Photography

Nikon D500 Camera: Review & Comparison to the Nikon D5, D7500, D7200 & D7100 Updated

Overview of the Nikon D500 Camera

Nikon announced the D500, along with the full frame Nikon D5, at CES 2016.  Although Nikon continued to position the 2009 D300S as its premier DX series camera, their D7x00 series cameras long ago surpassed the D300S both in terms of image quality and features. When the D7000 was released in 2010, there was no reason to pay more for the D300S. I upgraded my D300 to a D7100 but I didn’t see enough value to jump from the D7100 to the D7200.1 Now I have upgraded to the D500 as my primary camera.

Think of the D500 as a mini-D5.

Compared to the D500, the D5 has 3x the battery life, 2x better maximum light sensitivity (3.28M ISO), 40% faster continuous shooting, and a 20% larger viewfinder. But, the Nikon D500 is roughly 30% of the cost of a D5, 40% smaller (similar in size to the D300S), 40% lighter, supports a flip out screen and Bluetooth, and can work with a larger number of lenses.

Image Quality

The D500 has a 20.9-megapixel DX format (APS-C) CMOS sensor, paired with the new EXPEED 5 processing engine. While this is a huge jump over the D300S’ 12.3 megapixels, it is a step down in terms of resolution compared to the 24 megapixel D7100 and D7200. The D500’s bigger pixels mean better low-light performance and dynamic range. The difference in resolution likely won’t be noticeable except with extreme cropping. Nevertheless, it is unusual for successor camera models to step backward in terms of pixel count.

The D500’s ISO range is much better than the D7100/D7200. The native ISO range spans from 100-51,200. In theory, the Nikon D500 is now able to capture images at ISO 1.6 million as compared to the D7200’s ISO 256,000. In practice, you are now to be able to capture images in moonlight. Like the D7x00, the Nikon D500 does not have a optical low-pass filter (OLPF).

Autofocus

The D500 has a new 180k-pixel RGB metering system with 153 AF points, the same as the D5 (Multi-Cam 20K). Of those AF points, 99 are cross-type AF points, enabling better off-center autofocus. However, you can only manually select 55 of those AF points using the joy stick. The D500’s AF central point is sensitive as low as -4EV while other AF points are sensitive down to -3EV. Autofocus modes include face detection, wide area, normal area, and subject (continuous) tracking. This is a much better autofocus system than the D7x00 series cameras.

Speed

The D500 is the fastest APS-C camera that Nikon produces. The D500 is clearly targeted to sports and action photographers. The D500 can shoot 10 fps with 100 RAW images buffered in burst. For sports photography, the D500 is 2x faster in continuous shooting of both RAW and JPEG than the D7200.

4K Video

In addition to sports photography, 4K video is the other key advantage of using a D500 over its predecessors. If sports photography isn’t a priority for your but shooting 4K video using a dSLR is, you might save some money by purchasing the later released D7500 rather than the D500. Unlike the D5, which is limited to 3 minutes, the D500 can shoot approximately 1/2 hour of 4K video at 30fps.

Flip-up Touchscreen

The D500 gains a high resolution (2.3MP), flip-up, touchscreen monitor. The tilt screen is intended for very low-angle (e.g. floor-level) and high-angle (e.g. above the crowd) shots. The tilt monitor seems a point of weakness, prone to unintentional breakage over the long term. The user manual warns against using too much force when moving the monitor and specifically calls out the fragility of the monitor’s data cable.

I prefer to use the optical viewfinder when taking photos. I do like that you can use the touchscreen to select the autofocus point. And, the multi-touch monitor permits faster review of images including zooming and swiping.

WiFi, Bluetooth & NFC

WiFi on the D500 is limited to Wireless-G at a time when smartphones use Wireless-AC. Therefore, the most effective means of file transfer is either USB3 cable or SD card “sneaker-net”, particularly given that I shoot large, RAW images. I transfer my photos using a 64GB Sony XQD card and a Sony XQD USB adapter connected to my 2017 iMac.

One welcome addition is Bluetooth 4.1 (BLE). Bluetooth greatly simplifies discovery and connection to your smartphone. The D500 also supports NFC device discovery. However, NFC doesn’t work with iPhones even though later models have an NFC chip.

Battery

The D500 uses a new battery, the EN-EL15a. However, it is compatible with the older EN-EL15’s used in the D7x00 series cameras. I always carry an extra battery though I have never needed to use it on single day shoots. When I purchased my D500 camera, it came with a MB-D17 battery pack. I sold it on eBay to reduce my purchase price. Then, I upgraded my old EN-EL15 batteries to the new Li-ion 20 version with Nikon’s free swap program.

