Nikon D850 previews, commentary - first reviews

[Frank Fremerey]

Hey, Werner! Where did you manage to get one?

[Thomas G]

Hey, Werner! Where did you manage to get one?

the fun lot... like them. Looks like you had fun beside filling memory cards.

[Alaun]

@Thomas: Yes, Zeche Zollverein in Essen

@Frank: Just went into a shop and got one (mid of October, in Aachen)
Considered I was lucky, because I had birthday

[Frank Fremerey]

the fun lot... like them. Looks like you had fun beside filling memory cards.

Perfect responsiveness and dependability add a lot to spontaneous shooting.

And, yes, the memory cards fill fast!!!

[golunvolo]

Frank, thats a big selling image. Love the first one.

[Frank Fremerey]

Frank, thats a big selling image. Love the first one.

I wanted to be a professional dancer at age 19
I wanted to be a professional drummer at age 38
Now I am happy to be a professional writer, photographer and project manager at age 51
Hope to hug you in may and go light hunting with you!

[JohnBrew]

Word is that another batch is supposed to be released on the 24th. Kinda wish I had bought one when is was in Italy on the release date. The dealer in Siena had three in stock!

[Frank Fremerey]

After two month and a lot of experience with the camera in private and on assignments in different lighting I can sure say what I said at first glimpse:

the High ISO performance of my D850 is NOT BETTER than the ISO performance of my D500, just the character of the noise is different. More chrominance noise in the D850, more luminance noise in the D500

[BW]

I have used the D850 since the release date and I concur with Frank in that the character of the noise is different. I haven't concluded yet, but I think I find the the D850 noise more pleasing. Just like I find the Olympus noise more pleasing than the D500 noise. Thats really what it boils down to nowadays, what cameras one find the noise and performance to fit ones style of photography. They are all, that good. I'm not sure if we would see any significant jump in ISO-performance or image quality in the foreseeable future. Increments maybe, not jumps.

[chambeshi]

With D850 images up to ISO 7000 I'm pleased with editing the noise using Dfine2 (Nik Collection) from within Lightroom.

Steve Perry's recent review lists side by side comparisons of ISO performance of the D850 against D500 (also D5 and D810).....scroll down under the vidoe There is a distinct advantage of the D850 over the D500 in cropping the FX image.

Links in parallel thread, and the resultant guest post by Steve Perry on NR has some interesting commentaries on his images

[Frank Fremerey]

Without the MB-D18 the camera still feels incomplete. I like the One-Digit-Feel, esp with big glass. A D5x would be ideal for my purpose, but a gripped D850 would also not be that bad. Where are all the pre ordered MB-D18s? I already got two EN-EL18 waiting!

[Ron Scubadiver]

I just ordered a D850.  I did not read this entire thread and don't have the slightest idea of what it will do better than my D800.  What I do know is my D800 works but is beat up.  It can't be serviced without sending it off somewhere for a minimum 3 week turnaround due to Nikon USA's insane parts policies and a stubborn guy (a great repairman) who refuses to play ball with Nikon or source parts off eBay.  My D800 will be treasured as a backup just in case the D850 needs service.  That might be reason enough.

[Frank Fremerey]

Ron: If you find someone who actually has a D850 to sell, you cannot go wrong with her. Note that the D500 ist not worse than the D850. I just prefer to have a DX and a FX body on me...

[Ron Scubadiver]

Ron: If you find someone who actually has a D850 to sell, you cannot go wrong with her. Note that the D500 ist not worse than the D850. I just prefer to have a DX and a FX body on me...

The D850 is backordered.  It might show up sometime after the holidays.  It's hard to know when it will ship because many people place multiple orders and cancel after the first one ships.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

I got the D850 on Friday and tested it in figure skating photography using 300/4 PF, 70-200 FL and 200/2 II. I am left with mixed feelings.

The good: images are stunningly detailed. The touchscreen functionality is much more general than in the D5 and works well. Tolerably good images in artificial light at ISO 6400 (with the D810 I was happy until ISO 2000). (Unrelated to figure skating photography: When tested with a stationary subject, he 300 PF hand held in quiet mode give visibly sharper images at 1/50s (with EFCS on) than in S mode: it seems the slower rise of the mirror and the electronic first curtain now are available for hand held shooting and work brilliantly in Q/Qc modes. )

The surprise: Snapbridge worked basically as one would expect if one hadn’t read all the bad reports of v. 1.0. I was able to connect to my iPhone 6 without problems and automatic transfer of small jpgs worked fine as long as the camera was set to record both raw and jpg. I didn’t try full size image transfer. Also the camera remote control with exposure adjustments worked as well as sending manually selected images. Stopping automatic transfer didn’t work immediately - it took hours to clear the buffer of images in the queue it seems and I would appreciate a refinement where automatic transfer is suspended immediately so I can speed up the transfer of priority images selected manually.

The not so good: Well, sometimes the camera would hesitate to focus on the skater. When I lost my patience I lifted my thumb from AF-ON and pressed it again then it would focus. The shots that the camera would take were generally in focus and highly detailed. However, the hesitations happened every once in a while. Sometimes the camera would not respond to controls in image review (playback). It would take some time before it got ”online” again. I was mostly using D25 and group-area AF. I think the AF hesitation mostly was in dynamic area mode.

I have some theories/speculation. I suspect either the camera is busy processing the rather large files and this causes bottlenecks / delays in AF processing, or there may be a firmware bug. Switching back and forth between the two cameras left the impression that one was much more responsive than the other.

I am a little disappointed. I understand that a 45MP camera isn’t likely to be as fast as a 20MP one especially when the latter is purpose-made for action and more expensive. However I expected the responsivity to be closer. I have no complaints about AF accuracy - after auto fine tuning all my lenses seemed to focus where they needed to (with excellent detail). It’s just that I am used to immediate response when I request the camera to do something and this behaviour was unexpected.

I’ll talk to Nikon about this when I get the opportunity and when I have more experience with the camera.