16. On the D5 I saw r99. With an XQD installed the D500 achieved the quoted 200 raw images before the camera slowed down (I used14-bit compressed) . Interestingly the Nikon rep said the limit at 200 is for heat considerations. With an SD installed (260 MB/s rating), the D500 did 74 NEFs before running slowing down.
Regarding IQ, I took a raw series with High ISO NR disabled from ISO 25,600 through 1 Million+. Even with NR disabled I could see evidence of NR in the resulting image (mottling of uniform areas) . It's hard to judge noise performance due to this but the resulting images had relatively clean deep shadows at ISO 25,600. At ISO Hi5 the image was a full magenta blog with some broad areas of blotch in, not unlike what an A7s looks like at its highest ISO setting.
Regarding the auto AF tune, none of the Nikon reps I spoke with knew how to activate the feature and I couldn't find it either....Show more →
Thanks for this hands-on report. I was wondering whether you had any chance to try less extreme ISO settings (1600, 3200) as well on the D500?
Here are some new D5/D500 features I noticed while diving through the menus:
Auto ISO
A new option has been added for Auto ISO + flash that lets you set whether Auto ISO applies to the subject only or subject+background. Here is what the option looks like along with the in-camera help description for the option:
Autofocus Mode Restrictions
Lets you configure the camera to only allow AF-S or AF-C (presumably to prevent shooters from accidentally selecting an AF mode they don't want to use)
Playback
"After burst, show" option lets you configure whether the first or last photo in a burst is displayed (I presume instead of having to scroll through all the images of a given burst)
snapsy wrote:
Played with a D500/D5 at CES today. Here are some initial notes. More to come:
Regarding the camera's actual buffer depth, when I half pressed the shutter I saw r14 for all NEF modes except 12-bit which displayed r16. On the D5 I saw r99. With an XQD installed the D500 achieved the quoted 200 raw images before the camera slowed down (I used14-bit compressed) . Interestingly the Nikon rep said the limit at 200 is for heat considerations. With an SD installed (260 MB/s rating), the D500 did 74 NEFs before running slowing down.
Regarding IQ, I took a raw series with High ISO NR disabled from ISO 25,600 through 1 Million+. Even with NR disabled I could see evidence of NR in the resulting image (mottling of uniform areas) . It's hard to judge noise performance due to this but the resulting images had relatively clean deep shadows at ISO 25,600. At ISO Hi5 the image was a full magenta blog with some broad areas of blotch in, not unlike what an A7s looks like at its highest ISO setting.
Regarding the auto AF tune, none of the Nikon reps I spoke with knew how to activate the feature and I couldn't find it either....Show more →
Thanks for the update - what's your impression on the AF between the two?
In the past, even if the camera's shared the same AF, it always seemed like the single digit bodies had more "aggressive" AF than their siblings. Do you feel that's still the case or does the AF performance between the two (D5 / D500) seem about the same?
Steve Perry wrote:
Thanks for the update - what's your impression on the AF between the two?
In the past, even if the camera's shared the same AF, it always seemed like the single digit bodies had more "aggressive" AF than their siblings. Do you feel that's still the case or does the AF performance between the two (D5 / D500) seem about the same?
It's hard to compare with the bodies they had on hand because the D500 had a kit lens mounted vs a 70-200 f/4 for the D5.
snapsy wrote:
Played with a D500/D5 at CES today. Here are some initial notes. More to come:
Regarding IQ, I took a raw series with High ISO NR disabled from ISO 25,600 through 1 Million+. Even with NR disabled I could see evidence of NR in the resulting image (mottling of uniform areas) . It's hard to judge noise performance due to this but the resulting images had relatively clean deep shadows at ISO 25,600. At ISO Hi5 the image was a full magenta blog with some broad areas of blotch in, not unlike what an A7s looks like at its highest ISO setting.
Snapsy, how do you think the low light performance on the D500 will compare to say, the D750 and the D3s and D810 up to 12,800? What is your gut telling you based on what you saw?
Thanks
blutch wrote:
Snapsy, how do you think the low light performance on the D500 will compare to say, the D750 and the D3s and D810 up to 12,800? What is your gut telling you based on what you saw?
Thanks
B
This right here is the big one for me... if it holds serve up to 12800 ISO I will be in trouble... because for now I have myself convinced that I can just buy a D7200 to pair with my D750 and wait a few years... but if he tells me it is holding its own... I now have to debate with selling off gear to fund and upgrade lol
It's a pretty safe bet it's going to have better ISO performance than the D7200/D5500 which currently lead the APS-C pack from a sensor perspective. Those cameras have already pretty well caught up to FF cameras of 8-ish years ago in terms of ISO performance and with way better DR. I'm very curious to see controlled ISO testing as well. My guess is it will be somewhere around the D3/D700 for ISO performance, maybe a bit behind - no way will it be at D750 levels.
blutch wrote:
Snapsy, how do you think the low light performance on the D500 will compare to say, the D750 and the D3s and D810 up to 12,800? What is your gut telling you based on what you saw?
Thanks
B
I really wish I could give an impression but knowing how different JPEG engines can change detail/noise formulas it's very hard to compare with other bodies. I think I can give a more realistic prediction based on the progression of sensor tech. Based on history I'm guessing the D500 likely has little or no improvement in shot noise (midtones/highlights) and maybe 1/2 stop improvement in read noise (ie, deep shadows) at the most - the D7200 already has barely 1 e- of read noise at High ISO, by far the best performing APS-C sensor in that regard and better than even the D750. So compared to the D750/D3s I'm guessing the D500 will be about 1EV behind in total High ISO performance. The D500 will also "appear" a little cleaner than the D7200 based on its lower MP count.
