Nikon D500 Review

Nikon D500 features 20MP DX format imaging sensor with 10fps shooting capacity and ability to shoot 4K videos. It weighs only 30.4 oz./860g with battery and XQD card. Its body can be bought from Amazon for a price tag of  $1,999. However, the camera is available with 16 – 80mm ED VR lens for a price tag of 3,066.

 

New features of Nikon D500

• 10 FPS with AE and AF tracking
• 79-frame buffer at 10FPS, even in 14-bit uncompressed raw
• 153 AF points that are rated down to LV -4
• Tilting Touch Screen
• ISOs to 51,200 as regular ISOs, expandable to ISO 1,638,400 as “HI +5”
• 4K video recording ability
• Can shoot stills during video
• “SnapBridge” Bluetooth scheme share your images automatically
• Wi-Fi

Missing features

• No built-in flash
• No lock on power switch; so that the camera can easily knocked on or off by accident
• Exposure MODE button is moved off to the left side of the camera away from shutter release while the ISO Button is now placed close to shutter release
• Only 20.5 MP (5,568 x 3,712 pixels native); even a Nikon D3200 has slightly higher resolution
• No auto brightness control for the LCD in Nikon D500
• Second CF slot replaced with an XQD slot, so there is only one SD slot

Lens Compatibility of Nikon D500

There is a new focus motor introduced in Nikon D500 that will work with any AF lens made after 1986.

Specifications of Nikon D500

Frame Rates

Continuous High 10 FPS with full AF and AE.
Continuous Low selectable 1 to 9 FPS.
Quiet Continuous 3 FPS.

Sensor

• 23.5 x 15.7 mm DX CMOS
• Ultrasonic cleaner

Image Sizes

• DX (16 x 24mm)
• 5,568 x 3,712 (L), 4,176 x 2,784 (M), 2,784 x 1,856 (S)
• 1.3x crop (12 x 18mm)
• 4,272 x 2,848 (L), 3,200 x 2,136 (M), 2,128 x 1,424 (S)
• Stills shot during video
  3,840 x 2,160 in 4K video recording
• You get full – still resolution stills, cropped to 16:9 (5,568 x 3,128 (L), 4,176 x 2,344 (M) or 2,784 x 1,560 (S)) when shooting 1080 or 720 video
• If shooting 1.3x crop you get a slightly lower resolution 16:9 stills: 4,272 x 2,400 (L), 3,200 x 1,800 (M) or 2,128 x 1,192 (S)

ISO

• ISO 100 to 51,200, expandable from ISO 50 (“LO -1”) to ISO 1,638,400 (“HI + 5”)
• Auto ISO

White Balance

All with individual fine-tuning:

• Auto (3 types)
• Direct sunlight
• Flash
• Cloudy
• Shade
• Fluorescent (7 types)
• Incandescent
• Preset manual
•    6 stored presets
•    Spot white balance also with live view
• Kelvin (2,500 K to 10,000 K)

Color Spaces
Adobe RGB and sRGB
File Formats

Howshutterbug Exclusive posts and Deals

• NEF (Raw): 12 or 14 bit (lossless compressed, compressed or uncompressed); large, medium, and small pixel sizes (medium and small images are recorded at a bit depth of 12 bits using lossless compression)
• JPG: Fine (approx. 1:4), Normal (approx. 1:8) or Basic (approx. 1:16) compression. Usual optimal quality or fixed size options
• RAW+JPG
• RGB TIFF

Video Frame Rates and Sizes

• 3,840 x 2,160 (4K): 29.97p, 25p or 23.976p.
• 1,920 x 1,080: 59.94p, 50p, 29.97p, 25p, 23.976p.
• 1,280 x 720; 59.94p, 50p.
• You can select high or normal quality at all these, except only normal at 4K.
• H.264/MPEG-4
• .MOV

Audio

• Stereo microphone built-in
• Linear PCM recording

Autofocus

All the same as the Nikon D5:

• Face-Priority AF; should automatically find faces and focus on them
• 153 AF points
• Work down to LV -4, which is full moonlight on sand
• Only 99 of these AF points are cross-type
• Only 15 sensors work with f/8 lenses
• You can’t select all these manually; you only can select 55 of them. Of these selectable 55; 35 are cross-type sensors and only 9 work at f/8
• Multi-CAM 20K AF sensor module

