I have been shooting Nikon cameras since the D70 came out. I've owned the D70, D200, D7000, D7200 and now the D500, They all have been great cameras (except maybe the D7000 with its back-focus issue). I still have my D7200 and have no plans to sell it. It still is an incredible camera. But while the D7200 has more megapixels than the D500 it pales in comparison when things start to move. The autofocus in the D7200 is pretty good but the D500 is amazing. Every reviewer will tell the same story. It finds focus and locks on. So why the 'but'? The D500 is a professionally built body and has professional controls and capabilities. And the autofocus, while better by a mile, is not the same beast as the D7200. The 'Dynamic' in particular is a bit troubling and does not behave like previous generations of Nikons did in that autofocus mode. If you shoot birds in flight (BIF) you will have better success in 'Group' or '3-D' modes. I'm still experimenting and practicing with it but can affirm that once you begin to understand how the system works, your keeper rate will skyrocket. Some things to know about this camera: Its really, really fast. 10fps is addicting and you'll wonder how you got by with anything less. If you have a remote cable from a 7000 series Nikon, it's not going to work with the D500. The D500 cable remote uses a 10-pin, screw-in style cable attachment and not the plug in ones used in other cameras. I had one leftover from my D200 and it is the same one used by the D500. Glad I saved it. To get the maximum possible capture rate without buffer slow down you will need to budget for an XQD card. They weren't cheap before and they've gone up. Right now only one manufacturer (Sony) is making them and with no competition, they can charge what they want. But, before I purchased one, I used a reasonably fast SD cart and couldn't slam the buffer. So, if you don't think you'll be shooting 200 consecutive shots in a row, a fast SD card will probably be just fine. I wasn't able to develop any confidence in the 'Auto Fine Tune' feature of lens calibration. Frankly, if you think you have a lens that is back or front focusing, you're better off with a lens calibration target and a tripod. And a cable release. Battery grip... the thing is ridiculously expensive for what it is, but I bought one anyway. And I can honestly say it's the first Nikon grip I've added to any of my cameras that does not move or wiggle once installed. I prefer the feel of a camera with the add-on grip and this one does not disappoint. There are a ton of customization options available for this thing and you will come to appreciate that. Now... about whether you should buy one... it depends. If you shoot family gatherings and landscapes, you won't realize any benefit over a D7200 or D7500, if you have one. In fact, my D7200 is a better camera for that, especially if you have a CLS Nikon flash and intend to use the pop-up flash to fire it. The D500 has no built-in flash and if you intend to control other flashes wirelessly, you'll need a controller or another flash to do so. Also, the 24mp cameras have more resolution and although the difference doesn't seem like much, it IS noticeable. Especially if you are looking for maximum pixel-peeping. If you have a D7000 or D7100, it will be a big step forward. Is it $800 better than a D7500 or $1200 better than a D7200? That depends on whether you are a sports or wildlife shooter. If you are, the answer is a resounding 'yes'. If not, then probably not. But if you ARE a wildlife shooter, this is the best of the best out there. I highly recommend the Nikon 200-500 F5.6 lens to go with it. It's a great combo. You won't be disappointed... after you spend some time with it. This camera does not suffer fools and will require you to spend time getting to know it. But that's true of any high-performance product. I highly recommend this thing to anyone who can and will use it for what it's designed to do. Hope this review helps someone on the fence about buying one. Tom

