Making a splash: Nikon D500 real-world sample gallery

Take a good look at the pics of the concert: they are all heavily underexposed and jpeg out of the camera receive massive exposure boost:
We have:
image 3: 8000iso + 1.85EV... is equal to 29000iso
image 9: 2000iso + 1.25EV... is equal to 4800iso
image 6 : 14400iso+ 1.05EV... is equal to 29000iso
image 16: 3600 +1.70 ... is equal to 11800iso
image 25: 8000iso +1.15EV is equal to 18000iso
image 29: 8000iso + 1.65EV is equal to 25000iso
image 29: 8000iso + 3.15EV is equal to 72000iso
I shot concert with D750 and sincerely, recoveries of this type put in crisis modern full frame sensors. D500's raws appear workable at high iso, with nice dinamic range and excellent color retentivity for an apsc sensor.
So, before saying "8.000 ISO are worse than i expected" take a look to the real iso of the "out of camera images".

This camera is the F..k up of the century. Terrible image quality. All shots of the music stage look solarized, no detail in color at all. Acceptable noise till 3600 ISO, at 4000 and beyond it is for the trashcan.

I was ready to ditch my 7d mk2 for this camera until I saw these samples

very great camera. Very sharp with fast Nikkor lenses.

Wow, i expected so much more. I thought while 1600 ISO seems a little high, 51.200 should be ok.
But even 12.800 or the examples of 8.000 ISO are worse than i expected.
Taking pictures of people in the dark require high iso settings just because they move, even when setting the camera on a monopod.
Sport also needs short shutter-times, sometimes 1/800 or shorter in dark environments.
So may be my expectations where to high, but in my opinion even my Fuji can deliver more.
So maybe 16mpix is the sweet spot for APS-C?
In many ways for me the D500 could be a good or even perfect little cam, but not in the high ISO department.

Some sub-ISO 1000 shots look questionable to me and then there's a shot at ISO 14400 that is also pushed more than 1 EV up and yet it looks totally usable to me. I guess I'm starting to look for reasons NOT to buy it.

Undeniably a great camera. Very sharp, in particular with fast Nikkor lenses. But.... something is not right with the colour saturation / color cast. I am pretty sure the results are close to natural, but..... when I check that Canon 80D... my hart warms up and I simply enjoy those Canon colors better.

That being said, Canon shots do look muddy... sharpness-free... ahhh well....

I'm a Pentax user- but this does seem a cracker!

I wonder if some of the complaints are coming from people with bad monitors? These are as good as the ones from my D750..yet I read all these complaints....I mean how can someone say they are disappointing? What am I missing?

Great color and detail!

What a great camera.

What do loyal D300/s owners think of this upgrade. I can only go by what I see on screen. But the D300 always impressed me with its continuous tonality. Was I deceived or was the D300/s one of Nikon's finest achievements. Thanks.

Nice job guys, I really appreciate seeing the out of camera shot compared to the after PP result. Shows not only what the camera can do but also what judicious PP can accomplish.

Kevin in CT

Uh oh. Very disappointing image quality.

I was praising this camera because 2 friends own it and said the picture quality was as good as the FF Nikon D750. These pictures, and the RAWs they sent me are underwhelming.

At the end of the say its a tool for speed and the 1.5x crop people need but I can't image anyone shooting portraits, fine art, macro, landscape, architecture etc using this over a cheaper Pentax K-1 or the Nikon D750.

As for the price people are complaining about - No issue with me there, Pentax is the value champ but the Nikon mount is great for their lineup and Zeiss Milvus options.

Next up is Sonys a9 and the Canon 5DMK4.

Fun times!

disappointing IQ but then what did you expect from a crop sensor

This is a really nice camera. It is a shame that Nikon broke the line. So many of sold our D300s and lenses and moved into FX at Nikon's urging. Many of us sought our D400 DX equivalent camera somewhere else. Both involved a new system of lenses. Few of us will find any enthusiam for downgrading from FX or switching back to DX from another APS-C camera system.

