Nikon D500

Nikon D500: full review

Still priced over 2,000€, Nikon D500 is not designed for the general public. It’s a simply outstanding DX-format camera, and calling it “entry level” just because of its APS-C sensor is totally misleading. To me, it’s a professional camera and I’m going to explain why.

Nikon D500 offers out-of-the-ordinary speed and precision. For sports photos – and for all shots with moving subjects – it is absolutely the best product available, at least in its price range.

Nikon D500: design and camera body

Personally, I have never seen the camera as a mere instrument. To me, it is also a beautiful object capable of giving me aesthetic and tactile feelings. Nikon D500 is the kind of camera that can satisfy both. It is quite attractive and gives me a good handling feeling.

147 x 115 x 81 mm e 760 gr weight

These are considerable dimensions, especially if you come from an experience with any kind of entry level camera, from Nikon D3400 to Nikon D5500. Nikon D500 is even slightly bigger than the full frame Nikon D750. Is it a flaw? Not for everybody, because actually the feeling of stability and wider areas with easily reachable buttons are not a flaw. A 9cm LCD screen is not that bad either. And that annoying plastic feeling typical of the low-cost camera disappears.

Nikon D500: technical aspects

With its 20.7 Megapixels APS-C sensor and the excellent processor Expeed 5, Nikon D500 is equipped with high-level basics. If you add an ISO range from 100 to 51,800, expandable up to 1,638,400 (yes, you read right!), then you’ll understand why we’re talking about top-of-the-line DX format Nikon.

Besides, here are the other technical aspects of Nikon D500:

• Touchscreen LCD flip-up display, 2300K points
• RGB exposure sensor: 180K pixel
• Viewfinder: 100% coverage, 1.0x enlargement
• Connectivity with Snapbridge system
• 4k/UHD video shooting for 30 minutes
• Battery with 1240 shots capacity!
• Two slots for memory cards (SD and XQD)
• Microphone
• Built-in flash: NOT PRESENT
• GPS: NOT PRESENT

Translation of this list: excellent definition, high speed of usage, ultra HD video quality, very few grainy images, even at very high ISO. I have deliberately overlooked Autofocus and burst mode cause they deserve a separate paragraph.

Nikon D500: Autofocus and burst mode

Nikon D500 autofocus is so performing that I have never succeeded in making it fail. And even if I’m not an expert in sports photography, I can say that this camera holds a candle with cameras priced twice as much. Here are its modes:

• Single point: choose one of the 55 manually selectable points from the selector
• Dynamic: Start from one point and the camera also considers another group of points close to the one you chose, to prevent the main point from losing the subject.
• Group: choose a group of points, and the system automatically identifies “its” subject.
• 3D Tracking: you set the single starting point and the system follows the subject using other single points when necessary.
• Automatic: the camera decides on which subject to focus.

Single point is perfect to not lose sight of one moving athlete, automatic is fine when there are more moving subjects. 3D is the right choice for a challenge between two moving athletes. Personally, I have not tried Nikon D500 in low light conditions, but the photographers I consulted confirmed that autofocus works just fine at -3ev.

With such an autofocus, burst mode – extremely fast 10 fps – couldn’t be anything else than the feature outdistancing the competitors. Buffering works with 200 RAW photos in 20 seconds. Of course, you need a proper memory card to do so: Nikon D500 has two slots, a SD and a XQD one.

The only drawback is that the Snapbridge sharing system can’t keep up with the shooting speed. For this reason, you’ll have to buy the wireless Nikon WT-7A transmitter, compatible with the camera.

Rivals and price

If you want to go for a Nikon and spend half the price, you can get a D7200 or the more advanced D7500 to have top-level all-round performance. With the same price of Nikon D500, even a bit less maybe, you can get a full frame camera, like Nikon D750. Of course, if you’re looking for speed…nothing’s like D500 unless you spend around 5,000€.

At the moment, the camera body alone costs approximately 2,100€ on Amazon. Without Nital warranty, you can spend a couple hundreds euros less.

The kit including the Nikkor AF-S DX 16-80mm VR costs one thousand euros more: the lens is more than decent and it’s perfect as a first multifunctional lens.

Answering the question “Does Nikon D500 suit you?”, I’d have some troubles saying a firm “no”, given its good – at least – technical features.

The only case in which, probably, it’s not worth spending a considerable amount of money on this camera is if you were not interested in sports photography.