My First week with the D500

Carrying on the work of the D300

I've been waiting for this camera since my D300 which was released in 2008 became outmoded by the advancement of technology.  Although the D300 was a very reliable workhorse.  It's ISO performance and limits of its image quality was starting to show its age.

When Nikon announced the D500 in January this year I was really excited with the news, after waiting over 6 months since the announcement I finally have one in my hands.

The camera does not disappoint, every glowing review about it speed, it's snappiness in focusing lifted from the flagship Nikon D5, it's FX rivalling ISO performance and it's excellent built quality (although made in Thailand) has lived up to it's hype. Not going to elaborate more on these points as the reviews are ubiquitously found online.

One of the big differences with this camera from previous lines of cameras from Nikon would be the touch screen.  This is the first DSLR with a touch screen which I actually like and find useful.  You can scroll through photos with a swipe, you can pinch to zoom into photos, and for the first time you can scroll through hundreds of photos at a time by just swipe past the lower edge of the screen.  This has always been an area where Canon's big thumbwheel always excelled and Nikon has finally provided a comparable interface.

Best Nikon Touch screen currently in the market

There is not many bad things I can point to with this camera. However after using it for over a week 2 annoyance stand out.  With the D500 they itchy designers have swapped the positions of the MODE and ISO buttons on the top panel and this is creating havoc for me as this layout is different from my D300, D800, D3S & D4!  Why would Nikon do this?  The other big annoyance is the batteries. Although the form factor for the battery is the same,  Nikon has somehow tweaked the capacity sensing circuitry in the camera to only recognise its new batteries with the fine print Li-ion20 markings.  Although all the batteries from my D750 & D800 can fit in this camera, they report a lower available charge and results in shorter battery lives.  All my compatible batteries that work on my D750 & D800 do not work at all with the D500!

I am sure there are still many areas of this camera which have yet to surprise me as I use it more and more.  Nevertheless it's becoming my goto camera for now as I it works so well in the areas which matter to me.  Speed, Focus, Low-light and Image quality.

Nikon has relocated the ISO & MODE buttons

Spot the odd man out?