Nikon D500 - first impressions

[John G]

Not sure if this has appeared in a previous post.
There are now Two separate field trail reports covering the D5 and D500 on "Brad Hills Natural Art Blog".
The environment the two bodies are used in is classed as extreme, which is wet,damp, with low ambient light.
A nice read with enjoyable supporting images.

[Frank Fremerey]

Not sure if this has appeared in a previous post.
There are now Two separate field trail reports covering the D5 and D500 on "Brad Hills Natural Art Blog".
The environment the two bodies are used in is classed as extreme, which is wet,damp, with low ambient light.
A nice read with enjoyable supporting images.

http://www.naturalart.ca/voice/blog.html

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing. Here is the missing link.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Brad seems to complain about the slightly different positions of then AF-ON and the AF point selector joystick between vertical and horizontal shooting in the D5. But the area where they reside in the vertical orientation is crowded. There is the card slot door cover, info button and yes, the microphone for the voice notes feature, closely packed together. I think Nikon did what they could. Initially I found the D5's vertical AF-ON harder to find since in the D810 vertical grip it is in a totally different place, but after the first few minutes with the camera, I have had no trouble with finding any of the controls. However this does bring out one of my points: the voice annotation feature does compete for external space in the camera. In this case Nikon put it under the thumb. I imagine it could accumulate sweat over time. Hopefully it doesn't affect function.

[Frank Fremerey]

Brad seems to complain about the slightly different positions of then AF-ON and the AF point selector joystick between vertical and horizontal shooting in the D5. But the area where they reside in the vertical orientation is crowded. There is the card slot door cover, info button and yes, the microphone for the voice notes feature, closely packed together. I think Nikon did what they could. Initially I found the D5's vertical AF-ON harder to find since in the D810 vertical grip it is in a totally different place, but after the first few minutes with the camera, I have had no trouble with finding any of the controls. However this does bring out one of my points: the voice annotation feature does compete for external space in the camera. In this case Nikon put it under the thumb. I imagine it could accumulate sweat over time. Hopefully it doesn't affect function.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

My old 17-35/2.8 AFS Nikkor is feeling the fresh welcome from D500 and delivers excellent quality with this camera.

I almost felt like having a new lens at my disposal !!

[Frank Fremerey]

Yep, Bjørn. They DID change something essential with the fifth generation. Not a gradual upgrade. Substantial.

We should revisit some older designs and how they work with these cameras.

[Roland Vink]

I've enjoyed reading the first impressions of this camera, and seeing the images it produces. Feel free to PM me with serial numbers for my database:
http://www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/camera.html
Please include:
- serial no
- date purchased (to nearest month)
- region (on box or warranty card)
Same goes for any other Nikon camera model purchased recently

[stenrasmussen]

Just a short update: I paired my D500 with the Aokatec AK-NIII and via a Holux 236 it geotags very well.

[pluton]

Just a short update: I paired my D500 with the Aokatec AK-NIII and via a Holux 236 it geotags very well.

Sten, Did you choose that Aokatec 4N unit, which requires an external GPS to feed data over bluetooth, because of it's lower power consumption?  I have the AK-G one-piece units and they seem OK, but do noticeably increase the battery drain rate.

[stenrasmussen]

Sten, Did you choose that Aokatec 4N unit, which requires an external GPS to feed data over bluetooth, because of it's lower power consumption?  I have the AK-G one-piece units and they seem OK, but do noticeably increase the battery drain rate.

I had the NIII from my D800/810 days. I was curious how it would work but to no fear. I have explored Aokatec's web page and their latest designs but found that my old Holux 236 is good enough for my use. Am sure the newer GPS receivers has faster fix times and for some that is crucial.

[Nick Scavone]

Bjorn,

I sold my used, beaten up 17-35 and "upgraded" by purchasing a 14-24 and, for insurance, an 18-35 and 16-35.  (I shoot fix bodies). I miss my 17-35 and you're post suggests my intuition is correct. Do you own the 18-35 or 16-35? Which do you to prefer to use, together with the 17-35?

Nick

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Have used all of these, but own only the 17-35 at present. That lens has been with me since 1999.

In my opinion, they are all good to excellent and any one could serve as the main wide-angle zoom lens. One hardly has use for all of them.

The 17-35 is the fastest, the 16-35 the slowest, and 18-35 the lightest. From my notes I see the 16-35 did perform well in IR, had a useful VR function, and a complex geometric distortion at the wider end. The latest incarnation of the 18-35 has excellent resistance to flare and ghosting and an overall pleasing image quality. The 17-35 is solid and robust, handles strong light sources with aplomb although over the years will show more flare (due to the inevitable internal dust, I assume), and has lower contrast wide open than the others. It also has the advantage to some users, myself included, of offering an aperture ring.

[dslater]

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.

Most likely is that instead of patching the firmware, it's just being replaced wholesale with a new copy, so even though you have a 23MB download, the actual changes may be much smaller. Also, even if it is a patch, due to the way compilers & linkers work, a small change in code can lead to much larger differences in the resulting binary due to the separate modules linking together in a different order.
  The size of the download tells very little about how much different the software is.

[dslater]

I'm not going to buy a D5 just to get the memo functionality .... But it is a bad move to delete this feature from all second-tier models. D2-, D3-, D4-, D5-series all have this capability.

Has it ever been in second tier models? In their day, these cameras were all top tier models.

[dslater]

Just received mine 

Some test shots, still getting used to the focus system, jpegs OOC look good.
Lighter than the D300, doesn´t feel as solid in your hands, but the grip is excellent.
Have to customize it further and get more experience with the different focus modes.

How much of an improvement in IQ do you see compared to your D300? I have a D300 that I have been very happy with except for high ISO performance. How much of an improvement in ISO performance would you say the D500 has over the D300? 1 stop, 2 stops? less than 1?