Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Nikon D850 FX-Format Digital SLR Camera Body

Top positive review

great focuser upgrade from D810

Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2017

I've had this camera for a couple of months now and am really pleased with my decision to upgrade from the Nikon D810.

Image quality is really not that different from my D810 but this camera does nail the white balance far more frequently than the D810 did. This saves me a lot of time in post processing.

Where this camera really blows away the D810 is with the focus engine. Whether it's up to D5 levels or not, it is light years ahead of the D810. I set the D850 to AF-C with dynamic-area (25) focus and simply spray-shot as my two dogs ran around the yard near dusk. The results were shockingly good as the D850 continued to nail shot after shot. With my D810, a play session with the dogs might yield 5-10 usable shots out of several hundred taken. With the D850, I had well over 100 perfectly-focused shots of the frenetic dogs; this was without the benefit of direct sunlight. I shot those with my 85mm F1.4G at F1.4, ISO 1250, and 1/2000 shutter speed. Noise was really low (though visible when you zoom in to 100% view). Fortunately, the noise is fairly easy to clean up in post processing.

The touchscreen is nice and I use it more than I thought I would. Scrolling/zooming an image is not as fast as a smartphone, but it's very good and not painfully laggy. The tilt screen (which tilts both upwards and downwards) is a great addition that lets you set the camera on the floor to capture a crawling baby without having to lay on your stomach.

45MP is a lot of data. I shoot RAW and I learned this weekend that I can fill a 32GB card in a matter of minutes when doing action photography. For that reason, I moved to a 128GB card. I went with the Sony G UHS-II SD card and performance is magnificent. I considered a 128GB XQD, but I already had a good SD reader and at the time I needed them, XQD cards and readers were in short supply. Due to the extremely good performance of the Sony G UHS-II SD cards, I'm content to stick with SD even though I know XQD can be faster. Either way, 32GB (~300 shots) is not enough storage for this camera if you shoot RAW so plan on a large card.

As a former owner of a D700 and then the D810, I can tell you that as an owner of either of those, you'll be thrilled with this camera. If you're still using the magnificent D700, be prepared for image handling to be drastically slower unless you've recently upgraded your computer. If you've already jumped to 36MP, then going to 45MP is not really a noticeable difference.

18 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

Mike Khashaiar Kojoori

Had problems and I’m not sure if I continue with DSLRs after this

Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2022

The camera had terrible color accuracy and exposure metering. I’m sure you’re saying right now just use the built in calibration functions. Well that would be great if just doing that would make the problem go away. I tried that and it was not a solution and here’s why.

The color balance or light metering was not consistently biased. It would yield results with various imbalanced ratios of RGB. The matrix metering would not average the scene so that one could have a base-line for bracketing (which is essential for my work).

Regardless of whether I used SRGB or Adobe color spaces when shooting or using camera/Adobe color profiles for the image processing in Lightroom I could not get images to look natural(what I saw during the shoot).

This is coming from the Nikon D7000,D800 and D810.

Either Nikon is using some weird color science or I got a bad copy.

Thus, I sent the camera back. And at this point I’m not sure if the D850 is a worthwhile path. I may need to move to mirror-less and leapfrog mirrors all together.

As a professional photographer one needs the equipment to function reliably and consistently. Yes we shoot RAW file format and have the ability to make corrections but one needs a reliable baseline from which to begin a workflow. In this competitive field one does not have the luxury of time to invasively correct each and every image.

3 people found this helpful

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From the United States

J. York

great focuser upgrade from D810

Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2017

Style: Body OnlySet: BaseVerified Purchase

18 people found this helpful

Helpful

Dean R.

AMAZING CAMERA!

Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2019

Style: Body OnlySet: BaseVerified Purchase

I do freelance sports photography for the local newspaper, and I was using a Nikon D750, and it worked pretty well. It worked well in low light, it shot 6.5 fps and it is a 24 megapixel camera. But, I knew that I could do better. For sports I needed a lot of fps and the shots focus had to be crisp. I use the Nikon 300mm f/2.8 super prime most of the time for outdoor events. The picture of the goalkeeper diving for the ball was taken from the other end of the field. I'll tell you, at 9 fps (I have a grip on it with the bigger battery) and 46 megapixels, my shots have gotten so much better. I shoot softball and baseball through cyclone fencing, and you can't even tell. I think that I don't have to push the ISO up as far on those evening soccer games. I have done a little bit of portrait work and some landscape shots with this camera and it can put your talents to the test. I would recommend using a tripod when you can. With that many megapixels, you have to be careful if you are shooting at lower speeds...all of your little movement mistakes show up. Just be sure to have a big enough XQD card in this camera, because you are going to be taking a lot of pictures (7 fps out of the box). Also, you have a lot more keepers with this camera because the focussing system is pretty darn good (same as the D5). Oh, and the silent shooting, is really silent....like no sound silent.
So, whatever your style of photography is, sports, landscapes, portrait, product, wildlife, etc., you will probably really enjoy this camera. Good luck.

31 people found this helpful

Helpful

John W.

Phenomenal Camera

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2019

Style: Body OnlySet: BaseVerified Purchase

This camera is possibly my favorite thing I've ever purchased. It's an absolute beast. My wife and I are both photographers of different types. She does portrait photography (newborn, family, etc) and I do landscape/astrophotography. For years we've been on the very-mid-range D5200. We bought it while we were still both working part time in school, so we had to go for the best one we could on the extremely limited budget we had. While it has served us well, it's obviously a cropped sensor body and it was time to upgrade to full frame, and many years later we're in a far better place financially. (READ: No more school tuition and full time job yay) We figured if we're going to spend the money on full frame, we might as well get the "dream camera", so to speak, and not feel like we need to upgrade again soon.

And so we come to the D850. Lots of research went into the decision to go with the D850, there is no shortage of videos and reading material about it, it's a landmark camera body for many reasons. Sure it's pricey, but this sucker is going to last us for years and years. I'll try to touch on all my personal favorite points, but there are literally so many that I'll probably forget some, but here we go.

Body:
Super well designed, comfortable, if not a tad on the heavy side. It's a beast of a camera though, so I can absolutely forgive the weight, and it's by no means uncomfortably heavy. Just a tad heavier than I would have thought. The weatherproofing is excellent. You can watch tons of review videos where you'll see them leaving the camera on a tripod in rainy weather to do a timelapse, and then they simply dry it off with a towel later. As a result of the weather proofing there is no built-in popup flash to make it far more sealed off. This doesn't bother me at all because I never use that flash, if I need flash I'll use an external one.

Autofocus:
If you know anything about the D850, you'll know that the autofocus in the body is industry leading. (the same autofocus as the D5) A huge number of autofocus points, incredible focus speed, it's absolutely incredible. I will simply leave this at what I've said so far since that's really all that needs to be said. It's awesome.

Controls:
Having come from the D5200 I feel like the controls are much more intuitive and better placed so as to be more ergonomic. They feel much higher quality than the D5200 which just helps with the overall premium nature of this camera. As a person who loves to do astrophotography, one of my favorite tiny improvements is the illuminated buttons! I don't know how I survived without that before this. It's one of those quality of life improvements that just makes so much sense when you finally have it.

Memory Card Slots:
So as I'm sure you're aware by now, this camera has two slots. One SD slot and one XQD slot. I originally thought I wouldn't get an XQD card, they're so much more expensive than their SD card equivalents, and I hadn't done much research into them, so I thought they were basically a chunkier SD card. I have since done the research and bought a 240 GB capacity card. The read/write speed is seriously blazing fast. Basically it can keep up with the D850, whereas an SD card by itself will start slowing you down during continuous shooting because it can't clear the buffer fast enough. Transfer speeds to my computer are so much faster than my SD card. (note that you do need to buy a card reader for it) It's also incredibly durable which is a great thing to not worry about when you're in more rugged environments. My only complaint about the D850 now that I've bought into the XQD vision is that they only have one XQD slot and one SD card slot. I understand that XQD isn't widely adopted right now, and that increases the barrier to entry for this camera, but I do wish that there were two XQD card slots in this camera rather than one of each. I have a large enough card, however, that I haven't had a big enough session that I started writing to the SD card yet, so that's not that big of a deal. (I usually remove everything off the card when I import right after my session, so I always start at empty)

