Please don't take it personally, Vincent (I'm not shooting the messenger), but I could care less what Kai thinks. Opinions are like @$$holes, and Kai is one.
OK, that said. I'm not ready for a full blown review, which I promise to do, but I'll give you my honest first impressions.
First off, discounting the D800 this is my first "professional" Nikon body, and I am impressed.
What I love:
- The shutter - I've made a habit of shooting in Quiet mode with my D750, D610 and D7xxx bodies because the mirror slap in other modes is just enough to impact sharpness. When I pressed the shutter for the first time on the D500 I wondered if it had accidentally been set to Q because I could barely feel it. I then stuck it in CH and fired away and the vibration in the body is less than what I'd get in Q or Qc on my other cameras. Considering this is going to be married to a 150-600mm a lot, that's a HUGE plus.
- The controls - OMG, I want a focus point joy stick on all my cameras. I'm a back button focus guy, so having to move my thumb down an inch to get to the Multi-Selector is actually a PITA. Now I can slide it just a bit, set the focus point and be back in a flash. Center push on it is a bit hard to get used to without also moving the focus point, so I'm not using it yet. And they put the ISO button on the top!! I shoot Auto ISO a lot, but sometimes I want to make sure I'm not in that mode and grabbing a button on the left of the back (and it's in a different spot on every body) always required me moving the camera away from my eye. No more.
- The flip screen - Never knew how much I would use this until I had it on the D750. Now I can't live without it.
- The touch screen - Combine it with the flip screen and you now have the ability to touch your focus spot and trigger your shot, all with the camera at your waist. For street photography this is genius. Why? Two words, "Vivian Maier" (if you don't recognize them, google it and watch the doc).
- High ISO performance - I haven't had a chance to do a real test on this yet, but suffice it to say that what I'm getting from the 5-digit ISO numbers is better (ie. more usable) than what I got from my D7100 at 3200. And it cleans up very easily in Dfine, and I can even get this in Lightroom alone.
What I like:
- The ergonomics - Same feel as my D750, with the "grippier" grip and deeper finger spot.
- The round eye piece - Why Nikon doesn't put this on all of their cameras I do not know, but being able to flip a lever to close it for long exposures make so much sense.
What I don't like:
- The feeling that they released a "broken" camera - I've posted elsewhere about the battery issue. I have 9 EN-EL15 batteries, which is great because it's the only battery I need to cover all of my bodies. But apparently the "older" version of them (marked "Li-ion01") works inconsistently in the D500 and may "underpower" it. In other words, a battery that reads 58% full in my D750 can be placed in the D500 and read as "dead". I'm seeing that this discrepancy of readings on all batteries regardless of version, but with the older ones they cease to function far sooner. Nikon has not acknowledged the issue and based on research Thom Hogan is compiling we're not sure if it's a real issue with the camera or something that will be fixed in the firmware. Regardless, it's troublesome.
- My dioptre setting - On every other body I need to set my diopter one or two clicks to the + side. On this body, I need to go almost all the way to the - side. Makes me wonder if something is wrong in the viewfinder. Anyone else experiencing this?
- Button placement on the top wheel - Once again Nikon takes a familiar control format and changes the button layout so what I have on my D800 doesn't match what I have on my D500. Every camera I own is different. Why the hell do they do that?!
- No hot shoe cover - Like the D750, no hot shoe cover was included. I would have expected it as it seems that they just stopped including them on newer models (old models still get them), but the D5 has one. I have extras, but to skimp on a cheap piece of plastic on a $2K camera...
- Default menu settings for WiFi/Bluetooth - If they'd only used an icon instead of ON/OFF for Airplane Mode then I would have noticed immediately that my camera was going to chew through a battery looking for something to connect to while it was on instead of having to see it drain and then discover that "Airplane Mode Off" means connectivity search is on.
- SnapBridge is Android Only - Thom Hogan details quite nicely why this is both a PITA and a concern, so I'll just leave you to read his take.
- Another $400 Battery Grip - Need I say more? And given the battery issue detailed above, I'm hesitant to get anything until they figure out what the hell is going on with the old/new versions and the readings (I'm still trying to find out if the issue is limited to batteries in the body or if old batteries in the grip read the same).
Yes, I have a lot of negatives, but honestly outside of the battery issue they're minor, and given that I have 3 Li-ion20's I've simply marked the caps I use for them so I reserve them for the D500 and can find them easier in the bag (gaffer tape on the cap so I can find them blind). And yes, this is just my initial impressions.
