D7500 - Nikon gives and Nikon takes

[ArendV]

Thanks a lot Ilkka for your clear and practical explanation (as usual) of the different way of working of the two AF modules, really appreciated !

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Dpreview have a quite positive account on Dan Bracaglia's experience shooting with the D7500.

It is interesting to see how experiences differ on the use of Auto AF Fine Tune. I personally have had mostly very positive experience with it on the D5; only one of my fast AF-S lenses produced a result which was clearly not correct but it was easy to find the correct setting in practical shooting with that lens, and I've been very happy with the settings Auto AF Fine tune found for my other lenses (I do repeat the process several times to see how much variability there is and to find the mean). With the 70-200/2.8E FL and TC-20E III the Auto AF Fine tune didn't work at all (it gave an error message and I proceeded to fine tune that combination with earlier methods).  I got great results with Auto AF Fine Tune with the same zoom lens and TC-14E III at 280mm.  Maybe the maximum aperture of the lens has something to do with it.

Occasionally some users on forums have complained that auto AF Fine Tune doesn't work for them. In Dan Braglia's account on the D7500 he seemed happy with its performance on prime lenses (e.g. 85/1.8D). Anyway for me this has been a great feature which saved a lot of time when starting to use the D5.

Bracaglia seems to like Nikon's 3D Tracking and goes on and on about it in the article. I guess it greatly depends on the subject matter, how well it works; in my experience it doesn't work well in situations where the main subject being tracked is temporarily occluded by another person or when the subject turns away from the camera; in those cases the tracking can slip from the target. However, it is easy enough to restart tracking. Otherwise it seems to work well and has reached a level of maturity where it has become a  reasonable tool to use when it fits the situation.

There appears to be tap to AF in the live view now, in the D7500. I wonder how precise it is and if it finds the closest face to focus on if face priority AF is on.

[Akira]

Sidenote：

Yesterday I confirmed the difference between EN-EL15 and EN-EL15a which comes with D7500 and has replaced EN-EL15.

EN-EL15a is the same as the Li-ION 20 version of EN-EL15 that fixed the shorter life problem with D500.  Nikon changed the name to EN-EL15a to avoid the confusion of the Li-ION 05 and -20 versions under the same name.

The capacity of EN-EL15a is 1,900mAh which is the same as that of EN-EL15.

[David H. Hartman]

One down side I recently noticed is USB2 rather than 3. I find it difficult to understand any newly released camera that only offers USB2.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

One down side I recently noticed is USB2 rather than 3. I find it difficult to understand any newly released camera that only offers USB2.

Maybe it's a space thing; an USB 3 port requires a wider connector? Sony A9 also uses USB 2 instead of 3.

I think  that it's safer to use a card reader to transfer data (imagine camera falling off a table when pulled from the USB cord) but if you want wired tethering then USB 3 would be great to have. Furthermore in an environment where the photographer is shooting from a fixed position, a fast cabled connection to laptop seems a reasonable way to go.

[Frank Fremerey]

Akira, thanks for providing us with this feedback, even though it is unfortunately as I feared.

It is really quite sad that the D7500 pre-release documentation implied that there may be some metering support for non-cpu lenses, only for the reality to be different.  Maybe I should save up for a D500 or track down a good D7200.  The story about the D3400 seems even more of a dog in the manger situation (not that I am personally interested in buying that camera).

The whole Nikon lens compatibity issue is really quite a sordid mess.

I do not know how far away you are from the target D500. After one year I can say she is a real winner. Is there no used market of these yet?

The only caveats are:

Take your time to learn the complex but ingenious AF

And take your time to learn post processing the files.

I am not perfect in either, far from it, but the results I get already are absolutely stunning.

[Frank Fremerey]

Thank you Ilkka for you post #134.

I can confirm that the multi cam 20k is the best AF System I used so far and I use 1.4 and 1.8 lenses in 99% of cases.

I do not complain about the AF point position of the D500 also in Portrait mode Portraits

[Hugh_3170]

Frank, thanks for your feedback.  Also Ilkka and others on this thread for their useful inputs.

Prices here for the D500 have come down by about 10%, where as the D7500 is still up at its introductory price, so the D500 is the way I will go.

I do not know how far away you are from the target D500. After one year I can say she is a real winner. Is there no used market of these yet?

The only caveats are:

Take your time to learn the complex but ingenious AF

And take your time to learn post processing the files.

I am not perfect in either, far from it, but the results I get already are absolutely stunning.

[chambeshi]

Review of the D7500
https://nikonrumors.com/2017/07/01/nikon-d7500-real-life-review.aspx/#more-113065

[David Franks]

Ended up buying a D7500 and for all the negatives surrounding this camera I do have to say one thing - it takes one hell of a fine photo. I really like it - its like a D7200 on steroids and the missing 2nd memory card really doesn't bother me. I've owned plenty of cameras that only had one CF or one SD slot and never had a an issue. It feels great in my hand, the view finder is big bright and awesome, the raw buffer kicks butt, the back LCD panel can finally be configured to operate the way I like, and the list goes on... I just might finally retire my D300s and buy another one. 

[David Franks]

A few from the kids ball practice using the D7500 and Nikon 70-200mm F/4.0

T-Ball by Images by David Franks, on Flickr

T-Ball by Images by David Franks, on Flickr

T-Ball by Images by David Franks, on Flickr

[Ilkka Nissilä]

I am glad to hear that you're happy with it.

I would get the D7500 but find the no metering without CPU a difficult to swallow compromise. I notice the price has come down and perhaps I will consider it one of these days.

I think for many users the D7x00 is ideal especially if shooting some telephoto action on a "normal" budget. The 70-200/4 is also excellent.

[David Franks]

...no metering without CPU...

Not sure I understand, can you explain?

[Peter Forsell]

Not sure I understand, can you explain?

I'm not Ilkka, but he is referring to the fact that the exposure meter is not functional in D7500 when used with manual focus lenses that lack the lens cpu. There is more discussion about it further up in the thread.

It is a moot point for people who don't possess any legacy non-cpu lenses.

[David Franks]

Ok, thanks. Is the same true for other new bodies? Just wondering.