View Finder

• 100 % coverage. (only 98% in 1.3x crop)
• 0.7x magnification with 35 mm lens. (1.0x magnification with 50mm telephoto lens)
• 16mm eyepoint
• -2 to +1 diopters

Shutter

• 30s to 1/8,000, Bulb

Flash

Flash Sync

• 1/250 sync speed
• PC (Prontor-Compur) socket

Flash Control

• Nikon’s usual i-TTL

Light Meter

• TTL RGB
• 180k pixels
• 3D Color Matrix
• 13mm, 10mm, 8mm or 6mm diameter center-weighted. (only the 8mm circle works with old manual-focus AI lenses)
• 3.5mm spot at the selected focus point (only the center point with old manual-focus AI lenses)
• Meter Range
• LV -3 ~ +20
• Spot meter: LV 2 ~ 20

Live View

• Yip, for stills and movies with the usual options

LCD Monitor

• 3.2″ (8cm) TFT
• Tilts
• Touch sensitive
• 2,359,000 dot (XGA)
• 170° viewing angle
• 100% frame coverage
• NO AUTO BRIGHTNESS CONTROL

Storage

• One SD card slot and one XQD slot
• UHS-II SDHC and SDXC cards can be used in SD card slot
• It has the usual options for the two cards: dual (backup), sequential (overflow), RAW/JPG, etc

Connectors

• USB 3.0 Micro-B
• Type C HDMI
• 3.5mm audio input stereo with plug-in power
• 3.5mm audio output stereo type
• 10-pin Nikon remote: for things like optional WR-R10 (requires WR-A10 WR Adapter) or WR-1 Wireless Remote Controller, GP-1/GP-1A GPS Unit, or GPS device compliant with NMEA0183 version 2.01 or 3.01 (requires optional MC-35 GPS Adapter Cord and cable with D-sub nine-pin connector)

Bluetooth

• Nikon SnapBridge can be used to automatically upload data to your phone via bluetooth
• Bluetooth Specification Version 4.1

Wi-Fi

• IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
• Open system, WPA2-PSK

NFC

• NFC Forum Type 3 Tag

Power

• EN-EL 15 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery, same as D810
• Rated to 3,780 shots per charge
• Optional EH-5b AC Adapter, which needs an EP-5B Power Connector

Battery Grip

• Optional MB-D17 Multi-Power Battery Pack uses one EN-EL 15 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery or eight AA cells
• If you use a BL-5 Battery Chamber Cover you can use the EN-EL18a or EN-EL18 battery

Size

• 5.8 x 4.6 x 3.2 inches
• 147 x 115 x 81 millimeters

Weight

• 30.4 oz. (860 g. or 1 lb., 14.4 oz.) with battery and XQD card
• 26.9 oz. (760 g. or 1 lb., 10.9 oz.) stripped

Included in Nikon D500

• Camera
• BF-1B Body Cap
• EN-EL15 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery
• MH-25a Battery Charger
• DK-17F Fluorine-Coated Finder Eyepiece
• UC-E22 USB Cable
• USB Cable Clip
• HDMI Cable Clip
• AN-DC17 Camera Strap

Environment, operating

• 0 to 40°C
• 85% or less Relative Humidity, no condensation
• It was announced on January 5 and it will be available in March 2016

Final thoughts regarding Nikon D500

If you have already invested in Nikon than Nikon digital camera D500 has a best body in the case if you are shooting sports, action and news.
However, if you are shooting nature than you don’t need frame per second and any other Nikon digital camera will work fine. In my suggestions Nikon D500 is best suited to sports only and I would use Nikon D7200 for other operations due to its better design and a programmable mode dial, as it also takes two SD cards.
However, if you are to get Nikon D500 digital camera order it now in order to get yours in March. As you are already familiar that D500 is the fastest Nikon DX cam and it would be selling like a hot cake so in order to reserve yours order now, not tomorrow.
In the mean time stay tuned in howshutterbug News and Nikon Rumors section for more information and digital camera reviews and rumors.