Touchscreen/Live View:
I was skeptical that I would ever use the touchscreen aspect of the screen but I must say I was wrong. I use it very often. The screen itself is large, bright, and great resolution. You can pinch to zoom on your pictures and zoom in to see some incredible detail this camera takes. (something I couldn't really do before until I was on my computer) It tilts up and down, a really handy feature that I forget about too often. (as I stand on my tiptoes to see when the camera is up high, I suddenly realize I don't need to do that, the screen tilts) Live View is also incredible on this camera, again I use it far more than I thought I would. You can even autofocus on specific areas/objects by simply tapping the screen. It's incredibly useful, and the screen is high enough quality that it really does your pictures justice. Very impressed with it.

Timelapse:
You can create a 4k timelapse video right in-camera. You can even create an 8k timelapse using the interval mode and the full resolution photos able to be taken by the D850, although this is not stitched together in-camera, so you'll need to do that yourself. There are some incredible timelapses out there produced by the D850 that you can watch, the image quality is exceptional. You can also use Silent Live View mode, and that'll not use any mechanical shutter. As stated in the camera's product description, this is great for saving on shutter cycles and improving battery performance.

Video:
In addition to the photography I enjoy, I love shooting video. As everyone knows, Nikon doesn't do as well as Canon in this regard. Of all Nikon's cameras, the D850 appears to be the best when it comes to shooting video. The autofocus while shooting video is not good, so you'd better settle on using manual focus. None of this means that the D850 will produce bad video. If you know how to work around some of the annoyances and less-than-stellar features, you'll get video that is just fine. Most of us, however, aren't getting the D850 for shooting video, so let's talk about the true purpose of this camera.

Image Quality:
Thus we arrive to the most important aspect of any camera review, the image quality. This is actually a section where I have very little to say, partly because I covered a lot of supporting info, and the other part because it's quite simple. This camera is a beast. It's got a whopping 45.7 megapixels. This was a major upgrade for me, coming from the 24.1 megapixels in my D5200. I'm incredibly impressed with the sheer amount of data collected in the RAW images especially coming from my D5200. The amount of detail I can bring out in post is impressive. As such, the RAW files are very large, so hopefully you have plenty of storage space. It has great low-light capabilities, and the autofocus works surprisingly well even in low light. I can't think of a single complaint about this category, which speaks to the incredible images this camera produces.

If you can afford it, I can't recommend this camera enough. It's an incredible piece of technology, one of the best cameras you can buy. If you are looking for an incredible full frame DSLR with no compromises (minus video of course) then look no further than the Nikon D850.

88 people found this helpful

Helpful

CKE

The Camera Nikon Needed to Release

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2017

Style: Body OnlySet: BaseVerified Purchase

This is the camera Nikon needed to release. Please allow me to explain.

Over the last 12-18 months I have found myself migrating away from my D750. For our production company I do about 50% stills and about 50% video. For video I use my GH5 - which for video - is a unbelievable. However.... it isn't that great for stills. The low light performance isn't great and as a whole... it lacks the finer points of higher end cameras. So I would use my D750 combined with my Otus 55mm for stills. The Otus is a beast - a fantastic lens that significantly outperforms the sensor on the D750.

This combination of the GH5 is fine for the studio... but when I travel it just becomes too much to carry. For travel I use a Fuji X100F -which is a fantastic little camera. It has a 50mm equivalent lens and produces photos that are the same resolution as my D750+Otus combo but with marginally less sharpness and color accuracy.

