thomas2279f
Senior Member
Thanks for the insight.
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Handled a D500 yesterday
- Thread starter David Lowe
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- nikon d500 nikon d810
Bill Dewey
Veteran Member
I was speaking with the presenter after the presentation last night and mentioned that I was going to post my thoughts. Funny thing, he mentioned DPReview :-D
My plan had been to post a "Disappointed Nothing Works" report last night just to see how many would bite, but I got lazy, so instead you get the real one here. As I noted in my "be realistic" post, that is what you get here.
Someone asked the question about, Kerry answered, about using our own card and taking pictures home. These are pre-production, marked Not For Sale sealed cameras. But zooming in the LCD is quite impressive. I'm not going into specs, those are all available, but here are my thoughts. I was focused on the D500, but I must say that D5 was also a sweet camera. So, here goes.
1. Try as I might I could not see any "garbage" looking splotchy junk even at ISO 25,600. I did see a picture of a cat, yes an infamous cat picture, taken at 51,200 and when I zoomed in to just the eye I could not see noise in the eyeball, but I could see a lot of detail. Time, and testing, will tell how much detail/DR is lost at these ISO levels, but I would have expected rather a hot mess of colored blobs, and did not see "blobs" at all, on the subject or the background. I suspect that we will find ISO 6400 rather pleasant. I did not bother with the Ludicrous ISO's, it was explained that these are in place for Police and Military work, where ID is far more important than noise.
2. Snapbridge actually looks quite cool. We could not test with it, they are still working out some wrinkles, but 2 things struck me as rather nice. The first is that while you can't change everything on the camera, you can adjust basics, and also use it on your phone or tablet as a Live View remote, I believe they said up to 98' away. I have thought in the past of buying a Cam Ranger to set up my camera by a perch on our feeders and then control from inside, now I can do without the Cam Ranger. The second part that is kind of cool is that you can use this to look at images that on cards in your camera, even with the camera off. This does chew up 3-5% of the battery, I forgot to ask but will tonight, over what period of time. If that is "per day", then you best be charging your battery every few weeks.
3. AF seems quite nice, not really much you can test standing in a room with a bunch of people. It sure had no trouble tracking them walking across a room, but that ain't much of a test. I will continue to believe what the testers have reported on this one.
4. The touch screen is quite nice. Touch does not work for the menus, when the presenter was asked about this he explained that was on purpose as it would be too easy to accidentally change settings, and I would agree. One nice feature when in Live View is that you can simply tap the touch screen it will focus and take the picture. On the V3 I really like this when you have articulated the screen and are taking pictures either over your head or at waist level.
5. The VF is nice, very bright, can't wait to see this outdoors with the longer lenses.
6. I did not get a chance to dig through menus, may try that tonight.
My plan had been to post a "Disappointed Nothing Works" report last night just to see how many would bite, but I got lazy, so instead you get the real one here. As I noted in my "be realistic" post, that is what you get here.
Someone asked the question about, Kerry answered, about using our own card and taking pictures home. These are pre-production, marked Not For Sale sealed cameras. But zooming in the LCD is quite impressive. I'm not going into specs, those are all available, but here are my thoughts. I was focused on the D500, but I must say that D5 was also a sweet camera. So, here goes.
1. Try as I might I could not see any "garbage" looking splotchy junk even at ISO 25,600. I did see a picture of a cat, yes an infamous cat picture, taken at 51,200 and when I zoomed in to just the eye I could not see noise in the eyeball, but I could see a lot of detail. Time, and testing, will tell how much detail/DR is lost at these ISO levels, but I would have expected rather a hot mess of colored blobs, and did not see "blobs" at all, on the subject or the background. I suspect that we will find ISO 6400 rather pleasant. I did not bother with the Ludicrous ISO's, it was explained that these are in place for Police and Military work, where ID is far more important than noise.
2. Snapbridge actually looks quite cool. We could not test with it, they are still working out some wrinkles, but 2 things struck me as rather nice. The first is that while you can't change everything on the camera, you can adjust basics, and also use it on your phone or tablet as a Live View remote, I believe they said up to 98' away. I have thought in the past of buying a Cam Ranger to set up my camera by a perch on our feeders and then control from inside, now I can do without the Cam Ranger. The second part that is kind of cool is that you can use this to look at images that on cards in your camera, even with the camera off. This does chew up 3-5% of the battery, I forgot to ask but will tonight, over what period of time. If that is "per day", then you best be charging your battery every few weeks.
3. AF seems quite nice, not really much you can test standing in a room with a bunch of people. It sure had no trouble tracking them walking across a room, but that ain't much of a test. I will continue to believe what the testers have reported on this one.
