Nikon D5/D500 Event participants discussion.

autofocus

I'm hoping we can get a discussion going here where Nikon Event participants can share what they learned/think of the new D5/D500 bodies. B&H held the first event today, 2/8/16. Please share your thoughts when you attend. If you are going please post the location and date you plan to attend. There may be some in the audience who have specific requests for attendees.

Ironheart

Just got back from one. Whachwannaknow? Only "new" thing I heard was that the SB5000 will work with the D810 with a future firmware update (for the camera)

OldGrey

Repost:

I went to the Adorama event to see the D500. It was well attended but not the packed sell out I was expecting. It also appeared to be attended by two ends of the spectrum. At one end, you had those interested in the D5 or on the other, novice photographers that didn't seem to understand the need for a D500. As for myself, a longtime D400 hold out, was doing backflips while tears of joy ran down my face. The 10 fps, the edge to edge focusing, the high ISO capability, in that oh so familiar D300 build quality was more than I could handle. I had to keep pinching myself to believe it was for real. It certainly isn't a camera for everyone, but if you owned and loved a D300 like I did, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Ironheart

My event was sold out plus standing room only. There were tons of questions about the D500 and only a few D5 ones. I didn't get the schwag.

OldGrey

That's encouraging. The question that kept popping up at Adorama was on the relatively small number of megapixels. It seemed as if the crowd was conditioned on more is better.

Sorry you didn't get a shirt -I thought it was a nice touch.

autofocus

Thanks for the info gentlemen. Were you able to get your hands on the cameras and if so, take any photos. I know you're probably limited to chimping the back of the camera but even that allows you to zoom and look for noise at high ISOs. Oh, any discussion on the D5 4K video limits?

Ironheart

Yes, they said 29:59 for tax rules. The 3min thing was a glitch. Fixed (probably due to the FAT file size limit)

Pistnbroke

Got an NPS card for one in Leicester UK run by Nikon at a hotel on the 17th..and free sensor cleaning ....if weather good planning to go as wife is a Richard 3rd expert.

paulr

Pistnbroke Well worth going I went to the Manchester one UK Some great videos and total disclosure from Nikon Uk, plus all the lenses are there to test. We could only check the cameras out by veiwing the backs but impressive .Rob McNeice did a great job on the Demonstration and it was nice to have a free camera clean.

OldGrey

Yes, they gave us plenty of time to hande th cameras, but I wasn't smart enough to do a side by side comparison in real time. I took a shot of a guy standing next to me at ISO 8000 and the image looked quite good and when zoomed in to his beard stubble the detail was fairly good. I took another at 3200 of a Nikon sign with a black background and their was little signs of noise zoomed in. it obviously blows away my D300, but I'll have to spend time with my D750 this weekend tto replicate the same shots to provide a more meaningful comment.

HockeyMan

I went to an event in Berkeley, CA. Handled both cameras. The D5 looks feels and shoots just like you'd expect if you use a D4/D4s. The 12 FPS is a beast. I wanted to try the 3D tracking and autofocus, but my event was in a relatively small store and the way they set up the store, there was very little room to move about at all. The D500 looks and feels smaller like it should. I noticed right away that it is not as hefty as my D800. Looking at NikonUSAs website confirms that it is indeed three tenths of an inch narrower. Perhaps that's as it should be since the D500 is DX and size / weight is always on peoples mind who use DX. I took pictures with both cameras at ISO 51200 and looking at the back of each camera, I think that either camera could produce images that are "usable" (not award winning) if post processed. I wouldn't recommend using that high an ISO if you can avoid it, but boy, they really do appear to blow away my D800 above ISO 6400.

I asked about high res image samples and the answer was only when production bodies have been made. Of course the doors covering the cards were sealed. Overall, didn't learn anything that you didn't already know from here.

D5 will do 29:59 in 4K with firmware upgrade, but not sure if that will happen prior to initial release, there was no word from the reps on "when".

D500 snapbridge looks pretty easy to use if you're into that kind of thing. It can be "always on" and use 3-5% of your battery in a day. It accomplishes this with bluetooth low energy or BLE.

soapbox rant... As a software architect by trade, if I get the D500 or any camera with snapbridge, you can be sure I'm leaving it off. Because sure as night follows day, someone will hack BLE and start stealing pictures off of unaware pros. Low Energy blue tooth supposedly has a range of 100m. So anybody standing within eyeshot can take your pictures if they hack it. Can you imagine someone 50 feet away that your not even looking at stealing your hard earned photos? Nope, not for me and I'm not even close to a pro shooter. end soapbox rant.