So my dilemma... why use Nikon equipment at all? I am not shooting sports or using telephoto lenses. Nikons are not superior for video.... and some of high end compact cameras nearly equal their performance (if you are primarily shooting mid-focal length primes ). Frankly, my Nikon D750 was ONLY being used when I was pairing it with a specialty lens. Sure there was the D810, but the increase in functionality didn't exactly overwhelm me. So - even in the studio - I was reaching for my Fuji X100F while leaving the larger Nikon D750 on the shelf.

Enter the Nikon D850

This is the camera they needed to release. The new sensor and increased resolution gives me a very compelling reason to use this camera. When combined with my Otus 55mm lens I have something that closely resembles medium format. I can crop, crop, and crop and still get excellent resolution and edge contrast. It is amazing. When used with autofocus lenses (like most normal people) I find it to be fast and extremely accurate. Easily the best I have ever used.

The D850 low light performance is also much better than the D750. Again it is the best I have ever used. I have taken high quality photos at ISO 3200- and honestly it is workable all the way to 12,800.

While the GH5 still has many more video features than the D850. That does not mean the D850 is a one trick pony. I can carry it on location with confidence that if I have issues with the GH5 the D850 can step in (or be used for B roll). Even better the D850's large sensor can provide far superior DOF control and low light performance. In fact, for some controlled interview settings I would speculate that the D850 could be the DSLR that you could use (when paired with a high end lens). The D850 sensor beats the GH5 and I would put Nikon's glass up against Sony (but that is just me).

A few things to remember

- Buy the high speed SD cards. They are crazy expensive, but they will fit directly into most computers while allowing you take photos almost as fast as you can push the button.

- This camera will start to expose lower end lenses. Consider the price of high quality glass into your equation for your overall investment.

- Most importantly... what are you doing with your camera? This is not... I repeat... NOT ... a camera for beginners. I would say that unless you are a real enthusiast or someone who uses their camera as a tool to make money you probably do not need the D850. If you can't answer the question "What specific feature of this camera do I NEED to aid me in taking (insert type of photo)" then don't buy it. Not only do you not need the D850 - it will be a hindrance to you. The menus can get complicated. The files will be unnecessarily large. If you shoot JPEGS in automode - do yourself and your wallet a favor and step down in camera.

Final verdict - A hand-down improvement in the Nikon line-up. Unless you need the high speed output of the D5 I am not sure why any pro wouldn't invest in the D850.

167 people found this helpful

Helpful

songster1928

I especially love picking focus points on the rear touch screen -- ...

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2018

Style: Body OnlySet: BaseVerified Purchase

I am not a professional photographer, but I do consider myself a serious-enough amateur to spend the amount this camera costs. I had been using a D810 previously and I kept the same trio of F2.8 zooms that I had been using with the D810.

In the month, my main focus was two weeks of shooting during a family trip to Greece and then videoing a house concert that my wife and I sponsored.

Plusses:

1. Even contrasted with the D810, the bigger sensor is worthwhile. In particular, if you are going to blow up a portion of an image, bring on the pixels! Using a Nikkor 70-200mm zoom with a 1.7 extender (the largest extender I've tried that does not visibly degrade the image quality, you can do more to bring out far objects in your shots. I know this will matter to me when I am shooting wildlife on a planned trip this summer.
2. The focusing system is more flexible than the D810 and more accurate. I especially love picking focus points on the rear touch screen -- so much easier than doing so using the buttons on the camera
3. Speaking of which... That rear screen. It is so clear and bright it pushes me to make more use of Live View, And about time Nikon offered a tilt screen. A great help when I was shooting the concert with the camera on a tripod. Last fall, I photographed the solar eclipse (from a park south of St. Louis. Camera on tripod, sun high in sky and I was lying in the dirt so I could keep an eye on the screen. With this camera, tilt the screen and that makes a difference for people my age. (I am old enough to have used a Nikon F when it was new.)
4. The ergonomics -- a lot of people have commented on the deeper hand grip. A real positive for handheld. And the move of the ISO button makes a lot of sense.
5. Expeed 5 processing. Almost every time, I adjusted the exposure to override the processor in Greece (lots of bright backlighting in Greek ruins) I found the camera's exposure was superior to my correction. Heck, its tough to teach an old dog like me new tricks, but I respect that processor.
6. Overall speed. I avoided the D800 because I thought it was too slow for my needs. The D810 was acceptable. This is great -- I do like shooting wildlife
6. ISO 64. Yes!!!! In that Greek sunshine I keep the ISO at 64 and the colors and resolution are just beautiful.