4. The touch screen is quite nice. Touch does not work for the menus, when the presenter was asked about this he explained that was on purpose as it would be too easy to accidentally change settings, and I would agree. One nice feature when in Live View is that you can simply tap the touch screen it will focus and take the picture. On the V3 I really like this when you have articulated the screen and are taking pictures either over your head or at waist level.
5. The VF is nice, very bright, can't wait to see this outdoors with the longer lenses.
6. I did not get a chance to dig through menus, may try that tonight.
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Bill Dewey
Veteran Member
Part Two:
7. Contrary to some reports I have seen, the D500 does have the same AF, including the added AF processor, as the D5.
8. Oh, back to ISO for a moment. The presenter had a lot of fun comparing the ISO on the D5/D500 to the competition
9. People were a bit surprised about the 3 minute limit for 4k video on the D5. But if you connect to an external recorded you have no limit. You get 29min 59sec of recording internally on the D500. I was surprised that no one complained about this. I thought I also read somewhere that Nikon is planning a firmware fix for this on the D5 already.
10. Funniest question of the night was during the Snapbridge portion, "Is there an API". This drew a bit of a blank stare until the person asking the question explained that he was asking about a Programming Interface, to which the answer was "Well, NO".
11. Darn, I keep thinking to things to add. I thought that the shutter on the D500 was quieter than the D5, but at max FPS it is not really easy to tell. I may test this tonight a bit if I remember and get a chance.
11. I guess I will move on to the "short version" for now.
Short Version:I sure as heck am NOT cancelling my pre-order, but I sure as heck am even more annoyed about the wait until the end of April. Overall I give this one 6 out of 5 Whoopies-Atta-Boys
7. Contrary to some reports I have seen, the D500 does have the same AF, including the added AF processor, as the D5.
8. Oh, back to ISO for a moment. The presenter had a lot of fun comparing the ISO on the D5/D500 to the competition
9. People were a bit surprised about the 3 minute limit for 4k video on the D5. But if you connect to an external recorded you have no limit. You get 29min 59sec of recording internally on the D500. I was surprised that no one complained about this. I thought I also read somewhere that Nikon is planning a firmware fix for this on the D5 already.
10. Funniest question of the night was during the Snapbridge portion, "Is there an API". This drew a bit of a blank stare until the person asking the question explained that he was asking about a Programming Interface, to which the answer was "Well, NO".
11. Darn, I keep thinking to things to add. I thought that the shutter on the D500 was quieter than the D5, but at max FPS it is not really easy to tell. I may test this tonight a bit if I remember and get a chance.
11. I guess I will move on to the "short version" for now.
Short Version:I sure as heck am NOT cancelling my pre-order, but I sure as heck am even more annoyed about the wait until the end of April. Overall I give this one 6 out of 5 Whoopies-Atta-Boys
KnightPhoto2
Senior Member
Kerry Pierce
Forum Pro
Appreciate the run down!
Kerry
Kerry
Nicholas128
Leading Member
Thanks Bill, really appreciate you taking the time to share your observations.
Bill Dewey
Veteran Member
Just got back from Night 2, hope I have answers to all the questions, if I miss something, remind me please.
1. ISO in VF when in Auto ISO. Yes, it does show as long as you turn on the Menu Setting for Show ISO. Quite nice to have the option.
2. SnapBridge, you can transfer images from the camera to your phone/tablet. Android app out first, then IOS sometime, Windows phone don't hold your breath. When transferring a single image from the camera via SnapBridge you can transfer full size JPG. In Auto Transfer only 2k images will transfer. 3-5% battery drain when BT is active, I am not sure if you can turn BT off on the camera to save battery power when not in use like a phone.
3. D500 does have Quiet Mode. Not silent, but quieter.
4. Auto Fine Tune, we did find out how to do it, takes a weird 2 button press, we could not make it "happy", but we also did not have a tripod so could not be steady. One person asked if you could save more than one setting per lens, indication was "yes", but not really sure so I don't know about this one.
5. LCD is much higher resolution, one comment the presenter made tonight was "if you can find a dot on the LCD, it is so nice and smooth". Looks great, and review is incredible.
6. The Joystick is sweet, much easier than the big pad. Also much easier to move your thumb to. And I believe it is also somewhat programmable.
7. Group AF is the same as before, 4 points around the center. And you can move it all around just like on the D810. Of course the Focus Points now cover more of the frame, so even better.
8. Writing to both cards, I asked if this is done in parallel or serial, the answer was "the write is limited to the slowest card". So I asked if that meant the writes were done at the same time, as if they weren't the speed would be the total of both cards, the answer was "the write is limited to the slowest card" ;-) I think he meant they are parallel, which is great news, but not really sure.