Ironheart

@HockeyMan, do you have the same worry about bluetooth on your phone and folks stealing your info that way? Bluetooth is one of the more secure specs we have and has been around for many years. In any event, turn it off if your tinfoil hat doesn't cover the camera

manhattanboy

Can someone who attends the events make a recording similar to these for the D500 but include quiet continuous mode:

HockeyMan

@HockeyMan, do you have the same worry about bluetooth on your phone and folks stealing your info that way? Bluetooth is one of the more secure specs we have and has been around for many years. In any event, turn it off if your tinfoil hat doesn't cover the camera

Yes, I do turn off bluetooth on my phone. And I will if I get the D500. It's just that when you work in the software industry, you work to "harden" all systems against the latest gagdet security breaches. And we all know that security breaches happen all the time, early bluetooth devices were easily hacked. BLE has security issues too. I'm not sure the version of BLE that Nikon uses. This is just one article found through google. I get a ton more from industry publications.

https://stanfy.com/blog/bluetooth-low-energy-security-issues-and-how-to-overcome-them/

Don't be so sure that your devices are secure, they aren't. Anything can be compromised given time and sufficient desire.

rmp

I performed a software security audit for an Air Force facility in 1991 (yes 1991) and my findings were "If you want to keep it secure, do not allow it to communicate." The Air Force put that facility into a closed Faraday Cage and disks are walked in and out with armed guards. Now, if we can just figure out how to avoid bribing the guards. :-)

OldGrey

Well, I had a chance to play around with my D750 a bit to try and compare it to what I was seeing at Adorama. It's certainly a challenge when you don't have both cameras side by side, but I gotta say, I'm not so sure the D500 can match the D750 resolution at high ISO. Frankly. I forgot how crazy good the D750 really is. It's certainly not a knock on the D500 at all, but it may help promote the narrative of "which camera is best for" vs. "which camera is the best". It certainly would open up the door for Nikon to have a D700 replacement...

spraynpray

IMHO the 'D700 replacement' is the D750. If Nikon bought out a full frame version of the D500 that was slightly different to the D5 (and could only be slightly different as the D500 is nearly an APS-C D5), they would not sell any D5's.

IronHeadSlim

It seems we were led to believe that the D7200 was the D300s replacement by calling it the DX flagship. Now that D500 is out I believe we could see the whole cycle. The D5s will have to be compelling enough though to keeps sales up, which I believe the D3s was. I still shoot with a D700 but looking at D500 at the NJ event this Thursday.

PB_PM

IMHO the 'D700 replacement' is the D750. If Nikon bought out a full frame version of the D500 that was slightly different to the D5 (and could only be slightly different as the D500 is nearly an APS-C D5), they would not sell any D5's.

The D750 catches the spirit of the D700, in most respects. I just sold my 5 year old D700 a few weeks ago, since I hadn't touched it in a year. I do miss the round eyepiece, built in shutter curtain for long exposures, and the deeper buffer. Otherwise the D750 takes the place of the D700 with ease.

OldGrey

IMHO the 'D700 replacement' is the D750. If Nikon bought out a full frame version of the D500 that was slightly different to the D5 (and could only be slightly different as the D500 is nearly an APS-C D5), they would not sell any D5's.

The D750 catches the spirit of the D700, in most respects. I just sold my 5 year old D700 a few weeks ago, since I hadn't touched it in a year. I do miss the round eyepiece, built in shutter curtain for long exposures, and the deeper buffer. Otherwise the D750 takes the place of the D700 with ease.

Would you say the D750 build quality is as good as s D700? I never owned a D700, but as a D300 owner (I just sold mine last week) I always felt the D750 build was a bit inferior -primarily due to the mode selector knob. It's just doesn't seem as robust as the D300. That said, I've never had a problem with it, but it's part of the reason I feel in love with the D500. It's an uncompromised D300 upgrade.

PB_PM

Would you say the D750 build quality is as good as s D700? I never owned a D700, but as a D300 owner (I just sold mine last week) I always felt the D750 build was a bit inferior -primarily due to the mode selector knob. It's just doesn't seem as robust as the D300. That said, I've never had a problem with it, but it's part of the reason I feel in love with the D500. It's an uncompromised D300 upgrade.

The D700's build was the same as the D300 (I still have a 10 year old D300 with over 100k actions packed away), just a little larger to accommodate the larger pentaprism and round eyepiece.

While the carbon fibre feel of the D750 doesn't feel as robust, the build is not an issue for me. I'll take the weight reduction and more compact size the D750 offers over D300/D700 any day of the week. As I noted, the only things I miss from the D700 are some minor features. The mode setting being on a knob or button doesn't matter much to me. I have it locked in U1 or U2 mode 99.9% of the time. The button is less intrusive, but in terms of the build quality? Irrelevant, IMO. The button does make it harder when handing the camera off to someone who isn't camera savvy.

