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There are already lots of higher quality photos posted and more extensive reviews, so I’m going to confine this to a few observations that I noticed shooting my first 2 horse shows with the D5. I’ve been using the D4s since it came out, so all these comments are things I noticed that were different or made me do something differently either during or after the event.
The rear display is significantly better. This is definitely where all the wild claims of 2-3 stop better performance came from, as the display is very flattering to the images. Noise looks less than it is and exposures show better contrast and less hot spots than there really are. I had to go to looking at the histogram more often than relying on the highlight-blowout blinking as I normally do.
Battery life is also much better. On the D4s I shoot about 6 hours, 1500 shots, all the wile using the WT-5A to wirelessly sent the JPGs to my iPad. On the D5 I did a 10 hour day, 2000 shots, same WT-5A and it had just dropped to the last bar when I finished up.
I really like being able to rate photos in camera in addition to locking them. That way I can lock keepers as well as rate those that are special in some way.
My normal winter indoor venue is very poorly lit, with uneven lighting, different light types, dark areas, and just no color except browns. Focus performance even with the D4S was many times hit and miss. Dark horses, low light, and low contrast had me constantly looking for a spot to keep the focus points on. I used Group AF-C about 95% of the time on the D4S
The D5 Group is better, but I was sort of expecting more. Then I switched to the 25 point, and wow what a difference over the D4S 9 point. It is much better at initial lock, and much much better at holding lock even in low contrast areas. They changed the focus tracking lock settings, and that will take some getting used to. I had the old system figured out with so many jump section constantly in the way, but the new system reacts differently. I set it to fast and erratic, (Is that totally off or not?) and was amazed at how fast focus changed.
I was using mostly my 70-200 f/2.8 and 300 f/2.8, and having the outer focus points as cross section was a huge difference in portrait orientation. Lock on was fast, it held lock, and my keeper rate was significantly higher when holding the focus point on the riders face.
These first 2 shows I shot only JPG, and as everyone has already said, they are much better than the D4S. I had to be a bit careful since everything looks so good on the display, so I wanted to crank up the ISO way high. The problem with that is that with the normal High ISO NR setting it at times washed out the horse hair detail more than I would want. Next show I’ll set it to low as well as shooting RAW+JPG. There is definitely more DR at high ISOs over the D4S. It may not be noticeable in many areas, but in my barn there is so little color that ever little bit makes a big difference.
The JPGs were also much better when shot brightly backlit. The better processing is definitely helping here, but I also have the feeling the sensor deals with it better. I’ll see when I have more RAW files to work with.
So far, the improvement in both ISO performance and slightly higher file size is letting me try my f/4 lenses instead of being stuck with the f/2.8 lenses. This is going to be a huge increase in flexibility for indoor shows. Being able to use the 200-400 f/4 or put the 1.4x extender on the 70-200 f/2.8 is going to be big. Much less cropping with better files will be a big jump in final image quality.
The difference in frame rate feels like a lot more than it is. Shutter is quieter, black out times are less, and the extra frame per second is letting me catch the horse mid-air while galloping or trotting with much more frequency than I was able with the D4S. That was unexpected. I can also more frequently catch both the initial knee-level stretch and going over the top of the jump with a high speed burst of 3 frames. Having both positions for the same jump is really nice.
If I was a movie critic, I’d give it 2 thumbs up! I obviously have much more to learn to get the most out of the camera, but it’s already proving a big step up from the D4S. I do all my processing in Lightroom.
Erich
a new well lit venue
NIKON D5 200mm f/4.5 1/1000s 6400 ISO 0.0 EV
NIKON D5 86mm f/4.5 1/1000s 6400 ISO 0.0 EV
my normal home show, it's much darker than the photos show!
NIKON D5 300mm f/4.0 1/400s 16000 ISO 0.0 EV
Better upper Focus points helped a lot here D5 f/4 1/400 ISO16,000
no hesitation on using up to ISO 25,600 even if cropping, higher if full frame
NIKON D5 300mm f/4.0 1/500s 25600 ISO 0.0 EV
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Nice review & images.