9. One test we did tonight was to photograph a person at ISO 100 and then at ISO 10000. Switching back and forth on the LCD is was darned hard to see a difference. I am guessing, just because 10000 is REALLY big, that a larger version you would notice, but zooming in on detail still could not see anything objectionable.
I think that gets them all, remind me if I missed one or ask something new that I might remember. This will be, darn it, the last time I have one of these in my hands prior to mine arriving I fear.
1. ISO in VF when in Auto ISO. Yes, it does show as long as you turn on the Menu Setting for Show ISO. Quite nice to have the option.
2. SnapBridge, you can transfer images from the camera to your phone/tablet. Android app out first, then IOS sometime, Windows phone don't hold your breath. When transferring a single image from the camera via SnapBridge you can transfer full size JPG. In Auto Transfer only 2k images will transfer. 3-5% battery drain when BT is active, I am not sure if you can turn BT off on the camera to save battery power when not in use like a phone.
3. D500 does have Quiet Mode. Not silent, but quieter.
4. Auto Fine Tune, we did find out how to do it, takes a weird 2 button press, we could not make it "happy", but we also did not have a tripod so could not be steady. One person asked if you could save more than one setting per lens, indication was "yes", but not really sure so I don't know about this one.
5. LCD is much higher resolution, one comment the presenter made tonight was "if you can find a dot on the LCD, it is so nice and smooth". Looks great, and review is incredible.
6. The Joystick is sweet, much easier than the big pad. Also much easier to move your thumb to. And I believe it is also somewhat programmable.
7. Group AF is the same as before, 4 points around the center. And you can move it all around just like on the D810. Of course the Focus Points now cover more of the frame, so even better.
8. Writing to both cards, I asked if this is done in parallel or serial, the answer was "the write is limited to the slowest card". So I asked if that meant the writes were done at the same time, as if they weren't the speed would be the total of both cards, the answer was "the write is limited to the slowest card" ;-) I think he meant they are parallel, which is great news, but not really sure.
9. One test we did tonight was to photograph a person at ISO 100 and then at ISO 10000. Switching back and forth on the LCD is was darned hard to see a difference. I am guessing, just because 10000 is REALLY big, that a larger version you would notice, but zooming in on detail still could not see anything objectionable.
I think that gets them all, remind me if I missed one or ask something new that I might remember. This will be, darn it, the last time I have one of these in my hands prior to mine arriving I fear.
Bill Dewey
Veteran Member
Nothing specific mentioned and I did not ask. But I can tell you this, as an eyeglass wearer myself no problem at all. In fact one thing I noticed, thinking back on it, was that everything in the VF was nice and sharp, and I did not touch the diopter. Just like looking through my D810.
I should add this to the other thread as well, great question!
Bill Dewey
Veteran Member
Tony Beach
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Then you were wearing your eyeglasses? I generally prefer not to wear mine when shooting with my cameras. The round eyepiece will be nice though, I bought a DK-17C -3.0 and DK-19 Rubber rubber eyecup for my D800, and that's just awesome to have (much nicer than the diopter I bought for my D300); I will get the same for the D500 when I eventually get one. I noticed in the specifications that the D500 is only rated to -2.0 which isn't enough for me (technically, -3.0 isn't quite enough either, but it will do in a pinch), so I will definitely need the aforementioned accessories. As for pressing my eye up against the viewfinder to see everything, that won't be a problem for me.
Bill Dewey
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Tony Beach
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Three FX lenses and just one DX lens. Another poke-in-the-eye to the FX crowd. Thank you Nikon.
Tony Beach
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I have learned the hard way to have a place for my eyeglasses. I use a Speedlight pouch attached to my belt or one of the pockets on my camera backpack.
Since you are using the DK-17M on your D800 you are already used to a reduced eyepoint.
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David Lowe
Well-known member
Bill Dewey
Veteran Member
It dawned on me this morning that it might be interesting to the same ISO 100/10000 test on my D810 to see if I could see noise. And boy could I see noise. All the color splotchy blotchy I would expect on the D810 at 10000, very clear difference. I did this test both at full resolution and then in DX mode to downsize. The DX looks "cleaner", but not nearly as clean as the D500.
Don't know how much is sensor, how much is Expeed5, and don't really care, but to me the difference really I night and day.
I still don't believe that ISO 10000 is something I will use on a regular basis, it just "feels" wrong, but this just further strengthens my enthusiasm for the 3200-6400 range.
Don't know how much is sensor, how much is Expeed5, and don't really care, but to me the difference really I night and day.
I still don't believe that ISO 10000 is something I will use on a regular basis, it just "feels" wrong, but this just further strengthens my enthusiasm for the 3200-6400 range.
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