D500 to full frame mirrorless - should I?
Discussion
Had my D500 since they first came out and really like it. Had a few years of not using it much but this year got back out there and taking plenty of pics, mainly landscapes and car shows/events and some motorsport. I fancy a change and to go mirrorless for something a bit more compact and modern handling, more touch screen functionality.
Any thoughts from anyone who has done this? Any recommendations?
Any thoughts from anyone who has done this? Any recommendations?
I can't speak for mirrorless but I can for full frame having added a D850 to my D7200.
It's difficult to articulate just what a difference it makes. All I can say is that the first pics I pulled up on the computer just made me smile. There just seemed to 'more photo' - which of course there is.
However, I would keep the D500 for motorsports. I still use my 7200 for that type of stuff.
It's difficult to articulate just what a difference it makes. All I can say is that the first pics I pulled up on the computer just made me smile. There just seemed to 'more photo' - which of course there is.
However, I would keep the D500 for motorsports. I still use my 7200 for that type of stuff.
Not from the D500 but I moved from Nikon crop to Sony A7iii, three GM Len’s and I’ve never looked back….. the EV and seeing what you are shooting is a big help, eye focus, dynamic range, low light ability, etc etc.
Personally I didn’t consider the actual physical size of the camera at all, by the time you get a good Lens on it it doesn’t really matter.
Personally I didn’t consider the actual physical size of the camera at all, by the time you get a good Lens on it it doesn’t really matter.
Assuming we're talking about Nikon to Nikon here...
I own a D500 and a D610 and recently had cause to hire a Z6 II, mainly for the silent shooting mode with the electronic rolling shutter as the venue was a church. It also enabled me to satisfy my curiosity as to what all this mirrorless fuss was about and whether it was worth upgrading.
The Z6 II came with the FTZ adapter which I needed to attach my normal F mount lenses to.
I was very surprised by how weighty and chunky the Z6 II was compared to my other camera bodies. If you're expecting compact camera lightness here then you're going to be disappointed, even more so when the FTZ adapter is attached.
The touchscreen interfaces on both the D500 and Z6 II annoy me so I turn them off. The electronic viewfinder is very usable and handy to be able to see pretty much what you'll be capturing without having to remember to press the preview button, but it only does this within certain aperture ranges I found.
There are a couple of ways in which you can configure the rear screen and EVF to work in tandem to auto turn off the rear screen should it detect your eye up against the viewfinder, but this was a little bit laggy when I wanted to chimp a bit.
Overall image quality was not too dissimilar to my D610 which is reasonable considering they are both 24MP FX sensors. Where the Z6 II beats the pants off of both DSLRs is high iso performance under low light conditions. The D500 was similar to the D610 in this test, I expect a more modern body like a D850 or D780 to be closer to the Z6 II.
File buffering on the Z6 II is more aligned to the D500 where I can shoot for many dozens of shots without a worry whereas the D610 can run out of puff really quickly. No issues with autofocus tracking, eye tracking is a nice to have but it would sometimes get confused if there's more than one person in shot.
However if you want more pixels to play with to make it comparable to a D850 as suggested above, you'd need to look at the Z7 II.
The one major issue with the silent shooting is artificial lighting. As mentioned above, I rented the Z6 II to shoot in a church and to my horror found that at certain camera angles and shutter speeds, the banding is pretty horrific. I understand that both the Z6 II and Z7 II suffer to this due to the slower sensor readout rates and this has pretty much killed any justification I have for upgrading to the current crop of Nikon mirrorless bodies.
This was taken at 1/320
I'm waiting now to see what the Z9 brings and if it solves this issue, as I gather that only the Sony A9 series don't suffer so much due to the higher frequency signal readout from the sensor.
Hope that helps
I own a D500 and a D610 and recently had cause to hire a Z6 II, mainly for the silent shooting mode with the electronic rolling shutter as the venue was a church. It also enabled me to satisfy my curiosity as to what all this mirrorless fuss was about and whether it was worth upgrading.