The Nikon D500 is a camera that professionals and enthusiasts have waited 7 years for. It replaces the D300s and is at the top of the APS-C market. The closest comparable competitor is the Canon 7D-MKII, and even it can't touch the build quality and performance of the D500. Now, lets talk about what makes the D500 great: -20.9 megapixel sensor with EXPEED 5 image processing. This processor is top of the line and the only other camera that has it is the $6500 D5. -153 Autofocus points that cover the sensor edge to edge with 99 of the points being cross-type. Shooting with this camera doing sports and wildlife shooting in bursts, the AF tracking is superb and unrivaled by any alternative. -ISO covers from 100-51,200 natively! This is unheard of in an APS-C body until now. This means this camera performs well even in low light situations. Look up some of the ISO tests on this camera and you will see that it impresses even at these higher ISO's. It can shoot up to 1,640,000 ISO, but that is not natively and is not recommended by Nikon. -4k Video. You may have heard that it does have a 1.5x additional crop factor when shooting video. Don't worry too much about that, if you are shooting with the correct lense, it won't be a problem. That said, the 4k video is amazing and looks great on my 4k TV. -Dual card slots. This camera includes one SD and one XQD card slot. While expensive, XQD is blazing fast and virtually eliminates the buffer so that you can continuously shoot. Speaking of buffer, even with SD, this camera is no slouch. Even shooting with SD only, I've never had to stop and wait for the buffer when using the continuous shooting features. -10FPS. That's right, you can capture 10 shots per second when shooting continuously. This is a feature you will find VERY useful for sports and wildlife photography. -Snapbridge is a new feature, exclusive to the D500 at the moment, that lets your camera connect to your phone via NFC/Bluetooth for image sharing among other features. All-in-all, this camera is a beast and an absolute must-have for any sports or wildlife photographer. Yes, it's no slouch for weddings, landscapes and portraits as well, but Full-frame sensors will surely outperform it in those areas. I would personally pair this camera with a D810 and use this one for the sports/wildlife and the D810 for Weddings/Portraits/Landscape. If you are in the market for a new high-end professional grade APS-C sensor, this camera is the one for you. Definitely buy it! Below, I've included a pair of photos taken with the camera.

I love the D500. I've had more than a dozen Nikon DSLR cameras and this one is great. I photograph professionally and teach workshops. The WOW features on this camera are the frame rate and the low light performance. At 10 FPS, the camera is fast, but more importantly, with a fast XQD memory card like the Lexar Professional 2933X XQD, the write speed is nearly enough to keep up with the frame rate so the buffer never fills. You can rattle off 200 frames in a burst, then repeat with another burst of the same size. Not everyone needs this kind of speed, but for sports or wildlife it is very helpful. ISO performance of the D7200 was already quite good for a DX sensor, and this is just a little better. The advantage comes at higher ISO levels - great for low light. The D500 is about a half stop better than the D7200 under low light conditions making it nikon's best DX camera. Handling is typical of Nikon DSLR cameras - a solid, well built body with controls easy to access. I had no problem adjusting settings without every taking my eye from the viewfinder. The key change is the Mode and ISO buttons have been switched from the typical layout. This places the ISO button next to the shutter - easy to access and make changes that can be seen in the viewfinder. Card speed matters with this camera. Get a fast XQD card for best performance - a Lexar Professional 2933x or Sony G XQD card. Other cards will not perform at peak speeds and will fill the buffer in a shorter time. In the SD slot there are several options. I bought a Lexar 2000x UHS-II SD card, but there are some issues with this card and I would not recommend it until the issues are resolved. Be sure to get a UHS-II card for best speed. UHS-II has a second row of contacts and requires a new reader for peak speed. The Sandisk 280 MB/s UHS-II or Toshiba Exceria Pro UHS-II are good, fast cards. Stay away from slower cards like the Lexar 1000x or any UHS-I card. The camera can use UHS-I SD cards in an emergency, but they operate in compatibility mode and are much slower. This camera is the nice upgrade to the D300. It's a solid choice with a lot of great features. My bread and butter camera is still my D800E, but this camera is a very good compliment and my choice for moving wildlife and sports.

