Today NPS Netherlands organised a Check and Clean day for its members.
Apart from the free check and clean of bodies, part of the ritual is that they also have a wide range of the current camera's and lenses around for playing with.
Not interested in the D5 (as a possible future purchase) but since I'm looking around for a high end, but not as expensive body for shooting action like e.g. sports (surf) and catwalk (my D3 is getting close to 8 years old) I tried my hands on a D500 with 1.4/58mm
I couldn't download files, so only can give my impressions of the camera itself.
Even with the 1.4/58mm lens it's a pretty light combo, feels lighter then e.g. the D800 which has about the same dimensions (not weight though)
Grip is nice/deep enough for my medium sized hands, and big enough not to have my little finger dangling out while holding it.
All the buttons are in the well known places (I'm not someone who's constantly changing the camera's settings while shooting, so nothing much to say about the new position of the ISO button etc.) so all and all feeling very familiar
Viewfinder is nice and clear, as far as I can judge in the brief spell I played with the camera no less bright then the D800 or D3, definitely better then eg the D2X
AF points are nicely spread all across the viewfinder, AF is lighting fast even under the less then 'ideal' lighting of the shop where the Check and Clean day was held. LCD is nice as well (didn't test the swivel function), image replay is fast even with some zooming in.
Shutter sound even in 'normal' setting ( I assume it has a Silent setting as well, but I didn't bother looking it up somewhere in the menus) is softer then eg the D800 or D3, and high speed fps is impressively fast even with the extra power grip.
Don't normally do a lot with video and Live View, so didn't look into those features either.
Eagerly looking forward to when it becomes available, and some serious testing of its IQ and high ISO has been done.
So far so good.