The Z6 II came with the FTZ adapter which I needed to attach my normal F mount lenses to.
I was very surprised by how weighty and chunky the Z6 II was compared to my other camera bodies. If you're expecting compact camera lightness here then you're going to be disappointed, even more so when the FTZ adapter is attached.
The touchscreen interfaces on both the D500 and Z6 II annoy me so I turn them off. The electronic viewfinder is very usable and handy to be able to see pretty much what you'll be capturing without having to remember to press the preview button, but it only does this within certain aperture ranges I found.
There are a couple of ways in which you can configure the rear screen and EVF to work in tandem to auto turn off the rear screen should it detect your eye up against the viewfinder, but this was a little bit laggy when I wanted to chimp a bit.
Overall image quality was not too dissimilar to my D610 which is reasonable considering they are both 24MP FX sensors. Where the Z6 II beats the pants off of both DSLRs is high iso performance under low light conditions. The D500 was similar to the D610 in this test, I expect a more modern body like a D850 or D780 to be closer to the Z6 II.
File buffering on the Z6 II is more aligned to the D500 where I can shoot for many dozens of shots without a worry whereas the D610 can run out of puff really quickly. No issues with autofocus tracking, eye tracking is a nice to have but it would sometimes get confused if there's more than one person in shot.
However if you want more pixels to play with to make it comparable to a D850 as suggested above, you'd need to look at the Z7 II.
The one major issue with the silent shooting is artificial lighting. As mentioned above, I rented the Z6 II to shoot in a church and to my horror found that at certain camera angles and shutter speeds, the banding is pretty horrific. I understand that both the Z6 II and Z7 II suffer to this due to the slower sensor readout rates and this has pretty much killed any justification I have for upgrading to the current crop of Nikon mirrorless bodies.
This was taken at 1/320
I'm waiting now to see what the Z9 brings and if it solves this issue, as I gather that only the Sony A9 series don't suffer so much due to the higher frequency signal readout from the sensor.
Hope that helps
Edited by eltawater on Thursday 30th September 12:25
Edited by eltawater on Thursday 30th September 12:27
For Silent Shooting in church only the A9 and A1 will suffice or just use the shutter, A1 being more so, with specific settings for the banding.
I hazard a guess the new Z9 will use Sonys sensor and also have this feature.
D500s are good its what i had before i switched to Sony, the Tracking on the Sony will surpass the D500 ( fro Knows has a you tube on it all ) however if your happy with what you produce with the 500 then if i had to go FF id probably say D780 due to its speed etc D850 is good but slow for sports, my friend who comes shooting Motorsport has the Z7II and thats no slouch. If you switch to Sony then A9 ( dont bother with the MK2 not enough changes to command the 1k extra) or go full tilt like me and get an A1...
I hazard a guess the new Z9 will use Sonys sensor and also have this feature.
D500s are good its what i had before i switched to Sony, the Tracking on the Sony will surpass the D500 ( fro Knows has a you tube on it all ) however if your happy with what you produce with the 500 then if i had to go FF id probably say D780 due to its speed etc D850 is good but slow for sports, my friend who comes shooting Motorsport has the Z7II and thats no slouch. If you switch to Sony then A9 ( dont bother with the MK2 not enough changes to command the 1k extra) or go full tilt like me and get an A1...
I think the advances in modern kit are pretty amazing, ISO, sensor quality, speed, weight, screens and touchscreen etc. Should you upgrade, absolutely if you can afford it, why wouldn't you?!?
I've been through the canon range, 350D (CS) - 7Dmk1 (CS) - 5Dmk4 (FF). Some of my best photos are still ones taken with the 350D, but the 5D offers so much more in terms of Low Light, Image Quality, touchscreen etc.
The only reason I didn't go down Mirrorless route was because i found the Body to be small in my hand, which made the button layout a bit awkward for me.
I've been through the canon range, 350D (CS) - 7Dmk1 (CS) - 5Dmk4 (FF). Some of my best photos are still ones taken with the 350D, but the 5D offers so much more in terms of Low Light, Image Quality, touchscreen etc.