Storage & Data Transfer

The D500 has dual memory card slots like the D7200 but one slot supports the XQD standard and the other slot, the SD standard. Due to different form factors, only one SD card fits in the camera. You can select which card takes first priority and which is used for backup or overflow. The D500 also has a USB 3.0 port though it does not have a USB-C interface. Both the faster, dual slot storage and USB3 support are key advantages of the D500 over the later released D7500.

XQD is the successor to CompactFlash. The best XQD cards support an average write speed of around 290MB/s versus 160MB/s for UHS-II SD cards in the D500. If you use a XQD card, then you will either need to connect your camera directly to your computer or use an XQD adapter. Currently, there are no XQD to USB-C adapters so an additional dongle will be required if you use a MacBook. I use both an XQD and SD card in my D500.

Nikon SnapBridge

The Nikon SnapBridge mobile application enables the following:

  • Automatic picture transfer from the D500 to your smartphone
  • Upload of your photos to Nikon Image Space cloud service
  • Camera remote control
  • Automatic update of your D500’s time and location information
  • Update of your D500’s firmware

Automatic camera roll transfer is enabled by default for JPEG images, with a default image size of just 2MB. This seems primarily intended for social media sharing. Neither NEF/RAW format images nor movies are transferred. Since I am in the Apple ecosystem, I prefer to use Photos and iCloud over Nikon Image Space to archive and sync my photos across my Macs, iPhone, and iPad.

If you are a frequent flyer like me, you will appreciate using your smartphone to automatically update your camera’s time, ensuring accurate photo timestamps. While I don’t understand the lack of internal GPS chip in the D500, using SnapBridge via Bluetooth tethering to transfer geolocation is a functional workaround.

My Camera Bag

Resources

The latest firmware can be downloaded from here or via the SnapBridge mobile application. As of today, the two latest firmware versions are: 1.14 for the D500 camera and the 2.017 for the lens distortion data.

The user manual, menu guide, technical guide and sports settings guide can be downloaded from here.

Nikon has a great set of tips including optimizing autofocus, here. The D500 autofocus doesn’t operate the same as other Nikon dSLRs.

If you are considering buying a lens for your new Nikon, here is a good primer.

If you are new to the Nikon’s autofocus capabilities, there is a useful video overview here.

Tips

  • When I first received my D500 camera, I found both the real time image from the optical viewfinder and many of my action photos were blurry (particularly when shot with a prime lens).
    • I quickly fixed the blurriness in the optical viewfinder by adjusting the diopter. I don’t wear glasses and didn’t need to adjust the diopter in my previous Nikons. So, it wasn’t immediately clear to me that this was the solution.
    • The action photos’ blurriness was because I was using AFC-S. For new D500 users, I recommend using AFC-Auto or AFC-3D for action photography. There are additional articles here about how Nikon changed its focus algorithm:  Photo Art, Fred Miranda, and DPreview.
  • If you have EN-EL15 batteries from earlier Nikon cameras, you will likely find that battery life is an issue. Fortunately, Nikon offers a free battery exchange. Check to see if ‘Li-ion01’ is marked on the back of your EN-EL15 battery.
  • Like a smartphone, the D500 has an “airplane” mode that disables WiFi and Bluetooth. I mapped this to the Fn2 button on the back of the D500.

Room for Improvement

  • Lack of Internal Flash: unlike the D300 and D7x00 series, the D500 does not have an internal fill flash. I would recommend bringing the Nikon SB-400 AF Speedlight Flash for indoor shots. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten indoor shots with any of my Nikon’s that equaled my light-weight Fuji X100T.
  • Lack of Internal GPS: GPS location tagging is so valuable in post-production and archival. I find it hard to understand why Nikon doesn’t include an internal GPS chip for a camera in this price range.
  • Lack of Focus Peaking
  • Lack of On-sensor Phase Detect

Conclusion

If you are still a D300 or D300S user, now is the time to upgrade to the D500. Unless you are a professional photographer with a number of full frame lenses, I would select the D500 over the D5. If–like me–you are a D7100 or a D7200 owner, it comes down to whether you need to faster speed, greater low light sensitivity, or 4K video recording capabilities versus the price.

I waited until the D7500 came out and the D500’s price fell. Then, I bought the D500.



Updated on March 11th, 2020

  1. For further reading, I suggest this article.↩