I upgraded from at D7100, which I think is still an excellent camera, despite it's tiny buffer. The D500 is Nikon's flagship DX camera, aimed at enthusiasts and professionals alike. The layout (as you can see), is that of it's typical "pro-line" cameras, such as the D810, and the D500's predecessor the D300/D300s. The grip is along the same, comfortable feel as the D750, with a deep well that's comfortable for bother smaller hands and large hands. Potentially, you can change all of your on-the-fly settings (shutter, Aperture, ISO, Exposure Comp) with one hand with the ISO button placement. My favorite feature is most certainly the multi-selector (usually reserved for professional bodies like the D5). While you can still use the direction pad to move the AF point, the multi-selector just makes it more intuitive, and the placement makes sense, being so close to the AF-ON button. Pressing the Multi-Selector will also engage auto exposure lock if you need it. Speaking of the Auto-focus, it's amazing! It uses a 153-point AF system that covers the image end-to-end (left to right). There are 55-selectable points in both AF-S and AF-C, but it still uses the other 98 points as support, which works particularly well in AF-C mode. Another tidbit (and something all DSLR uses should be doing) is that upon inspection of where the AF point focuses with a single AF-point box (center-point), the actual coverage area expand beyond the box on all sides. I assume that that this is the work of the unselectable AF-points that surround a single selectable point (excluding the AF-points along the edges). ISO Noise is another surprise I was not expecting. Yeah, it has a sizable range of 100 to 51200 with extendable ranges of 50 on the low end and 1,640,000 on the high end. I won't get into low ISO performance (which is good, unless you're at an extreme EV number... don't know why you would do that in the first place), but at higher ranges, it performs flawlessly.. mostly. My experience came down to the overall lighting situation, as well as what lens I use. Yes, good glass matters with ISO. I've done some outdoor portrait shoots in varying lighting. I was at ranges between 400 and 1600, mostly sticking to 1600 using either a Sigma 24mm f1.4 Art or the Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8G VRII. The pictures came out amazing. In pixel-peep mode, the noise was very fine, and it looked even better when I went black and white In fact, I even introduced more noise to the pic (very little.. but enough) and it looked like a shot I took from my Nikon F3 on ISO 800 film. Then, when I actually printed them out, there wasn't any noise at all. It doesn't stop there, folks. I set this up alongside my Sony a7SII for some astrophotography, and I was getting same noise in a ISO 1600 shot from the a7SII as I was with the D500 at ISO 800. The conditions were not as ideal as I want it (scattered clouds in heavy light pollution), but I was able to pull part of the galactic center with the D500 as I could with the a7SII. The reason why I would rather use the a7SII for astro overall is that it's full-frame, and the mirrorless-centric features like Focus Peaking and Bright Monitoring are amazing tools to utilize for astro. Overall, the Nikon D500 is about as good as it comes in an APS-C format camera. This camera is for certain making full-frame counterparts like the D750 run for the hills and Nikon has managed to close the gap between FX and DX bodies in terms of noise handling considerably. I'm surprised how well the D500 manages ISO noise, it's plenty fast for it's true purpose (sports and wildlife), but is well capable as a portrait and astro shooter. I think Nikon's future is bright because this camera and the D5 is paving the way for future FX products. For what it does, the price to play is well worth it. I highly recommend what will become the next legend in Nikon's lineup.

