D500 General Discussion Thread

7pilot

Joined the ranks as a D500 owner. Just have to wait for it to arrive from B&H. It will sit alongside my trusty old D7100 in my camera bag.

DaveyJ

7Pilot: Congradulations on your D500 Camera! We have been very pleased with B&H here.
Our D500 is now full time in an UW Ikelite housing, with a Tokina 10-17 lens and the underwater ports for that. Our rig is good to 200 ft. Deep. Unfortunately working all the time anymore is interfering with our blue water Adventures! I use the D7200 with the 16-80 and the D7500 with the 200-500 daily. The Ikelite D500 underwater housing though is pretty expensive. Need to at least try it some more though.

7pilot

DaveyJ said:

7Pilot: Congradulations on your D500 Camera! We have been very pleased with B&H here.
Our D500 is now full time in an UW Ikelite housing, with a Tokina 10-17 lens and the underwater ports for that. Our rig is good to 200 ft. Deep. Unfortunately working all the time anymore is interfering with our blue water Adventures! I use the D7200 with the 16-80 and the D7500 with the 200-500 daily. The Ikelite D500 underwater housing though is pretty expensive. Need to at least try it some more though.

After a lot of great buying experiences at B&H. They have garnered my first complaint on this order. Advert says it qualifies for overnight shipping. When I got my confirmation email. It was split into two shipments. The free battery grip is going out overnight, Yet the camera is shipping out standard. Granted I'm not out any money. But if you advertise free overnight shipping. Well you should probably follow through with that promise. Of course I ordered it just as B&H was shutting down for their Sabbath day. So it's incommunicado for now. I hope they see my email before my order ships out.

I've always been amazed at how the non-electronic poly-carbonate UW housings are usually more costly than the cameras that are shoved into them. No 200ft for me. Snorkeling on the surface is more my speed.

DaveyJ

And for that a Go Pro would be fine. My son though is into hardcore free diving! Our target for that is pelagic species such as Yellowfin Tuna, Wahoo, Marlin, Hammerhead Sharks, etc.!

rmp

Wow! DaveyJ, those are some hard targets. Good Luck!

7pilot

Called B&H on Monday. They agreed that the shipping department should not have pulled the smallest boxed item from the D500 kit and ship it overnight just so they didn't have to send the whole bloody lot via overnight express. So they gave me a $20 gift certificate as an apology.

DaveyJ

Good News 7Pilot!! Great luck with your new camera!

7pilot

Got the D500 today (12/26) The one thing that I'm disappointed with is the very, very limited functions one can assign to Fn2 button. Otherwise at this rather early point, it's great.

DaveyJ

I think you will find work around solutions to all of the "shortcomings" like limited shortcut or customized settings. Why is there such a limited Fn2 button assignment array?

Fact is during development stages and study of how most Nikon camera users employ such features it becomes quite apparent that relatively few use these. I am sure 7Pilot will come up with techniques that will make his D500 work like a charm. The D500 is an awesome camera. It has actually hurt Canon as many camera Pros prefer the speed, utility! Durability, and quality of the D500. Our use here, from far north to the farthest south reaches of the USA has proven the D500 to be a professional camera at the highest level! All that said, my day to day use finds the D7500 to be a spectacular small, light, and packed with power DSLR.

Looking forward to 7Pilots success with this featured packed camera. I have been wowed by the toughness and workhorse nature of some of the latest Nikon's!

7pilot

I'll manage with the two programmable buttons on the front. Was just disappointed to see the lack of true picture functionality of the Fn2 button on the rear. I don't give a tinkers darn about rating a photo in camera prior to processing

Did my first walkaboput with the D500, However, It was short lived as It's in the mid 20's today with snow on the ground and heavy overcast. I used my lesser 18-55 kit lens. Man talk about light fall off. And that was at 40mm, F/5.6, ISO 100, 1/320. The vignette control was set to off. This same lens never had that issue on the 5100 nor 7100. Not sure what to think about that. Nothing comes up in a google search.

DaveyJ

7Pilot: I photograph everyday here in the Adirondack Mountains and right now after coming in from a brief photo shoot......it is officially -21 degrees F. Without wind chill taken into account. There is little wind right here in my small clearing. Even the deer which would drift through at about 7:30 AM haven't yet. Two days ago that is when a huge 10 pointer came through, I thought with a doe but that turned out to be a young 1+ buck, a fork horn. It is going to be a rough winter here for them with right now between 18-26 inches of snow measured where no snow is plowed up. Based on 100 yardstick measurements. In 1993 and 1994 we had between 6 and 7 ft. of snow, again measured the same way as yesterday. In our main sugarbush there were sections with 14 ft. of snow. That was taken from measurements from the sidewall of snow blowed canyons. So my cameras have been tested in cold. Your D500 should have weathered the 20 degree photo shoot walkabout with ease. The 18-55 kit lens is great for that use.

