Nikon D5 - first impressions

[Frank Fremerey]

Dear Ilkka.

You are right. The D5 is a wonderful tool. Very probable not the right tool for me. I gues the slower 8xx or 9xx that will follow after the 810 will be my tool.

It is very fascinating to take the D5 on a trial and you will see some pictures soon from a theatrical performance in next to no light that show the D5 strengths wonderfully.

The advert "vision outperformed" is sooo true.

[Frank Fremerey]

Here is a shot at 40k ISO, real world situation.
What does noise reduction do here?
A matter of taste? At 40k maybe.

NR ON, Full Frame: http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/nr_on_DSC_5176.jpg
NR OFF, Full frame: http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/nr_off_DSC_5176.jpg
NR on, Crop: http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/nr_on_DSC_5176_02.jpg
NR off, Crop: http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/nr_off_DSC_5176_02.jpg

Scaled down versions:

[Frank Fremerey]

But now see the big gap to the D500. 20k NEF +1EV in post:

1) NR=off http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/nr%3Doff_DNX_5552.jpg
2) NR=on http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/nr%3Don_DNX_5552.jpg

And scaled down files from the D500:

[Akira]

Frank, nice to hear your voice. 

The NR sucks, but I'm not sure if we could blame the camera set at such a high ISO value.  Have you tried DXO Optics Pro (now the latest version is 11) which is well reputed for its noise reduction.

[David H. Hartman]

I'd try Nikon's Better Quality 2013 noise correction and clean up the color noise and mostly leave the luminance noise alone. Too much noise correction blurs out a photo.

Dave

[Frank Fremerey]

Dave. That is what I do when I really need the single shot. Plus some editing in Photoshop afterwards.

The above pictures give everyone a rough idea how bad the light was and how low its levels.

In the following pictures, D5 only, I show that the camera is able to capture very decent footage in the range
between 12k and 40k ISO. Of course it is possible to open the aperture wider.1.4 or 1.8 to take some pressure
from the ISO. But that is not always a good idea compositionally. The shutter speed is limited mostly by subject
movement. The 85mm will of course still need a little speed to compensate for vibrations. No VR.

[Frank Fremerey]

Here we go. A dream come true in White Balance and ISO performance. Remember. It was near dark:

1) 36000
2) 11400
3) 45600
4) 25600

[Frank Fremerey]

PS: As the cameras perform a tremendous job to make darkness look bright, here is one file that shows the light level as it appreared to the bare eye:

[MFloyd]

....

Here we are. Completely unscientific but you can hear the difference for sure: http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/d500_vs_d5_sound.MP3

Indeed the sound that you recorded is in accordance with your sayings.  My camera, though, seems to have a very different sound.  I will try to record it and feedback to this post.

[Frank Fremerey]

First example Low ISO test. ISO 100 I chose
Contestents D600 vs. D5
Same lens, same aperture, same perspective, yet, sorry, slightly different focussing.
Both developed in NX-D with same settings
At manual everything the files of the D600 look always a little darker, roughly one stop and a little blueish.
I might have followed BR's tipp to dial down metering by one stop in the D600. Have to check that.
So here the settings are 300PF @f=5.6 and 250th for the D5 / 125th for the D600

http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/d600_ANP_1666.jpg
http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/d5_DSC_7376.jpg

This time I do not say anything, I want to hear what YOU say.

[stenrasmussen]

First example Low ISO test. ISO 100 I chose
Contestents D600 vs. D5
Same lens, same aperture, same perspective, yet, sorry, slightly different focussing.
Both developed in NX-D with same settings
At manual everything the files of the D600 look always a little darker, roughly one stop and a little blueish.
I might have followed BR's tipp to dial down metering by one stop in the D600. Have to check that.
So here the settings are 300PF @f=5.6 and 250th for the D5 / 125th for the D600

http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/d600_ANP_1666.jpg
http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/d5_DSC_7376.jpg

This time I do not say anything, I want to hear what YOU say.

It's a wash wrt IQ in my eyes.

[Frank Fremerey]

This time a high contrast scene in a distance with f=5.6 and 1/500s at ISO=100, AF-S Nikkor 300PF

full size here:

http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/d600_ANP_1621.jpg
http://fotokontext.de/ZENTRALKRAFT/d5_DSC_7307.jpg

and downscaled:

[Frank Fremerey]

and 100% crops from a boat with reflecting surfaces, always a difficult topic. It seems only my little Fuji X100T excels in this discipline

[Frank Fremerey]

And the last example for today, same lens, same aperture, same perspective, same settings in NX-D
D5 vs D600 shootout:

[Akira]

The D5 images are easily crisper and more vivid.  In the last two comparisons of the flowers, though, the D600 images look just a little underexposed but more pleasing to my eyes.  The D5 images look a bit too dty, compared to the rather wet D600 ones.

Interestingly, the D5 images look as if no AA filter were present.