Cons:

1. This camera is heavy. Its the first Nikon I have owned where it has felt heavy in my hands. Not a problem walking around with the camera on a BlackRapid strap, but a whole day of hand held shooting... not sure. In Greece, we kept running into "no photography allowed" museums which is fine. But twice I elected to save weight by bringing a D610 body in the expectation that a museum would bar photos anyway. Both times, photos were allowed but shooting in a museum one does not need high pixel counts or speed.
2. The absence of the U1/U2 settings on the D610 -- easy to define personal settings. The Shooting Banks in the menu are not stable and not nearly as appealing.

11 people found this helpful

Helpful

Hiker

A Big Upgrade

Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2019

Style: Body OnlySet: BaseVerified Purchase

The D850 is a big improvement over my D7000. Using the same lens and exposure, the D850 does a noticeable better job. Can't tell if it is the increased pixel density, lack of anti aliasing filter, or what, but a definite improvement.

Haven't used all the available options, but life is easier with the D850. Focus stacking is so much easier. The D7000 would do it, but only after being tethered to my tablet/phone or connected with wifi using the TP-Link. Still not clear on how the length of a focus step is calculated, but just following the instructions have worked well so far, even when doing macro with tubes. Focus Peaking makes using manual lenses, including the Celestron C5, so much easier. Nice to have HDR as a menu option. I do like the HDR option on qDSLRDashboard better with up to 19 exposure available instead of only 3, but then I am back to having to carry my tablet again. With the improved dynamic range, also a noticeable improvement over the D7000, HDR may be almost a thing of the the past.

The D850 is supposed to get more photos per battery than the D7000. I think it will but you have to leave the live view/touch screen alone and that is hard to do. It works very well. Easy to see in bright sunlight, focus and shoot by touching the screen, using focus peaking, or setting up many of the on camera options require its use. The electronic shutter, with no noise or vibration, only works in live view. I can go through a battery on the D850 way faster than with the D7000.

Do miss not have a IR shutter release. It was so simple and quick to use on the D7000. Had to do a search on the internet to verify it wasn't on the D850. Still haven't figured out a fast way to do a wireless shutter release. Snapbridge is always there, but that is not fast. You could change your mind by the time that gets set up. It requires the WIFI connection to work.

The WIFI connection was a big disappointment at first, still not my favorite thing, but I have found a procedure that gets it up and going every time. Ignore the instructions when you try to connect with wifi. The bluetooth hasn't been a problem. Use the camera menu to turn it on and, if the phone/tablet is paired, it will quickly connect. The only thing bluetooth can do is use the phone/tablet GPS data to geotag your photos, update the time/date on your camera, and turn the camera wifi on. To turn the camera wifi on select "Download pictures" or "Remote photography" on the Snapbridge app on your phone/tablet. Every time I do this I get the message that the connection has failed. Ignore that and go to settings on the phone/tablet where you can now select the camera wifi on the list of available wifis because Snapbridge did turn it on, and select connect. Then go back to Snapbridge, select "Remote photography" and it will connect. Haven't found Snapbridge to be all that useful to control the camera so I usually go to qDSLRDashboard and connect with it. Works great and works every time, but why can't I just have a menu option, ON THE CAMERA, to turn the wifi on and off.