Since our D500 is in an UW housing in Key West today and most of the time anymore, I can't go out and test drive that. But a video on UTube was entirely taken with a D500 title Frozen by Fire of the winter Ice Palace in Saranac Lake, NY. On UTube under Black Sky Films. it is 4 minutes in duration. It is of fire twirling by a couple at the palace. My grandson Christjen Johnson shot that video. Some of the flame throwing is done by my son Robin who helped build the Palace Does all the Ice Sculptures, and Shot the videos that are often aerial plus some of my D7200 video shot with Sigma 10-20 lens all at temperatures from 8 degrees F. To -35 degrees F. If your batteries are fully charged, etc., it should take fairly cold. Always make sure under winter conditions that your lens and viewfinder don't fog up. I often will breathe too close to my D7500 with a 200-500 lens and for a second my viewfinder will fog up, usually gives away in seconds.

I NEVER rate a photo with the in camera ratings. But I sure as heck look at the LCD screen to make sure I am not getting a crop failure, by that I mean too dark, too light, blurry, etc.!
Until I see it at least on a 5K iMac 27 or Samsung 4K 65 inch screen I do not rate photos.

Sounds like you are off to the races.....and we wait with considerable interest for your success story! I would caution you to acquire another 15a En-El battery. Do not recharge batteries that aren't at least drawn down to about 20 percent. Better if they are completely spent. The batteries recharged too early get a short memory.

HankB

DaveyJ said:

7Pilot:
..... I would caution you to acquire another 15a En-El battery. Do not recharge batteries that aren't at least drawn down to about 20 percent. Better if they are completely spent. The batteries recharged too early get a short memory.

Good advice for old school nickel based batteries [Nicad & NiMH], but today’s electronic devices use Li-ion batteries which do not have the evil “memory effect” of nickel batteries. So topping them up without deep discharge is just fine. Furthermore, Li-ion batteries are more degraded by deep discharge than are nickel batteries.

Best advice for Li-ion batteries is to top them up whenever convenient. The exception to this is if you anticipate not using the battery for several months, it is best left less than 1/2 charged. Then fully charge just before putting the battery back into service.

Oh, but do get a second battery and switch off between the two without depleting either one if not necessary.

7pilot

HankB said:

DaveyJ said:

7Pilot:
..... I would caution you to acquire another 15a En-El battery. Do not recharge batteries that aren't at least drawn down to about 20 percent. Better if they are completely spent. The batteries recharged too early get a short memory.

Good advice for old school nickel based batteries [Nicad & NiMH], but today’s electronic devices use Li-ion batteries which do not have the evil “memory effect” of nickel batteries. So topping them up without deep discharge is just fine. Furthermore, Li-ion batteries are more degraded by deep discharge than are nickel batteries.

Best advice for Li-ion batteries is to top them up whenever convenient. The exception to this is if you anticipate not using the battery for several months, it is best left less than 1/2 charged. Then fully charge just before putting the battery back into service.

Oh, but do get a second battery and switch off between the two without depleting either one if not necessary.

I HAD three batteries. Two for the ole D7100, One being a Watson. The Watson battery just went the way of the Dodo this weekend. I have another Nikon battery on the way from B&H. The D7100 was pretty easy on the batteries. I've heard that if one mistakenly leaves the D500 wifi & snapbridge on. It will go through batteries like my diesel pusher coach goes through fuel.

7pilot

Also, The vignetting I had that scared me a bit. Was very likely because of my wanting to get out with the new toy, And I went out in some very bad light conditions. The sky was heavy overcast and dull flat light. The landscape very closely matched the color of the sky and I had that 18-55 lens a bit to far open at f/5.6. Which is very near to the area of it's max light fall off. It was as close to a totally monochromatic scene that I've seen. So I inadvertently set myself up for failure with a camera i'm not totally familiar with.

But I'm a guy, And that's what we sometimes do. :-)

PS. I have a new (to me) lens that is being delivered today. It's an old Nikkor 200MM f/4 Q lens. It's been Ai'd so it will meter on the D500. Dates from the 1960's. But heck. It was $59 and I couldn't say no. I've read a lot of good things about old Nikon glass and the tank like build quality. Looking forward to trying it out.

