Customer Ratings & Reviews

My 4th Nikon DSLR and I love it. It is blazing fast and is the best camera I've owned so far. My D800 takes great shots but sometimes makes me work to get the shot (correct focus point, exposure etc). The D500 often would get a good shot when time constraints forced me to "throw" the camera at the scene and hope I captured the fleeting shot. Something the D800 would rarely do unless I had preset the scene. Its' low light ability negated my concern about no flash as the indoor shots without flash were very good. The 16-80 lens was perfect for my recent trip to Europe.

I just upgraded to the D500 from my D3400 and I was a little nervous that it would take a long time for me to use all the features of the camera, however from the very first day I got it, as a previous Nikon user, it was simple and the layout made perfect sense with all the go to functions laid out perfectly. The kit 16-80mm lens that comes with this camera is no joke. It takes beautifully sharp images and I find myself hard pushed to ever take it off in favour of a different lens. SO worth the money spent on the upgrade! Here are some photos I took with the camera and kit lens.

I’ve been shooting on a D7100 for years and finally pulled the trigger on upgrading. The D500 is superior to the D7100 in nearly every way. Even though it has less MP than the 7100, the 500 produces significantly better pictures, with the same lenses. I wouldn’t recommend this camera for a beginner, simply because i could see it being easy to get lost in the functions. Overall, I am extremely satisfied with this camera and lens, and would highly recommend it to any fairly experienced hobbyist or higher.

This camera has everything that you are looking for! It's great for sport, portraits, wildlife, and even night photograph! To get the best out of the camera I will recoment to whatch a couple of Youtube Videos in order to get all the basic settings and shortcuts!

Well so far so good. I like it. I had it out a few times works great. Lots of Fall colors photos

I had tried the D7500, which is the “little brother” of this camera. Ultimately decided to buy this camera with the 16-80 lens and the battery grip when it went on sale at Best Buy. I liked the D7500 but found the autofocus system to be lacking for sports and action shots. The D500 has the same focus system as the D5. It’s amazing. The focus system and build quality is better than the D7500. I thought that I might not like the extra weight and size but find that it adds necessary stability, when shooting with telephoto lenses. I own the 200-500 zoom and the D500’s focus system, which covers nearly the entire screen area, is amazing. I also love the ability to backfocus using the joystick and the other back-focus button, independently. This allows me to assign different focusing systems for each of these buttons. The joystick, which I had thought I wouldn’t use much, is very useful. I used to backfocus on the D7500 and then would remove my finger and recompose. I don’t have to do that anymore. Further, shooting action shots requires access to different focusing systems, on the fly and with speed. Shots don’t wait to be taken. Time is of the essence. I use 3D for tracking moving subjects and single or D25 for stationary subjects. This camera just works very well. The controls are also well placed and there are so many options for customizing the controls. I also like the fact that I don’t have to spin the left side dial to change from A, S, P and M and A. I just push a button and can set them easily. There are no gimmicky programs. There is also a custom option to allow you to just push the button and not have to keep holding it down and then spin the front or back dials on the right side of the top of the camera. I use this setting and it makes things easier for me. There are a lot of useful YouTube videos that outline some of these custom options. I suggest everyone purchasing the D500 to spend the time to view them. I do have a few complaints. The touchscreen doesn’t work for moving around the the menu settings (it works for the photos review and other options). Don’t know why Nikon doesn’t write a software upgrade for this since the screen can do it. This is not a deal breaker since I can move around the custom settings pretty easily using the directional buttons. Yet, this should be addressed by Nikon. The 10 FPS is amazing as is the buffer. I bought a super fast SD card that has a very large buffer and works well with 4k video. I don’t like live view for video. The focus system is slow and hunts, casusing noise and some temporary blur. I haven’t used the video much but figure I will buy a tripod and a separate microphone that won’t pick up the noise from my lenses looking for focus. However, the video quality is as advertised—outstanding. I have held off purchasing the XQD card since I don’t have a reader for it and my SD card is so fast. I will probably purchase one when the prices for a 64GB XQD card drops. It is a nice feature that the camera can write raw or video to one card and jpegs to the SD card. I know that some will want the XQD card so there is redundancy. However, I have never had an SD card fail and don’t shoot professionally. A pro would want redundancy. I wasn’t sure whether I would like the battery grip but I have used it and it’s great. The camera can access that battery first, so you have two batteries in the camera. More importantly, you can shoot vertically and ithe grip has the same controls (joystick, separate back-focus button and shutter) that the camera has. So it’s really seamless to turn the camera, if there is a telephoto on it connected to a tripod, or to just turn it in your hand if hand-held. Now a few thoughts about the 16-80 2.8 lens: I love this lens. I have both a 35 and 50mm prime lenses which are faster. However, they aren’t VR. I haven’t missed a shot indoors when I shot without a flash with the 16-80. The pictures are really impressive. Very sharp but also a beautiful creamy color and nice Bokah. I haven’t used the prime lenses much on this camera because the zoom is that good. The zoom lens is much heavier than the two prime lenses. So, I might use them if I take my external flash with me and want to reduce the total camera weight. I have used the 18-55 kit lens that came with the D7500. That’s a cheap lens and was better than I expected. It is also very light. However, the 16-80 is far superior in every respect. The extra range (effectively 24mm to 120mm) allows true wide angle and allows you to use it as a portrait lens. The Best Buy bundle for the D500, with battery grip and 16-80 2.8 lens is a really good deal. I would caution anyone buying this camera that it is best in the hands of a photographer that is an enthusiast who will also shoot some action or wildlife photography. The controls require hours to truly understand and master. If someone is just looking for a great all-around camera that doesn’t need all of the D500’s capabilities, I would recommend the D7500 or D7200, both of which have the same less impressive autofocus system. The D7500 does shoot 4k and has a touch screen and is definitely an upgrade over the D7200. The D7500 also shares the D500’s new metering system. But, I highly recommend this camera bundle if you have the money to spend and contemplate shooting wildlife, your kid’s soccer game or any action. The lack of a flash on the D500, which the less expensive Nikons have, is not a big deal to me since I never shoot a flash directly at a subject. So all in all, the D500 is probably the best DX camera out there today. It is so capable and customizable in the right hands. It is built like a tank and weather sealed. The touchscreen has amazing resolution and a better build quality than the cheaper Nikons. The superior resolution makes image review and zooming in on a focus point, a pleasure. You can’t go wrong with the D500 and bundle.