The other annoyance with the D850 was the cover for the hot shoe not being provided. I thought at first it must have been left out when the camera was packaged. Nope. You just don't get one. Over $3000 dollars for a camera and you have to get your own cover for the hot shoe. This is not my first new Nikon camera but it is the most expensive. I am almost positive this is the first time I had to go find my own hot shoe cover. It is a nice cover.

Hopefully Nikon continues updating Snapbridge and the D850. I do like the camera, but I will still find uses for the D7000, like long range backpacking, since it is lighter and easier on batteries. But then again, the D850 is only about 1 lbs heavier and I think I could learn to leave the live view alone....maybe.

Update
The latest firmware update, part C 1.10, added the option to turn WIFI on/off to the WIFI menu on the camera. Snapbridge is no longer needed to control the camera WIFI.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

otter

Exceeded my expectations, great camera

Reviewed in the United States on March 17, 2018

Style: Body OnlySet: BaseVerified Purchase

After a few months of almost daily use, I can confidently rate this camera as the best camera I have ever owned. I have used it in the rain, in the salt spray from ocean waves and the mist from waterfalls, it has held up well and it's weather sealing is excellent. The color and dynamic range are amazing. The native low ISO of 64 adds so much to my landscape photography, such clean images. At high ISO settings for night sky and nighttime architecture, the images are still c lean and have far less noise than other cameras I have used. The built in intervelometer is versatile and can be set to a wide variety of shooting situations. The built in time lapse feature is great for a hassle free time lapse, it is easy to program and does a good job. The in camera multiple shot mode is very useful for stacking exposures that can produce a "long exposure" effect without using an ND filter.

As the D850 was announced and getting ready to come on the market I had been looking to upgrade my camera body. It was a difficult decision and I did a lot of research. I finally settled on the Nikon D850 and I am extremely satisfied with the decision to buy this camera. Honestly it has exceeded my expectations. Sample photo included 0.6 seconds 14mm f11

133 people found this helpful

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R. Schedlbauer

A True Step up in Nikons Lineup

Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2017

Style: Body OnlySet: BaseVerified Purchase

I have now had the camera for a few days and wanted to give my initial thoughts on the D850. I am upgrading from the D810 and will give the review from this perspective.
The overall feel is very similar with a few small changes. The grip feels thinner but deeper and most people find it more pleasant. FOr some reason I actually preferred the D810 grip. The D850 grip sort of has a square feeling in my hand.
The button layout is a little different and overall I would say better. I prefer the ISO button on the right so you can make all major adjustments with the same hand. The joystick is much better for changing focus points. This could get annoying with the trackpad when you had to make larger focus point adjustments. The joystick makes this a quick process.
I love the tiltscreen and what it allows me to do. I shoot a lot of landscape and I will no longer have to bend or lay down to get a shot. It also allows overhead shots that can really change perspective.
The illuminated buttons are a welcomed addition. I shoot at night and its a nice option to have.

Image quality is amazing. You can see the difference in detail compared to the D810. Its not a huge jump but noticeable. I also think ISO 64 is cleaner on the D850. When raising shadows the colors are truer and the detail is not lost.
Some people have reported over a 1 stop gain in HIGH ISO. I don't believe this is true but I do think the D850 has cleaner High ISO shots. I do a lot of nightscapes and the D850 is definitely cleaner at ISO 3200- 6400. There is still noise to deal with but it is better. One area the D810 had issues with was hot pixels with long exposures. The D850 has greatly improved in this area. There is a few but it is much improved.
Overall if you were happy with the image quality of the D810 or D750 you will not be disappointed with the D850. Don't expect a huge improvement because the D810 and D750 were already amazing with IQ.

I haven't had a lot of chances to test the Auto focus system but I fully expect it to be tons better than the D810. I can say that the camera does a ton better focusing in lowlight. THe D810 struggled with this and I have yet to try and focus on something with the D850 and had it hunt for focus.