DaveyJ

We had the battery charging situation with Military Police batteries on every battery set including lithium ion. They had more money in batteries and charger than I have ever seen.
The lithium ion recharge thing was pretty recent. I also seem this ame notation on Nikon Rumors, about 15 and 15a batteries. The toughest camera I have ever seen on these lithium batteries is the D500. And none of us ever use Snapbridge!

spraynpray

Looks like another point for the D7500 then @DaveyJ.

heartyfisher

So...
I am getting a bit of NAS...

Quick background...

I got the D500 a year ago. and its been great. though I have not been shooting much. So photography has been on hold due to several factors for the last 8 months. 3 month flu thus tired at work so no time after and my PC died and my 2 monitors died my 18-200 died. . yeah not many posts on NR :-) got tons of threads to catch up on! I see the D850 thread is heavy !!

SO.. now after 8 months .. 2 fancy new monitors nice PC. AND a 1 month holiday in Feb.. to Malaysia/Singapore.

and ... thinking of replacing my 18-200... for a travel kit with my D500..

Any suggestions for my Holiday?

Looked at some new lenses that's come out recently and still considering the old lenses.

My thoughts so far as follows..

1) Tamron 18-400.. seem like a nice travel kit. Has reasonable Macro which I like. Not too sure about the IQ. I am a bit spoilt these days with the 70-200 F4.

2) Old trusty nikkor 18-300 f6.3 typical do anything travel lens..

3) Tamron 100-400 seem nice and I may finally replace my extremely old 200-400 F5.6 Tamron. There were some nice sunbirds I just couldn't reach with my 18-140 last time I was in Malaysia.

4) 16-80 Nikkor. Kuala Lumpur evening City shots would be better with that. replacing my 18-140.

So for 2 lenses for my trip.. what will it be..

1) Take my old trusty kit 18-140 + 70-200 + TC17? ( Nothing to buy.. always good :-) )

2) Replace with 16-80 + 100-400. all new Gear ..

3) New Tamron 18-400. + maybe take my old 12-24 F4. I am off to meet family and old friends after all..

Thoughts for a good travel kit based around the D500? (sob.. missed that ol 18-200)

KnockKnock

This is probably too practical here (;-) but I'd probably do a 16-80 + the FX version of the 70-300 AF-P. ByThom remarked it was impressive.

spraynpray

Hi hearty, I think you already have great kit, but maybe the 16-80 f2.8-4 might give a small increase in speed and quality. Less is better with travel kit IMHO, so I only take my 16-80 and a flash with me unless it is a photographic holiday (with other photographers not wife), then I take it all.

Ton14

The f/1.8 (35mm. 50mm and 85mm) serie for top quality and dark evenings

BVS

heartyfisher said:

Any suggestions for my Holiday

First, welcome back, and I'm sorry about all your troubles recently. I'm glad you made it through okay.

As for the travel kit, I think it depends on what you think you'll be shooting, and your tolerance for changing lenses. Personally, for travel and personal stuff I don't like having to change lenses often, so I try to pick a single lens that'll cover 80-90% of what I expect and then supplement it with either a longer telephoto, wide angle, or some primes, depending on the situation, to cover the remaining 10-20%.

Lens specific thoughts:

1) Putting an 18-300 or 18-400 on a D500 just feels wrong.

2) The 16-80 would give you a bit better low light ability, although less than one stop for the whole range vs. the 18-140, so I'm not sure if it's worth the $1,000 premium. 16-80 + 70-200 + TC17 seems like a good combo though.

3) If you're concerned about indoors/low light, what about the Sigma 17-50 f/2.8? It's a constant 2.8 and is currently on sale for only $369 new.

4) Adding a 24 or 35 1.8 to the bag would also help alleviate any low light concerns.

5) I'm not sure how much the Tamron 100-400 would change things vs. the 70-200 + TC17. It'd be 100-400 f/4.5-6.3 instead of 119-340 f/6.8? A bit faster and longer, but I bet the difference between 340 and 400 is not that significant. Plus, you're permanently confined to slow apertures and can't drop down to f/4 when you don't need the extra range, like you can with the 70-200.

6) The new FX 70-300 is a good lens, sharp at 300, reasonably sized, not too expensive, and would be fully functional on the D500. However, I don't think you'd net much benefit vs the 70-200 + TC.

