Nikon D500 - first impressions

[Bjørn Rørslett]

23 MB program for fixing just a language issue in SETUP appears "a little" on the massive overkill side of things.

Installed the firmware update right now, will report if anything unusual is manifested.

[bjornthun]

Maybe the entire firmware including the fix is installed, and not just the delta comprising the fix?

Sony firmware updates are well over 100MB, if memory serves, but Sony cams run a mini version of Linux.

[Frank Fremerey]

I hope it fixes the complete halt and reset issues Chris an me had. I only had two. One healed with battery in/out
The other with complete factory reset.

[chris dees]

I hope it fixes the complete halt and reset issues Chris an me had. I only had two. One healed with battery in/out
The other with complete factory reset.

I've just read this;
http://www.cameraegg.org/nikon-d500-firmware-version-1-01-and-en-el15-battery-li-ion01-exchange-available/

It seems the battery problem is acknowledged/addressed by Nikon.

[ArendV]

I have just sent my one and only Li-ion01 battery to the Nikon Service Point in the Netherlands to get it replaced. It indeed performed very poorly in my D500 (fully loaded started at 60% only and drained very fast) vs. the other Li-on20 versions I have of the EN-EL15 battery.

[chris dees]

It's on the Nikon Europe website as well.

This is customer service as it should be; well done

[Frank Fremerey]

I got two EN-EL15 I bought with my D600 in 2013. Both are labelled "Li-ion01". The third one must be the one from the D500 it is labelled "Li-ion20". Thanks for the hint!

[Hugh_3170]

Interesting information about the Li-ion01 and Li-ion02 versions of the EN-EL15. 

My D810 was acquired in October 2014 and its EN-EL15 batteries are all of the Li-ion02 version. 

I wonder when the Li-ion01 batteries were upgraded to the Li-ion02 version?  Obviously sometime between when Frank got his D600 and I got the D810, but can anyone improve on this?

[Akira]

Interesting information about the Li-ion01 and Li-ion02 versions of the EN-EL15. 

My D810 was acquired in October 2014 and its EN-EL15 batteries are all of the Li-ion02 version. 

I wonder when the Li-ion01 batteries were upgraded to the Li-ion02 version?  Obviously sometime between when Frank got his D600 and I got the D810, but can anyone improve on this?

According to the Japanese "Impress Watch", EN-EL15 was updated to Li-ion20 in the summer of 2013.  The capacity remained unchanged but its discharge characteristics was changed, according to the news (text in Japanese):

http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/1002957.html

[stenrasmussen]

I just received my D500. Will be reading through this thread to learn from my fellow 'togs'. 😊

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Just got a call from my local Nikon repair facility. They have a lot of *new* EN-EL15 batteries for me compliments of Nikon Nordic and the D500  battery recall action. The recall had a limit of 5 batteries per customer and I filled my quota to the maximum.

Whatever the underlying reason for the recall, fact is I got a bunch of fresh new batteries instead of my old worn ones. For free. Good for me, the D500, D800, V1, or any other camera of mine using the EN-EL15. I had purchased a few of the 'good' version of the EN-EL15 already thus my camera battery bin is pretty much overflowing at the moment.

I probably will separate work flows so as to confine manual lenses to the Df and AF/AFS to the D500. Despite this division, there is nothing wrong with the capability of D500 to focus manually even very tricky optics such as the 50/1.2 Nikkor.

[Frank Fremerey]

I am still impressed with the D500 but with good light I still prefer the D600 for portraits.
Never had a camera with such fine skin tones.

And I am still fighting with processing D500 files above ISO 1000 ... PN does no proper NR
and the NR in NX-D is difficult to handle for me ....

Below ISO 1000 files can generally be opened in NX-D and saved without any change. Just perfect.

That is also true for many files above ISO 1000 but not for all. Look into the Daily blog my entries for
9 June. Birds taken with the 300PF ... higher ISO shots really gave me headace to process.

[chris dees]

I went this morning to the NSP nearby and swapped my 3 old ones by new ones!

[Frank Fremerey]

I went this morning to the NSP nearby and swapped my 3 old ones by new ones!

my 2 new batteries are in the post

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Birds taken with the 300PF ... higher ISO shots really gave me headace to process.

It may also be partly due to the lens. It seems to render detail very well when the subject detail and/or lighting are/is contrasty, but for low contrast detail in low contrast light, it doesn't do so well (I think it's the residual diffraction that clouds the low contrast details). If the lighting is dim, the noise is added to the effect of the aberrations of the lens, making it difficult to obtain a crisply detailed image. A conventional refractive lens may work better.