Having owned the Nikon 7100 for two years and shot an entire short film with just that one camera, it was time to upgrade and add an additional DSLR to the inventory. There is a bit of a learning curve, but for anyone familiar with the Nikon architecture, it should come rather easily. I shoot short films, documentaries, and actors’ headshots. The D500 is perfect for the work and at 4K resolution, it’s an unbelievable value for the price. Note: When shooting 4K, be sure to have to have plenty of memory available

I have been shooting a D7100 for a few years and although I’ve really been happy with it I wanted a camera with improved focus ability especially with action scenes . I anticipated a bit of a learning curve, and it’s been surprisingly easy to adapt. Having been through the manual once, I pretty well got the hang of it. I debated the D7500 but the idea of one memory card slot had me stay away. This increased size of the D500 is almost unnoticeable to me vs. my D7100, and the D7500 grip didn’t feel right to me. I like the heft of the D500. I haven’t done a lot of field work yet, but the test shots i’ve taken are great, and I really like and am impressed with the 3D tracking, which was not the case with my older D7100. I am very pleased and am glad I didn’t try to save money and go with the D7500. Although I debated going full frame, my investment in lenses would have made the overall cost of changing really high. BTW, the 16-80 lens is also pretty impressive. For anyone thinking upgrading from another APS-C camera and buying body only and sticking with the old kit lenses, I say one word. Don’t. Spend the extra money for this lens. It’s fast focus and low-light aperture make it so much more flexible to use without flash in many situations make it worth the price.