Some other features I really enjoy:
The focus stack feature has tons of potential. I have played with it a little and it really makes focus stacking a lot easier. I used it for a landscape scene but I am sure it will be great for macro.
I love the focus peaking feature for stills. I use manual focus lenses and it really does change the success rate with fast manual lenses. I am so happy this feature has been added.
The viewfinder is larger and looks nice but don't expect a huge difference. Its a small improvement.
The silent mode will come in handy but it takes getting used to. I would stand there wondering if I just took a shot because its completely silent. This is mostly awkward when doing long exposures because you end up touching the camera to check while its still taking the photo.

Overall the D850 is a definite winner and I think almost all buyers will be thrilled with it. If you plan to take advantage of the 7-9FPS I suggest investing in the XQD card.
I do wish Nikon would make the custom buttons even more customizable. There is still a lot of restrictions that seem so easy to correct.

243 people found this helpful

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Holly A. Heyser

Dazzling detail, but a few poor choices on Nikon's prt

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2020

Style: Body OnlySet: BaseVerified Purchase

I've been using the (much more expensive) Nikon D4 for my food photography since 2013, but as soon as this camera was announced, I realized it would be much better suited for what I do - high frame rates and high ISO performance just aren't that important to me. Now I've finally bought it!

Generally, I hate straight-out-of-the-box reviews where folks have barely used the product, but I've learned enough in five days of shooting that I feel confident sharing some well-informed first impressions. I'll update later if anything changes.

Here's what I love about this camera:

- Between the massive image size and the (about damned time) removal of the low-pass filter, image quality and detail is dazzling. Boggles my mind that other cameras have a filter that blurs detail to avoid moire. You can fix moire in Photoshop, but Photoshop can't reclaim the detail lost because of that filter.

- The focus shift function. I do a ton of focus stacking, and this camera automates (and perfects) the process of acquiring a series of shots that, when combined in Photoshop, capture everything in focus. I shoot stacks in about 1/10th the time now, which is really important for food - the longer you shoot, the more greens wilt and the more sauces congeal.

- Wifi. About time, Nikon! And amazingly, I have actually gotten the SnapBridge app to work, though it's clear from reviews that most people have had a lot of trouble with it. The CamRanger I used for my D4 had more functionality than SnapBridge (I especially miss the histogram), but the live view quality is a LOT better in SnapBridge, and viewing photos is a little easier. For what I need, it's adequate.

- Roll and pitch indicators in the viewfinder, not just in liveview.

- Touchscreen makes menus easier to navigate (and it's a LOT easier to "type" in it now, though a QWERTY keyboard would've made that a little easier)

Here's what I don't love:

-EN-EL15 battery. Really, Nikon - you give a serious camera that takes 50MB photos the same battery that my old D40X and Nikon1 use? That is NUTS. An impressive beast like this needs an impressive battery, like the EN-EL18. Yes, I know you can accessorize to use that battery, which I will probably end up doing, but the D850 should be built to use that battery right out of the gate.

-No built-in bottom grip for vertical shooting. Again, this is an impressive camera for serious photographers; it's silly that I should have to pay extra to add a grip. I shoot a lot of verts, so I'm sure I'll end up adding the grip (Vello for $100, not Nikon for ***$400*** - wtf?), but I shouldn't have to.

Obviously both of these items would have added to the cost, but I gladly would have paid another $500 for this camera to have those features built in.

- Settings banks, and I'm going to just quote Ken Rockwell on this because he says it well: "No camera-state presets, just the same clumsy 'settings banks' Nikon has used since 2003. The lesser cameras (D750 and down) are better here as they have two mode-dial settings, U1 and U2, that let us recall complete sets of camera settings with just one click." The settings banks just recall the camera the last way you used it, so you have to be extra careful to check whether you changed an important setting on your last shoot in that settings bank.