Any reason, IQ wise, I would buy this over a used D7100?

The only disadvantage I see in this cam is that's overpriced...

IQ a bit disappointing actually, especially the landscape shots, foliage looks very mushy imho on this photo http://www.dpreview.com/sample-galleries?galleryId=4137508448 the woodwork is devoid of detail and the flowers and grass looks no better than much cheaper DSLR's. and detail in general has an unnatural look (could be the processing though).... Maybe I just had too high hopes given all the hype??? But I guess the AF and speed etc. are the wow points. Will wait for full review.

I have fair amount of suspicious is that the DCP profile might be truly well off in ACR or Lightroom for Nikon images, some of colour look really strange. Like blue skies toward cyan, some grass are not nice green, few are washed out. The highlight is blownout which always a prone in ACR/Lightroom raw editing. So need to watch on that both shadow and highlight clipping. I doubt this is as good as D7200.

The boat scene at iso 720 is very, very noisy; most images are very disappointing IQ wise ...
No revolution image quality. Don't see much evolution also.

just get a d3300 with pro lens and be done with it

My Nikon D7100 can recover lots of over exposed highlights in RAW. I wish there was a test between cameras to see how much highlights can be recovered in RAW...

1st, to the shooters: Nicely done. A very nice cross section of photos - daylight, low light, dark; good sample of lenses. You made one thing crystal clear: the D500 is a solid all around camera. Whether the photos came SOOC or processed in ACR, the end result was very good. I don't think I saw one photo that made me pause, made me wonder. If the keeper rate is acceptable, the D500 looks good to me. If you've got good glass and know what you're doing, you're going to be satisfied. What else can we ask for? .... Thanks for the photo post.

Is it just me? They don't look like Nikon colors?

From everything I am reading, anyone who thinks that the photos from D500 will rival full frame cameras even of yester years, is a dreamer. The AF system on the other hand is a top notch. However, the AF system on say D750, which can be had cheaper, is still good enough for most applications plus you get superior image quality plus benefits of shallower depth of field with full frame sensor. D750 will also track things extremely well...... I believe for most people something like D750 is much better buy Today

is that photo of the Ferrari Barney's car?

I'm glad to know my ancient D700 does just as good as the latest cameras. I have no reason to upgrade after looking at D500 and D5 images.

It is obvious that DPR is on Nikon's payroll by posting pictures of both a cat AND a dog and refusing to take sides and tell us which animal it is better suited for, therefore pandering to Nikon's evil plan to take over pet photography... why would they have paired a cropped sensor with ultra fast AF, ultra fast FPS and deep buffer otherwise?

Sorry but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to see with the pictures in the gallery?
Just about any of the modern digital cameras available today could have taken these I'm sure.
Is there anything new here?

Where's the clarity. Amazing the chromatic abberation on the ferry shot.

IQ difference is marginal, but I bet the AF and overall speed of the camera is very satisfying!

Nicely composed images but in terms of low light performance and IQ, it is really not far off the old 16mp Sony sensor found on the Nikon D7000 and Pentax K5

These look like mere pictures... Alas, from the hype, I had expected more.

New D500 owner. Going from D7000. Overall happy with the camera, especially the tilting screen, FPS, improved focusing and big buffer.

The tilting screen allows me to take macro pictures close to the ground without laying down. Keeping dirt from clothes is a big marriage positive. The improved LCD display allows better review of images even though it does not improve the final image.

On the other hand, if had a D7200, would probably not have purchased. the D500

Images look good.. but not excellent. Considering the several-year-gap between d300 and this d500, I'm not seeing anything that gets my pulse going. I sold my Sony recently and have been considering a return to the Nikon family but at this pricepoint I would have liked to see a lot more IQ-wise. The functionality is there, all the features I would want, but the IQ (of the samples and what I've seen elsewhere) is on par with the Fuji xT1 and the a6000 I had. Sony's problem is lack of glass - on the other hand - focus is always spot on since it's a mirrorless. Hard decisions :)