D850 v D810&D500

Rob Sims

Rob Sims

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evening all.
Hope everyone is surviving the heat !

Quick question. Any downsides to swapping a D810&D500 for a D850 ? Except the obvious it’s only one body, bigger files to move around and the need for a grip to match FPS

Cheers.
Rob
 
Depends if you need a backup and think a D500 is a backup for a D810 and vice versa. If you need a backup then i would say there’s an argument for having all 3 or 2 D850’s.

I’ve currently got all 3 and thinking of chopping in 500& 810 for another 850. Got a couple of days this weekend on high speed side for 850, air show and diving ospreys which the 500 is fine for. If it passes muster then i’ll go for a pair of 850’s. if not then I’ll keep the 3 of them and back the 850 with the 810 for portrait, landscape, macro, still life, etc and use the 850with grip as a backup to the 500 for wildlife and sport stuff. Hoping it passes muster as same fast card, same settings, flippy screen, etc would make life easier
 
Thanks for the reply. I’m not a pro so no real need for a backup and I don’t use the current pair as a backup for either. One action one landscape.
 
Rob Sims said:
evening all.
Hope everyone is surviving the heat !

Quick question. Any downsides to swapping a D810&D500 for a D850 ? Except the obvious it’s only one body, bigger files to move around and the need for a grip to match FPS

Cheers.
Rob
Click to expand...

What do you shoot?
 
The D850 is kind of a do it all camera and can be thought of as an FX and DX camera in one. I can’t think of one way in which the D850 has any area where it’s weaker than the D810 (apart from the little extra weight) but there are a couple of downsides with regards to the D500. Firstly you have to add a noticeable amount of weight (the EN-EL18 batteries make the grip pretty heavy) and bulk to get a similar FPS. The other is that whilst you get the same effective reach (with 1 less mp) you don’t get the ‘magnified’ view in the viewfinder. Actually this can be a pro or con.
 
Rob Sims said:
Thanks for the reply. I’m not a pro so no real need for a backup and I don’t use the current pair as a backup for either. One action one landscape.
Click to expand...

I’m not a pro either but if i travel 3-4 hours or go on a weeks photo holiday then i just get a bit squirrelly about not having a backup body.

If you have both the 810 & 500 now and dont need/ want a backup then i’d stick with them. For me the 850 has the ability to back up or match (small pluses and minuses) and saved a pair of backups.
 
Basically the D850’s dx mode is a D500.
 
Thanks All.
One of the main drivers here is ISO performance for wildlife. Normally light is scarce and the D500 is a pita above 1600.
The 810 come out for landscape, mainly waterfalls in winter or on holiday. Rest of the time the 500 is on wildlife duty.

Rob
 
markyboy.1967 said:
The D850 is a better camera than the others you mentioned but I wouldn’t swap both those for a D850. No matter what you shoot then stick with the D810/D500 combo.
Click to expand...
What makes you make such a strong recommendation? Seems like it’s based on some experience ?
 
Rob Sims said:
Thanks All.
One of the main drivers here is ISO performance for wildlife. Normally light is scarce and the D500 is a pita above 1600.
The 810 come out for landscape, mainly waterfalls in winter or on holiday. Rest of the time the 500 is on wildlife duty.

Rob
Click to expand...
D750?
 
Rob Sims said:
What makes you make such a strong recommendation? Seems like it’s based on some experience ?
Click to expand...


I had the D810 for a while, i had a D500 for a few days. Lol. And i run a D850 as one of my caneras just now so taking from experience. D850 better but not better than both.
 
I had both the D810 and the D500. I traded the D810 in against the D850 and held onto the D500. It wasn't looked at so only sold it this week. Like said previously the D850 has a D500 inside it in crop mode. 9fps is close enough to the 10 of the D500 for me. Although I much preferred the shutter noise of the D500.
 
wilt said:
the D850 has a D500 inside it in crop mode. 9fps is close enough to the 10 of the D500 for me. Although I much preferred the shutter noise of the D500.
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Pretty much this ... I sold my D810 & D500 and bought the D850 to reduce the weight of carrying around two cameras.
The D850 virtually covers the two for me and my wildlife/general photography ... I say virtually because there is nothing that quite matches the AF of the D500.
 