OldGrey

Fairy enough. I find the dial to be a bit cheap and loose and always preferred the solid feel of the button. Also, for the photography I like to do (remote locals and tough terrain) I' take a D300 type build any day of the week. Clearly, there's a market for both! Thanks for the discussion.

Beso

I just got back from the Portland, Oregon event hosted by the local brick and mortar store, Pro Photo Supply. The event was very well attended and, in fact, was moved from the store's facility to a larger local studio. The regional Nikon representative as well as one of their national trainers conducted the presentation.

There was really no new information provided beyond what is on Nikon's website or available through other channels. What was new was the ability to actually hold and use the D5 and D500 cameras. As others have pointed out, the cameras are declared to be partially functioning prototypes and no personal memory cards were allowed to be inserted for capturing your own images and reviewing later. Shots taken at the event could be viewed on the camera screen but that was it. Also, the Nikon trainer stated up front no video or audio recording was allowed.

Initial impressions of the D5: Bright, clean and clear view finder. Sharp red focus point(s). Nice clear screen. The camera was fitted with the new 24-70 zoom. Very rapid focus and works well in low light. Lots of hype over the ISO capability but no real way to test that since one is only looking at the screen on the back of the camera and the image is likely a processed jpeg with noise reduction. Time will tell on the sensor capabilities. Camera feels a lot like a D4/D4s. Always nice to hold a new camera.

The presentation by the Nikon trainer did not name any competitors but alluded to Nikon's major competitor on several occasions with respect to ISO performance differences. Obviously when you are competing you want to use every advantage. But my theory has always been one does not elevate their own stock by attempting to devalue another's.

As mentioned there were a lot of people and only three copies each of the D5 and D500. I did not get my hands on a D500 but I am impressed by the specs and the purported value. I won't be buying a D500 but I think this is going to be a popular camera that borrows much of the D5's technology; a surprising amount actually.

Pro Photo Supply made it clear the unprecedented boom years of 2000-2012 had vanished into a precipitous decline for both manufacturers and retailers. They have always been about added value and reiterated their commitment in that regard. Pro Photo Supply also is providing a Sony 64 GB XQD card with each order as well as discount coupons for accessories. I am presuming the memory card is in addition to the rumored inclusion by Nikon of a 32 GB Sony XQD card.

The Nikon bling; A choice of a polo shirt or baseball cap for the first fifty attendees was made but the goods had not arrived so the store collected information and will notify those people when they become available. Sadly neither Pro Photo Supply nor Nikon offered to send us to L.A. where they apparently got misdirected.

Conclusion: All in all a nice event which was well attended. Nothing new or earth shattering but a chance to get up close and personal with the cameras. Nikon will be back with the first shipment to help all purchasers get acclimated to their new camera. A nice touch. All that is left is the wait.

manhattanboy

@beso great write up. Thanks for sharing.

autofocus

@Beso, Thanks for taking the time update us. I'm going to the Pictureline hosted event in Salt Lake City tomorrow.

IronHeadSlim

I just got back from Unique Photo in Fairfield, NJ. Like Beso said, no new info. I went especially to handle the D500. I am comparing it to the D700.

The grip is narrower on the lower three fingers but deeper than the D700. I big hand can get a good grip but a small hand can wrap better because of the narrowness of the lower handle. I like the D700 better but I'm used to it.

The viewfinder is absolutely fantastic. I held my D700 and the D500 in both hands and looked back and forth. Virtually the same size! It does NOT feel like a crop viewfinder. I didn't get a chance to try to track stuff but the combination of focus points right to the edges and the little toggle for selecting is just great!

It was also the first time I handled the 300mm f/4e and the combo with D500 is sooo light and compact. Unique Photo was letting us try every lens we wanted. I like my D700/35mm f/1.4G a lot for people and street. I got to try the D500/24mm f/1.4G combination and just enough smaller and lighter to be worth it. This was another chance to hold the two in my hand together and look back and forth.

One of the Nikon reps was taking pictures of us watching the opening film. He took a shot when the screen went dim between scenes and the house lights were off. You could definitely recognize people in the audience at 3 friggin' million ISO. For have to get surveillance stuff this is other worldly.

From back of the camera jpegs I have to say 51,200 looks like it can be cleaned up nice. Really can't wait for NEFs. I am coming from D700 but this looks to be 3 stops better.

There was one dark moment when someone asked who made the sensor and the reps got stiff and said Nikon NEVER reveals who makes them but NIKON designs them!

I am impressed with Nikon. A lot more to find out with flash and real world shooting but from the hands on I preordering a D500 this week. (I'll keep the D700 too because it still takes great photographs)

...and I got a cool hat.