CES 2016: Nikon D500 Announcement And Specs

Nikon introduced today several new products including the flagships D5 and (surprise!) the new D500 – the long awaited replacement for the D300/S model and the top of the line Nikon DX.

The above video shot by Photographer Matt Granger (aka ThatNikonGuy) at CES 2016 earlier today at the Nikon press conference where the company introduced several products including the D5 and D500 as well as a new 5000-SB speedlight and an action camera.

Nikon did one of the most surprising (and to be honest strange) announcement this CES. It completely skipped on almost all of the technical details of the D500 and emphasized a very small number of details, however we have been able to gather so of the key points and they are almost as surprising as the announcement itself:

Sensor: DX (APS-C), 20.9MP CMOS sensor.
Sensitivity: 50 –51,200 ISO.
Processor – EXPEED 5.
AF: 153 AF points including 99 cross type points (up to -4EV).
Video: 4K @30p.
Continuous shooting – 10 fps.
Memory – SD and XQD.
Connectivity – SnapBridge (Wi-Fi + Bluetooth) capabilities.
Shutter – 30-1/8000s.
3.2 inch touch LCD with tilt – 2.359k dots.
Price: $2000.

One of the most interesting features of the D500 is SnapBridge – this technology allows the camera to be constantly connected to a smart device with the free SnapBridge app installed via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. This will enables a variety of features: including:

Automatically transfer images taken with the D500 to your smart device
Upload images automatically to NIKON IMAGE SPACE.
Use the smart device to browse images stored in the camera, as well as embed images with its location and date/time information.

The exact details are not clear yet (can you save images on your phone can you send them to Dropbox, can you send them to a computer? what about RAW?), but the basic idea sound very exciting.

The D500 looks like a smaller DX version of the D5 – both cameras have similar resolution (notice that the D500 has a lower resolution than the rest of the DX line and probably performs better in low light), has a similar (although probably not identical) AF system with 152 points (99 crossed with the center good up to -4 EV and the rest up to -3EV – which should give very good low light performance) based on a 180K-pixel RGB sensor.

You can see an official D500 video and more specs on the D500 mini site.

Quick demo of the D500 contentious shooting speed at CES 2016

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx1Vvv6eSAs[/youtube]

Images of the new D500

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Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.