So I bought a D7500 bundled with a couple of lenses and some other stuff from Costco. It was a really nice camera. After using that camera for a while and continuing to read camera reviews, I decided to return that bundle and just buy the D500 body from Best Buy. I did this because every review listed the D500 as the "best" DSLR you can buy today. Well, I usually like the best, so why not? In another lifetime I owned a Nikon D80, but the shutter stopped working on that so I went into "strictly iPhone camera" mode for a while. That old D80 took a lot of great family photographs which I now cherish. Since I spent a bundle on this D500, I decided to recycle some old equipment from the D80 ... such as my trusty 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor lens and my SB-800 Speedlight. The lens is a great "all-around" lens and has worked great on my camera so far. The Speedlight works fine, too, but haven't needed it much since this camera does so great in low-light. Now ... I'm not a photography genius and I am someone you can usually find using the "auto" settings. But wait ... there is no such thing on this bad boy. Well, it did take some investment of time ... mostly watching YouTube videos ... but I think I've now got some of it figured out. And it turns out there are still some ways to get the camera to do things for you, aka "auto," they just don't exactly call it that and designate a dial or button for said function. Probably to maintain the image as a photographer's camera LOL. Anyhow, the pictures this thing takes are stunning. FPS ... when cranked up ... sounds like a machine gun. Put on the right settings and you will freeze every step of your son's next drive to the hole! Snapbridge software where pictures transfer to iPhone right away is pretty cool. Aside from camera, I've jumped into some of the Adobe software for post-processing and that provides another learning curve all its own. Bottom line ... great camera ... but expect you will have some learning to do if you are coming in from the cold or the dark ages. But I think you already knew that! ;)

Got the D500 to upgrade from my D90, and man what an upgrade it is! D500 is a beast, this camera does everything much better than the D90 as one would expect. Where is really shines is on the edges of performance, the speed both of focusing and of FPS is just spectacular. I'm VERY glad I waited till the 500 came out, I had played around with D7000/7200, to me the 7000 was just not worth the money when it came out, the 7200 would have been a nice step up, but this 500 is not a step, it's a leap. The white balance is simply worlds better than on the 90 and so is the jpeg engine with high ISO shots. These are both very important to me as I take both RAW and jpeg, but I don't want to have to spend my whole time in Photoshop correcting. With the jpegs right out of the camera they are stunning. On my D90 I would never shoot above 1000 ISO as it was just too noisy, with the D500 it has been on ISO 2000 for the last few days and I have gone up much much higher with great results. I just love this camera as I did with my trusty D90 that has served me well over the last 8 years. Hopefully the 500 will also. The shot of the chipmunk was done on the D500 with the 200-500 lens. A VERY highly recommended lens

I'm going to start with what I don't like about the camera! Cons: SnapBridge, WiFi, Tilt screen and Touch screen. This camera is geared towards sports, action and wildlife photographers. Those are features that are not needed for these types of work, (with the exception of the tilt screen for some video footage). Snapbridge and wifi should only be on the entry level cameras (IMO)! If you're in a rush to post to social media, chances are that the photo isn't that good to begin with! Specular Highlights: Very temperamental and often blows them out if not careful! Lightroom: I find the color rendering to be off during import into lightroom. It's an easy fix though. A quick adjustment to the color profile in the camera calibration panel to camera flat or camera neutral brings the files back to a good starting point! Pros: AF speed, Accuracy and continuous AF tracking is nothing short of amazing and is where this camera really shines! ISO Performance: Excellent for a DX body. I personally wouldn't go beyond iso 4,000 but that's very good for DX IMO! Ergonomics: A+. If you own a D810, switching between cameras is like night and day. Overall, this is a solid performing camera for it's intended purpose and I highly recommend add it to your kit.

I never thought I'd go back to an APS-C sensor camera. I love full frame and figured that would be all if ever use. I started from Nikon's D70, D200, D300 (got stolen) and for the last years I've been using the D700. I've been. Drooling for the D810 for its 36mp but never pulled the trigger on the $3000 price tag. In the last 2 years I have gotten into wildlife photography which lead me to the Tamron 150-600 and to my current Nikon 200-500mm lens. Great gear, but on a 12mp body and only 5 FPS, I find myself struggling with small and nimble birds. Missing focus and the "money shot". I have only had the D500 for a couple weeks but because of the 1.5 APS-C crop and the MP boost from 12 to 20.9, I am seeing details I have never been able to manage before. It's blowing me away! And 10 FPS is getting some really good action that I usually miss. Why not stay FF and pick up a D610 or D750? Buffers are too small for high speed RAW shooting. Even my D700 slows me down. But so far the D500 appears to be a home run.