- For men only. Not really, but I'm still irritated as hell at Nikon for their 2017 publicity stunt for this model: sending 32 pro photogs across Japan to test the camera, but not including a single female photog among them. I've been a journalist since 1988 and I did not have one single newspaper job where there weren't a TON of female photographers. Nikon's oversight was stupid and insulting; I hope they never do that again.

28 people found this helpful

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seagoat8888

Fantastic camera, some notable improvements over the d800 but not perfect.

Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2017

Style: Body OnlySet: BaseVerified Purchase

I only got this camera a few days ago so I'll try to update my review as I go. I'm upgrading from the d800, which I looooved.

Pros:
- Touch screen is nice (with some caveats)
- Resolution bump is nice
- Improved Live View functionality, tap-to-focus-and-shoot is neat!
- Viewfinder is muuuuch better
- Shutter sound is nice. d800 was cool but loud, sounded like a guillotine coming down. This is much quieter.
- Flip screen is definitely useful, especially for video.
- Video quality (especially color) is better.
- Focus system is improved, though far from perfect. Face/object-tracking is nice but hit-or-miss. Re-selecting a face/target is confusing.
- Automated focus bracketing (and later stacking) opens up some fun opportunities.

Cons:
- Some low ISOs actually seem *noisier* at 1:1 than the d800, including ISO 400. Weird... Obviously with the added resolution you can resize to 36mp and get some pretty nice clean results, but I was still surprised by this.
- Video still not that useful for handheld (more details below).
- Rolling shutter.
- Video still 8-bit and thus has very limited utility in the end.
- Thumbpad is smaller, new joystick selector might be useful in the long run but at first it feels a bit convoluted as a second selection pad.
- Snapbridge drained my battery in one day (while the camera was off) without actually transferring anything useful.
- Menu system is super dated and doesn't really take advantage of the touch screen, and the entire wifi/bluetooth system feels underdeveloped, to put it lightly.
- I actually used my in-camera flash occasionally so not having that is significant.
- No GPS. I could probably buy shoes now that have GPS so not having this in 2017 seems silly.
- Battery charger does not include extension cord, so you can only plug directly into the wall, which may pose problems with crowded outlets. I think for $3,200 they should throw in a 50 cent cord.

Regarding video: It baffles me that cameras that can record 14-bit beautiful images don't offer the option for 10-bit video. I get that storage/bandwidth may be an issue, but this should be a priority for all of these DSLR companies. In 4 years I'm seeing great improvements in resolution, but what good is resolution when I can't tweak results in post and my sky will always blow out if I expose for everything else? It would absolutely be possible to shoot video with acceptable color in a very controlled situation. But if I have that much control, I'm likely to be on a budget where I can afford a camera with high-bitdepth files. So frustrating.

If you read the manual, while it's true that you can shoot in 4k, there are SO many caveats that it's insane. Nearly every cool feature is disabled if you're at that resolution. Notably, while there's a feature that digitally smooths camera motion (by shaving off the outer edges of the picture), you can't use it at 4k. You can do it in post, of course...

The pros absolutely outweigh the cons. In the end, I bought this for the image quality, and it's pretty great. There are enough changes to the features and controls that I literally am reading through the user's manual and trying to absorb the intended workflows. I was hoping my jaw would drop at the results, but this feels like incremental improvements. I won't be surprised if DXOmark calls it the best sensor on the market. But having waited 4 years, I guess I was hoping for more. I've barely scratched the surface on what you can do here, but early buyers need to know about some of these details.

UPDATED 10/12/17:

I was able to capture some decent video in terms of color, where the range in the scene wasn't too bright.

However, I'm finding the autofocus system in video mode to be absolute GARBAGE. Plan on manually focusing. Relatedly, I have focus peaking turned on, but it seems to only work when in Liveview *stills* mode, not video. Still need to figure out why I can't see it when shooting video.

Regarding my above comment on noise at low ISOs, it seems to only show up occasionally. Sometimes the images are cleaner, sometimes at 1:1 they are pretty noisy.

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