Photography News Issue 33

Photography News | Issue 33 | absolutephoto.com

Camera test 37

IN ASSOCIATIONWITH

Performance: autofocus

With the same autofocus system as the D5, the D500 can focus down to -4EV with the central focus point and -3EV with its other points. For those who favour shooting moving subjects such as wildlife or action the D500 has a continuous 3D tracking mode. I tested this out at a motorcross training track and photographed a motorbike. When keeping the camera in one position I found that if the biker moved too far from the starting focus point, the 3D trackingwould jump focus to the trees or bushes in the foreground or background, leaving the biker out of focus. Shooting somewherewith less clutter and a cleaner backgroundwould probably have been a better suited scene for the 3D tracking to really show its potential. On the other hand shooting in Single ServoAFworked amazingly, I tested this on the same biker in a different position keeping the camera held in one position and also shot a concert where I would focus on the singer’s face and then recompose the image. The shots below were taken with the kit lens at 70mm and shot at 10fps with 55 focus points selected. In manual I shot an exposure with ISO set to 250, an aperture of f/6.3 and a shutter speed of 1/1000sec.

ISO 51,200 No NR applied

ISO 51,200 LowHigh ISO NR

ISO 51,200 Normal High ISO NR

ISO 51,200 High High ISO NR

Performance: noise reduction

The D500 has a selection of options for noise reduction when shooting JPEGs at high ISOs. The options available are no, high, normal or low noise reduction. I shot a scene at dusk using the 16-80mm f/2.8-4 ED lens and took shots at 6400, 12,800, 25,600 and 51,200 with no noise reduction and also with the high, normal and low settings. Looking above at each shot taken at 51,200 the high noise reduction barely retains any detail in the image and the edges of the objects in the frame are extremely soft. Using the normal setting shows more noise, but retains much more detail. If we compare the low noise reduction shot with the image that has had no noise reduction there is quite a difference between the two. On this occasion I would say that the low noise reduction would be my preference, as the normal and high settings lose too much detail and result in a soft-looking image.

A close-up of the last shot

Left The D500 is great for low-light shooting, this image of Andy Black was taken at f/3.3, 1/160sec and ISO 2000. Above The interior of Peterborough Cathedral taken at f/2.8, 1/160sec, ISO 800.

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