

The broad width of the D500's autofocus coverage, and its impressive 3D AF Tracking mode combine to offer unparalleled accuracy when it comes to tracking subjects around the frame. If that had happened, there wouldn't have been enough time to troubleshoot. The cameras only showed up a couple of days before we were due to head to the reserve, so it was essential that D500s didn't fail or present any major surprises on location. In fact, we ended up with a mere 24-hour window of time in which to work with Ronan, filming at a remote wildlife reserve in Montana, more than 10 hours' drive away from DPReview's home base of Seattle. The D500 shoot was not.Ī combination of factors including limited availability of D500 bodies, limited availability of Ronan, an already packed pre-Photokina schedule, the vicissitudes of rural Montana's postal system and some inconveniently-positioned wildfires meant that we weren't able to plan the shoot quite as carefully as we might have liked. Most Field Tests are like that, but some are not. Camera features are carefully aligned with shooting situations, locations are scouted ahead of time, and the shoot proceeds predictably, and more or less according to plan. Most of our video shoots are organized far in advance, and planned almost down to the last detail. But my experience of shooting with it for our sponsored Field Test in September with National Geographic photographer, friend to the wolves and all-round man-crush Ronan Donovan was a definite highlight of 2016. But it doesn't just boast a lot of autofocus points, it also offers them across most of the width of the frame.ĭespite its obvious appeal, I was a little hesitant to make the D500 my choice for Gear of the Year because of all the people on the DPReview team, I've probably used it for the least amount of time. The D500 boasts a 153-point AF system, of which 55 can be manually selected.

I won't waste your time listing specifications ( you can find all of that here) in this article, but suffice to say it's unlikely that the D500 will look outdated any time soon. After so many years we had almost lost hope that Nikon would replace the D300S, which soldiered on well into its dotage, and well beyond the point where it was able to keep up with the likes of Canon's EOS 7D II.īut replace it Nikon did, and in impressive fashion.

From almost the minute it was announced, somewhat incongruously, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January (well, it does have a touchscreen, I suppose), the Nikon D500 looked like it was going to be a hit with DPReview's readers.