took it to the forest for a field trip... zzzz... not much better than my D7000. then took it to a volleyball match - OMG! the speed and accuracy of the focus and the color and clarity of EVERY SINGLE SHOT out of 178 shots just blew me away! Never have I imagined that I could be getting 100% keepers (technical-wise) shooting at 1/800 f/4 indoors. Color saturation, white balance (used fluorescent), flicker compensation, all worked great. Only thing that stinks (a little) is that my older non-AF-S (but constant F/2.8 and f/1.8) and newer slower than F/4 lenses can't make full use of the 99 cross sensors, so I got the kit lens and plan to get a f/4 or f/2.8 70-200 some day. 4K video looks decent on my 4K OLED TV - I haven't spent much time messing with video. I sweated over the decision to buy this for a very long time - life is truly too short to miss out on something so fun and capable. (oh, it's pretty big and heavy for a DX rig).

I bought this body after the death of my D7000 in a car accident. This camera is far, FAR better than I expected it to be. I shoot candids in low light, meaning I need three things: high ISO performance, quick autofocus in low light, and a ton of speed. This camera delivers those things on a level I didn't think was possible. The autofocus of the d500 is a vast improvement over my d7000. I'm getting a ton more keepers than I did before - the days of yelling "Just take the picture!!!" as the autofocus hunts are gone. I'm still getting used to it because there are low-light shooting situations where I normally wouldn't even bother to try that are now possibilities. I'm still shocked every time I use it. The ISO improvement is pretty insane, too. The reviews of useable 51k made me giggle a bit, but it's true! You really can do things with this body that you can't with others. Matched with my 50mm 1.4 I can pretty much shoot in the dark. Overall I can't say enough good things. If this body is in your budget just do it. This is one of the rare times where the equipment really does matter- it's that much better than previous offerings from Nikon, and lets you get shots that weren't possible previously. If anything, you will get many more keepers with this body than you did before. Downside- it costs a lot for a DX body, and it's heavy.

This is by far the best camera I have ever owned. Crisp image, 153 focus points and 10 frames per second is everything a photographer can ever ask for. The kit lens is awesome as well, crisp images, fast focus and great low light handling!

Takes great photos and easy to use... love all the features

This is an amazing camera with tons of capabilities. I can not say that I would recommend it for beginners that are not planning on really doing all of the homework required to take advantage of all the features. This was an upgrade for me and I have really had to dig n to the books to get my pictures where they are today.

Couldn't be happier with this camera. The camera is fast and picture quality is amazing. Great for low light and the high fps is great for capturing our fast moving subjects like our kids.

Great camera and fast, sharp lens. Was super surprised they were giving such a great lens with the bundle. Wish it was full frame but for the price range it is a good overall package, with the option to do high quality videos. I only gave it four stars because you need to study the manual and google what others have done to master focusing. Back focusing button is the best option for me, but do your homework until your settings are set where you want them to achieve optimal focusing. Other than that, I'm still learning...

So far, this is awesome. I upgraded from the D7200 to the D500. I am just a momographer and there was definitely some things to figure out. The auto settings are not there on this camera like the 7200, but after a few videos and help from some friends, I could not be happier. I was looking at the 7500, but went with the 500 for more fps, vertical grip and 2 card slots. I take lots of sports pictures of my kids and this is ideal for basketball.

I've had the camera a few weeks now. It is all the reviews say it is, blazing fast focus, accurate when following moving targets. I also purchased a 35mm prime and the pictures are razor sharp when using it. The reason I knocked off one star was the pictures from the 16-80 lens aren't quite as sharp as the prime. I haven't tried the fine tuning focus but to me if quality control was where it needed to be the lens wouldn't be as off as it seems to be. I wouldn't let that stop me from purchasing the camera. If you want speed and a pro level body at a consumer price this is it.

Bought it for our family vacations in Europe.Captured some amazing landscape and portrait photos.A little bulky to carry though.

Everything about this camera is fast, from the 10 frames per second shooting to the autofocus system. Images come out sharp with the included kit lens. Only gripe is lower than expected battery life, but otherwise this is an incredible wildlife/sports camera.

Yes, yes, yes! A million times yes!! This camera is an absolute beast, the 10FPS is freaking insane, and the autofocus & control is wonderful! Also, the high ISO quality is amazing, I can shoot up to 16,000 and have totally usable pictures for most applications!