D5 or D850?

wezza13 · 19 Aug 2020

Hi all,

Quick question - I've got a D850 but really not liking the look at high ISO between 6400 and 12800 when shooting football at a poorly lit ground. The one thing that my D3s impressed me with was that, between those ISO's, the picture was always great. If I swapped my D850 for a D5, are the high ISO shots comparable to the D3s? Or do they have the look of the D850 or D500? I use the Sigma 120-300 2.8 on it.

Any advice appreciated, thanks.

twist · 19 Aug 2020

You could downsample your images to the same resolution as the D3s/D4.

pooley · 19 Aug 2020

If you want ISO 12800 then D5 is by far your best bet.

D850 is a great bit of kit but doesn't match the D5 at high ISO - your call on if its worth it depending on how you use the camera at other times and if you need the resolution of the D850

Mike

sk66 · 19 Aug 2020

How an image looks depends on why you are using the high ISO... if you are using it at smaller apertures to get high SS's it will look better than it does if you are using it at wider apertures and slower SS's. And a lot of the appearance of noise has to do with the display size more than anything else (i.e. light/image area). E.g. a 12MP D3s will look better than a 20MP D5 and both will look better than the 64MP D850 when viewed at 100% magnification... because 100% on the D850 is > 3x the D5, and 5x the D3s.

I use both the D850 and the D5, and they are different tools with different characteristics/uses... e.g. the D850 is very nearly ISO invariant and the D5 is nowhere close. The D5 does do better in low light and it does benefit from using higher ISO's (rather than underexposure/recovery), but IMO the difference isn't huge and you would be just about as well off by reducing the D850 output to 20MP.

Here is an unedited 100% crop, D5, 400/2.8 @ 2.8, 1/400, 6400... it's not amazing.

shapeshifter · 19 Aug 2020

A D5 has better high ISO than a D3s and a D850.

Is there ant camera that has better high ISO than a Nikon D5? Not that I have seen.

I have two D5's a D850 and a D500. All do different jobs. But the D5 is king by far for high ISO.

ah5168 · 19 Aug 2020

wezza13 said:
Hi all,

Quick question - I've got a D850 but really not liking the look at high ISO between 6400 and 12800 when shooting football at a poorly lit ground. The one thing that my D3s impressed me with was that, between those ISO's, the picture was always great. If I swapped my D850 for a D5, are the high ISO shots comparable to the D3s? Or do they have the look of the D850 or D500? I use the Sigma 120-300 2.8 on it.

Any advice appreciated, thanks.

If you check out the DXO mark database, in terms of low light performance they rate the Z6 as 1st, D3s as 3rd and the D850 and D5 are down at 13th and 14th respectively. If you wanted to stick with a DSLR presumably the D780 will have the same or better performance as the Z6.

wezza13 · 20 Aug 2020

twist said:
You could downsample your images to the same resolution as the D3s/D4.

View attachment 290165 View attachment 290165

pooley said:
If you want ISO 12800 then D5 is by far your best bet.

D850 is a great bit of kit but doesn't match the D5 at high ISO - your call on if its worth it depending on how you use the camera at other times and if you need the resolution of the D850

Mike

sk66 said:
How an image looks depends on why you are using the high ISO... if you are using it at smaller apertures to get high SS's it will look better than it does if you are using it at wider apertures and slower SS's. And a lot of the appearance of noise has to do with the display size more than anything else (i.e. light/image area). E.g. a 12MP D3s will look better than a 20MP D5 and both will look better than the 64MP D850 when viewed at 100% magnification... because 100% on the D850 is > 3x the D5, and 5x the D3s.

I use both the D850 and the D5, and they are different tools with different characteristics/uses... e.g. the D850 is very nearly ISO invariant and the D5 is nowhere close. The D5 does do better in low light and it does benefit from using higher ISO's (rather than underexposure/recovery), but IMO the difference isn't huge and you would be just about as well off by reducing the D850 output to 20MP.

Here is an unedited 100% crop, D5, 400/2.8 @ 2.8, 1/400, 6400... it's not amazing.

View attachment 290168

shapeshifter said:
A D5 has better high ISO than a D3s and a D850.

Is there ant camera that has better high ISO than a Nikon D5? Not that I have seen.

I have two D5's a D850 and a D500. All do different jobs. But the D5 is king by far for high ISO.

ah5168 said:
If you check out the DXO mark database, in terms of low light performance they rate the Z6 as 1st, D3s as 3rd and the D850 and D5 are down at 13th and 14th respectively. If you wanted to stick with a DSLR presumably the D780 will have the same or better performance as the Z6.

Thank you all for the helpful information. I think I may have to borrow/hire one for an evening match and see how I feel after using it hands-on. Probably the sensible way