Considering a D5 for wildlife

bandit993

Senior Member
I am considering a D5 for my wildlife photography. Also comparing it to a D850. I see a lot of nice pictures on here of wildlife and I am wondering how you get so close to get the good pictures. I now shot with the D500 which being a crop gives me the 1.5 crop factor. Do D5 images crop that good. I use a Sigma 150-600 mm lens and a Nikon 300 F4 D lens. With those lenses I usually still have to crop some. How do you do it with a full frame camera and still look good? A D850 gives more to crop, that's why I am considering it. Trying to decide is giving me a headache. I wish there were a place to rent both but in my part of the world there is no such place. I know the specs and pros and cons of each but would love to hear from people who use either or both. Thanks for listening..
 

Woodyg3

Senior Member
Contributor
With its higher resolution, the D850 would be better for cropping than the D 5.

Can I ask what you find lacking in the D500? That might help in making any recommendations. .
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
llOnce you crop to what the D500 is giving you with the D5, you'll end up with less pixels... The real solution is to get a longer and brighter lens for the D500. Or go for the Z9... Get your check book and credit card out first. :)
 

bandit993

Senior Member
Woodyg3, Most of the time the D500 is great but sometimes if I am shooting darker subjects the ISO gets bumped up and there is a fair bit of noise. If I can keep the ISO below about 1000 everything is good. Sometimes 3200 iso is ok but other times it isn't. It's not consistent . I have heard that full frame is better if the ISO is higher. Marcel, I wouldn't crop the D5 to D500 size, it would be a milder crop. If I knew it was going to be a long distance shot I would use the D500. Maybe I should just get a second D500 to have each lens dedicated to a fast body.. Thanks for your replies..
 

BF Hammer

Senior Member
I think most people would steer you to a D850 as the superior wildlife camera in full-frame F-mount, and the D500 as the superior DX F-mount. You have a lot of room to crop with the high-resolution sensor on the D850.

Just to give you some reference, I also brought out my Sigma 150-600mm C lens last month to the local eagle hot-spot. This was the first time I tried go to this particular spot since I bought my D750 in 2019. My last trip I had the Sigma 150-600mm, but it was mounted to a D7000 which is only a 16MP sensor. The D750 is 24MP, considerably less pixels than the D850 sensor. But even still just the jump to a newer and better 24MP sensor made a very visible difference. Even the dynamic range was better. Plus I believe the autofocus is also a bit better too.

Since I shoot RAW + JPEG, I can easily share a comparison of original JPEG from the camera to the final product after I adjusted and cropped the RAW in RawTherapee. Even 24MP gives me good room to crop with. It really puts my first attempts with a D80 and 70-300mm lens from years ago to shame.

DSC_3359 (Custom).jpg2022-01-08_001.jpgDSC_3653 (Custom).jpg2022-01-08_008.jpg

That should give you an idea of how close I may have been and how much crop was required. I think all photos were at the full 600mm. I know I cut down some others even more.
 

hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
Woodyg3, Most of the time the D500 is great but sometimes if I am shooting darker subjects the ISO gets bumped up and there is a fair bit of noise. If I can keep the ISO below about 1000 everything is good. Sometimes 3200 iso is ok but other times it isn't. It's not consistent . I have heard that full frame is better if the ISO is higher. Marcel, I wouldn't crop the D5 to D500 size, it would be a milder crop. If I knew it was going to be a long distance shot I would use the D500. Maybe I should just get a second D500 to have each lens dedicated to a fast body.. Thanks for your replies..

Then my choice would be the D850 over the D5. The D850 has a much higher megapixel count which means the specs of noise will be smaller than they'd appear on the D5 when comparing non-cropped images.

And if you have a computer that has some processing power, consider Topaz DeNoise. That would allow you to edit images taken at a much higher ISO because it's one of the best noise reduction programs available.

If you haven't seen Jake's D500 examples shot at ISO 4000 and edited with Topaz DeNoise, please take a look at his thread.

https://nikonites.com/post-processing/44269-topaz-denoise-ai-works.html#axzz7KDadkQQR
 

bandit993

Senior Member
Well I bought a very good used D5 for my wildlife photography. The speed of everything is crazy fast. It almost knows where I want it to focus before I even touch the button. But one area I am having issues with is noise at not extremely high ISO. At 100 % on the computer it looks quite noisy even at ISO 8000. I thought full frame cameras handled noise somewhat better than apsc bodies. I think my D500 is slightly better. Still getting to know the camera. Any settings I should look into. I shoot raw by the way.
 

Woodyg3

Senior Member
Contributor
Congrats on your new camera!

At 8000 you are going to have noise with any camera. The D 5 is well known as a very good low light camera. I can't imagine you would get less noise with the D500 in the same conditions with the same settings. Keep shooting and I'm betting you'll enjoy the D 5 a lot.
 
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