7) If you decide to keep the 18-140, what about swapping the 70-200 for a 300PF? Combined with your TC it'd give you up to 765mm FF equivalent range if needed, and it's even smaller and lighter than the 70-200. Plus, you still have the option of f/4 without the TC. Basically, just use the 18-140 most of the time. If it's not long enough, switch to the 300 and double your range. If that's still not long enough, pop on the TC. If wide is more import on a particular outing, swap it with the 12-24. If low light is more important, swap it with a 35 1.8.

Hiker

heartyfisher said:

So...
I am getting a bit of NAS...

Quick background...

I got the D500 a year ago. and its been great. though I have not been shooting much. So photography has been on hold due to several factors for the last 8 months. 3 month flu thus tired at work so no time after and my PC died and my 2 monitors died my 18-200 died. . yeah not many posts on NR :-) got tons of threads to catch up on! I see the D850 thread is heavy !!

SO.. now after 8 months .. 2 fancy new monitors nice PC. AND a 1 month holiday in Feb.. to Malaysia/Singapore.

and ... thinking of replacing my 18-200... for a travel kit with my D500..

Any suggestions for my Holiday?

Looked at some new lenses that's come out recently and still considering the old lenses.

My thoughts so far as follows..

1) Tamron 18-400.. seem like a nice travel kit. Has reasonable Macro which I like. Not too sure about the IQ. I am a bit spoilt these days with the 70-200 F4.

2) Old trusty nikkor 18-300 f6.3 typical do anything travel lens..

3) Tamron 100-400 seem nice and I may finally replace my extremely old 200-400 F5.6 Tamron. There were some nice sunbirds I just couldn't reach with my 18-140 last time I was in Malaysia.

4) 16-80 Nikkor. Kuala Lumpur evening City shots would be better with that. replacing my 18-140.

So for 2 lenses for my trip.. what will it be..

1) Take my old trusty kit 18-140 + 70-200 + TC17? ( Nothing to buy.. always good :-) )

2) Replace with 16-80 + 100-400. all new Gear ..

3) New Tamron 18-400. + maybe take my old 12-24 F4. I am off to meet family and old friends after all..

Thoughts for a good travel kit based around the D500? (sob.. missed that ol 18-200)

I just bought a Sigma 24-105 (gift certificate for B & H from Santa!) and man is that a sharp lens. That lens will be on my 7200 most of the time now and the Sigma 17-50 is my backup if I need wider. I also bought a Tamron 100-400 as a wildlife lens. Took it to a wildlife sanctuary last weekend and it is VERY sharp when I was able to focus through the fencing, the biggest challenge to shooting with chain link fences! I was able to catch a Bonnet Macaque between a gate pole and fence pole without obstruction and focused on his eye and it's super sharp, even wide open! Just like Dustin Abbott said! And I didn't find the Tamron overly heavy carrying it around all day.

framer

Well I broke down and bought a used D500. I was feeling the need for something to replace my D3s when I want detail like BIF and wildlife photography. I've found I'm using the D810 for 80% of the photos. When I use the D3s w/my 400/2.8 in Alaska it did good but the detail was not there compared to the D810. I was going to get a D850 but reality set in and a deal on a nice used D500 got my attention.

I'm impressed. Detail as good or better than the D810, faster than the D810, close to 2lbs lighter than the D3s w/battery. This D810, D500 combo is looking nice. I tried my old 300mm F/4 AFS lens on it and it a killer.

Over the last two years I've heard nothing but bad comments about the D500 Snapbridge and built in WIFI. When I got the camera I noticed it had version 1.00 of the firmware. Before I did anything I updated it ti the latest 1.13. Over the weekend I checkout and downloaded the Snapbridge app from the App store. I'm using a old iPhone 5s I figured that it might be too old to be compatible, nope, worked perfect. I was surprised it pair without issues, tried taking a picture, transferred perfect. I then decided to try the WIFI to remote control the camera. Again it connected without issues and let me use my phone to focus and take a photo. I did not even read the manual. OK, I'm impressed. This is a nice bonus.

Going back to AK in late May.

framer

spraynpray

YAY! some good news, I like that.

framer

Snapbridge has since gone down hill. 1st time I installed it it worked perfect. Next day and there after the blue tooth transfered won't normally start. The WIFI works fine and I can use that to select any images I want on the phone and control the camera from the phone.

Now when trying to get the bluetooth to transfer images as I shoot is a no go but 50% of the time id I turn off the bluetooth network on the camera and turn it back on it will dump the current images taken to the phone.

The term I'd like to use is Snapbridge is flaky.

I tried iphone 5s and 7 + ipad pro all with same results. I'm still scratching my head over why it work on 1st use?

framer