The only reason I didn't go down Mirrorless route was because i found the Body to be small in my hand, which made the button layout a bit awkward for me.
Not Nikon related but theme related. I have for the last 8 years been using a Canon 7D2 but have recently bought a Canon R6 and the difference is very noticeable, low light performance being one of the main stand out features along with some very clever tracking and focus options and I don't regret changing to mirrorless for one second. The 7D2 is one heck of camera, but the R6 is better.
Smollet said:
Not Nikon related but theme related. I have for the last 8 years been using a Canon 7D2 but have recently bought a Canon R6 and the difference is very noticeable, low light performance being one of the main stand out features along with some very clever tracking and focus options and I don't regret changing to mirrorless for one second. The 7D2 is one heck of camera, but the R6 is better.
Is that because it's mirrorless, or of improvements elsewhere in the system?jetbox said:
Had my D500 since they first came out and really like it. Had a few years of not using it much but this year got back out there and taking plenty of pics, mainly landscapes and car shows/events and some motorsport. I fancy a change and to go mirrorless for something a bit more compact and modern handling, more touch screen functionality.
Any thoughts from anyone who has done this? Any recommendations?
I went from Nikon D7200 crop to Sony A7iii full frame mirrorless.Any thoughts from anyone who has done this? Any recommendations?
Yes, it is absolutely with it for various reasons. Low light performance etc, but as usual it is really the lenses that make the biggest difference and you need to be prepared to spend big to get the most out of the system.
If I stuck a basic 50mm kit lens or kit zoom lens on my A7iii it would produce good images, but nothing hugely better (in most situations) than my D7200 with a zoom lens.
It was only once I started blowing money on lenses such as an 85mm 1.4 (£1800) and suchlike that I managed to get the most out of the camera.
My full frame lenses that worked for me were:
85mm 1.4
35mm 1.4
50mm 1.8
That was mostly for shooting cars, car events, few portraits, street scenes etc.
I did have a 24-240 zoom as well, but it couldn't match the prime lenses for image quality so only got used occasionally.
Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 14th October 22:42
Having gone from a Canon APS-C DSLR to a full-frame mirrorless (R6), I’d never go back to a DSLR. Other than battery life, everything else is better; WYSIWYG through the EVF, focus points across the entire frame, much faster focussing, eye AF, animal eye AF, up to 20fps shooting, great low-light performance, IBIS (I can hand-hold my 150-600 down to 1/50th at 600mm and get sharp shots), focussing in near-darkness. In addition the sensor is newer giving better dynamic range, and the RF lenses are superior to the EFs they replace.
sticks090460 said:
You have to start with phylum, but with the touch-screen it’s easy to navigate through to what you need.
I thought I'd forgotten something!
So, if I should encounter a binturong and desire a snap of said worthy animal, how long is it likely to take to get down to 'species'?
Derek Smith said:
BabySharkDooDooDooDooDooDoo said:
I switched from a Nikon d7500 to a LUMIX S1R. The difference in quality of the images is wonderful!
Given the difference in price, it's entitled to produce quality images.I fancied that Panasonic. But I bought a G7 instead.
S1R is fine for events, portraits etc but it’s a bloody weight for hiking!
With age I am beginning to suffer from reading sight. I currently use a Nikon D750 and am very comfortable with the handling, reading what I need to read, and the whole experience of looking through the optical viewfinder to 'see' the picture I will be taking. The dioptic setting also allows me to feel comfortable with focusing etc.
I start to struggle when trying to use an electronic rear screen for fine things like focus. Therefore my concern with mirrorless is that there may be more emphasis on close up reading of the screens etc, maybe the EVF would also give problems with near sight.
Any feedback from others with low reading sight?
I start to struggle when trying to use an electronic rear screen for fine things like focus. Therefore my concern with mirrorless is that there may be more emphasis on close up reading of the screens etc, maybe the EVF would also give problems with near sight.
Any feedback from others with low reading sight?
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