If the D500 is such a PITA above 1600 then look at this video VS a d810 and d850.

 
GTG said:
If the D500 is such a PITA above 1600 then look at this video VS a d810 and d850.

Click to expand...
Not the best test that tbh. My experience is that the D850 isn't hugely better than the D500 though, both are impressive (imo) and only about 2/3 (D500) and 1/2 (D850) stop behind the D750 (which is a low light monster), I think this is pretty impressive considering the pixel density. I'd happily shoot 12800 ISO with the D750 whereas the D500 and D850 provide 'usable' images at 12800. However, this is viewing 1:1, after downsampling the D850 is only a smidge behind the D750. Obviously if using the D850 in DX mode you don't get that downsampling advantage. This is pretty much a good representation of what I've found in the real world
https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/im...=1&x=0.1273693298797901&y=-0.9861072664359862

How DXO get their scores I've not idea, if you took this at face value then the D850 looks twice as good at high ISO than the D500, which it clearly isn't
https://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Com...-Nikon-D500-versus-Nikon-D750___1177_1061_975
 
snerkler said:
How DXO get their scores I've not idea, if you took this at face value then the D850 looks twice as good at high ISO than the D500, which it clearly isn't
https://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Com...-Nikon-D500-versus-Nikon-D750___1177_1061_975
Click to expand...

It looks like that but actually I think they mean the d500 is at iso 1324 when a certain amount of noise is introduced and the d850 gets to 2660.

So actually that is less than a full stop better or maybe a stop ? It is hard to work out but I don't think they mean twice the score = twice as good kind of thing
 
For me, the choice was a little different, having a 400mm f2.8 for wildlife I found myself constantly wondering wether to go for the full frame look with the image quality that went with the D810, or the performance of the D500 with it’s focussing and 10fps. Sold both to fund a gripped D850 and now I don’t have that problem anymore but I do find myself missing the ‘edge to edge’ focus points in the viewfinder of the D500.
 
I think twice the score in dxo is a full stop.

My old full frame Sony A99 SLT was pretty poor in low light (as full framers go) and scored 1500. The D500 has nearly caught it!

Of course take that translucent mirror out and add the 2/3 of a stop light loss back on and you get the same 24 meg sony sensor found in the d600/750 and dare I say the same basic sensor that still exists albeit with some tweaking in the brand new a7iii.
 
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Unlocker said:
For me, the choice was a little different, having a 400mm f2.8 for wildlife I found myself constantly wondering wether to go for the full frame look with the image quality that went with the D810, or the performance of the D500 with it’s focussing and 10fps. Sold both to fund a gripped D850 and now I don’t have that problem anymore but I do find myself missing the ‘edge to edge’ focus points in the viewfinder of the D500.
Click to expand...
The edge to edge AF coverage of the D500 was great, but with the D850 in DX mode you do get the same edge to edge coverage (y)
 
This is how dxo define their low light scores

Sports & action score: Low-Light ISO

The SNR indicates how much noise is present in an image compared to the actual image information (signal). The higher the SNR value, the better the image quality, as detail is not drowned out by noise. The SNR is given in dB, which is a logarithmic scale: an increase of 6 dB corresponds to doubling the SNR, which in turn equates to half the noise for the same signal. A SNR value of 30dB means excellent image quality. We have therefore defined low-light ISO as the highest ISO setting for a camera that allows it to achieve a SNR of 30dB while keeping a good dynamic range of 9 EVs and a color depth of 18bits. A difference in low-light ISO of 25% equals 1/3 EV and is only slightly noticeable. Low-light ISO is an open scale.
 
Thanks to everyone for there input, its very much appreciated.
Rob
 
one thing not mentioned was cost difference which to me is a huge factor, so really his video is an unfair test.
If your paying half as much again then you would expect it to be that much better
 
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