Nikon D500

10 FPS, 20MP DX, 4K, March 2016

 

 

 

The Nikon D500 is Nikon's fastest DX camera ever: 10 frames per second. It's the first consumer Nikon that's worthwhile considering for serious sports shooting.
It has the same autofocus system as the D5, which is pretty hot.
As expected, it has more AF points than ever before, but you can't select them all. You have only 55 selectable points, even if there are a claimed 153 AF points hidden somewhere.
The bizarre part is that we lose our second SD card slot. It's been replaced with an XQD slot instead, leaving us with only one SD slot.

It ships in March 2016 — but only to those who order it today and get the first ones. If you wait until tomorrow, it may be quite a while until Nikon can make enough of these to fill all the orders for the latecomers. With the Internet, the order que fills within hours.
See How to Get It; never wait to order yours. The genuinely hot and new cameras like this always have people who wait a few days and then don't get it in time for their summer vacations. Waiting a few days to order yours can result in months more waiting.

Nikon D500 Features 

● 10 FPS with AF and AE tracking — fastest Nikon DX camera ever.
● 79-frame buffer at these speeds, even in 14-bit uncompressed raw (with a fast enough card).
● 153 AF points that are rated down to LV -4 (full moonlight on sand).
● Tilting Touch Screen
● ISOs to 51,200 as regular ISOs, expandable to ISO 1,638,400 as "HI +5."
● 4K video.
● Can shoot stills during video.
● "SnapBridge" Bluetooth scheme to get your images moved around automatically.
● Wi-Fi.

OFFICIAL VIDEO

Cons :

● No built-in flash.
● No lock on power switch; easy to knock on or off by accident and miss shots.
● No exposure MODE button near the shutter release; it's been moved off to the left side of the camera and an ISO button appears in its place.
● Only 20.5 MP (5,568 x 3,712 pixels native); even a D3200 has slightly higher resolution.
● No auto brightness control for the LCD.
● Second CF slot replaced with an XQD slot, leaving us with only one SD slot.
● Still no sane replacement of Nikon's idiotic Custom Settings Banks, which has been a core incompetancy of Nikon since they introduced these in 2003. There are no U1, U2, U3 (or C1, C2, C3 or M1, M2, M3 etc.) modes so we can save and recall camera settings. As-is, there is no way to save camera settings; the Custom Banks are re-written every time you set the camera with no way to lock them!

 Frame Rates

C_H (Continuous High): 10 FPS with full AF and AE.
C_L (Continuous Low): selectable 1 to 9 FPS.
Q_C (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 when shooting 4K.
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).
Incandescent.
Fluorescent (7 types).
Direct sunlight.
Flash.
Cloudy.
Shade.
Preset manual.
   6 stored presets.
   Spot white balance also with live view.
Kelvin (2,500 K to 10,000 K).

Color Spaces

sRGB and Adobe RGB.

File Formats

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 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 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.

Finder

100% coverage. (only 98% in 1.3x crop.)
0.7x magnification with 35mm 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.
ISO 519 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 slot and one XQD slot.
SD slot takes UHS-II SDHC and SDXC cards.
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 stereo audio input with plug-in power.
3.5mm stereo audio output.
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" uses Bluetooth to connect to your phone or elsewhere for automatic uploads.

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

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

Quality

Made in Thailand.

Environment, operating

0 to 40°C (32 to 104°F).
85% or less RH, no condensation.

Announced

Tuesday, 05 January 2016, 3PM NYC time.

Promised for

March 2016.

Price, USA

January 2015
$1,999 for the body-only.
$3,070 with 16-80mm VR lens.

Performance

Nikon isn't shipping these until March 2016, so no one really knows because Nikon's still finishing the design.
At 10 FPS, this is Nikon's best DX camera ever for sports and action. The D5 is 2 FPS faster, but for sports, the DX sensor makes your lens 50% longer, so unless you do this for a living full time, this is Nikon's new best sports camera.
Disheartening is that there's no mode dial with custom-programmable camera presets as we can do on less expensive cameras like the D7200.
Disappointing is that the same horrible Custom Settings Bank system has not yet been replaced with any real way to save and recall camera settings immediately.
The scariest thing is that Nikon moved the critical exposure MODE button to the left side of the camera, making what used to be the MODE button now the ISO button. I expect we will be able to reprogram these, but if not, I'll be darned if I'll have to use a second hand to swap between Program and Aperture Priority and Manual modes.
ISOs and resolution ratings haven't been relevant since about 2007, so don't get hung up on any of that. All that matters is how hot and fast is the AF system and how quickly we can set the camera. With no instant save and recall ability, resetting the camera from one type of shot or from gig to gig becomes much more of a pain than it is on a D750 or D7200.
We'll all have to wait until March for real, shipping cameras. Opinions of Nikon's back-pocket PR puppets that are given free pre-production cameras in exchange for glowing reviews obviously don't count.

Belanove K Binu

About The Author
Belanove is a Software Engineering Student and a photographer who has spent the last 5 years Researching and Understanding Dslrs & Technology
but has never hacked DSLR and specializes in writing about  Photography Products and Emerging photography technology.
When not writing for DSLR360, Belanove Conducts photography classes online,Goes out for bird watching,Wildlife photography and off course Attends college.