Klaus Tan (Facebook | Instagram | Flickr) shares his quick review of the Nikon D7500 DSLR camera ($1,246.95):
Nikon Singapore recently invited me to have a hands-on experience with the D7500. The event was held at a wake park, basically an enclosed cable ski park for wakeboarders. The camera packs a punch within its almost featherweight mass of 640 grams, considering the powerful features it packs. It inherits many features once unavailable in enthusiast-level cameras from its professional range cousins. It indeed lives up to the claims of a more ergonomic design with deeper grip – I could exert a more firm grip on the camera than its D7200 predecessor.
One of the most celebrated features in this new body is the full touch screen feature. Previously, the D500 and D5 models already had a nifty touchscreen however, it was only activated for live view and browsing of photographs, and couldn’t be used to navigate the menu. Now with the new touchscreen functionality, I’m able to key in important details with much ease, for example, copyright information and captions. It’s a sleek two-axis tiltable screen of a sturdy build.
The D7500 uses the same powerful EXPEED 5 image processing engine and image sensor as it’s bigger brother the D500. I could count on its fast autofocus to deliver sharp focusing on all subjects, regardless of however small an aperture used, at times f5.6. The lenses Nikon Supplied for testing were the AF-S NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR. AF-S NIKKOR 300mm F2.8G ED VR II and AF-S NIKKOR 200-400mm f/4G ED VR II. Admittedly, the camera’s small body size is both a boon and a bane. For portability, it scores with enthusiasts. However, it is unstable when mounted on these huge professional telephoto lenses that cost 5 times its price! (Then again, it’s not built for this kind of use, we’d rather use a D5 or D500 instead).
There was evidently strong backlight from the bright afternoon sun, and I’m impressed with the D7500’s performance under such dynamic conditions. The buffer of 50 raw frames (14-bit lossless compressed) was huge and incredible for an enthusiast level camera, however, there was regrettably the lack of support for XQD cards. I found my SD card write speed struggling to keep up with the D7500’s insane fps trigger, at times taking about 30 seconds to completely store all images captured after a full out 50 frames burst. The 8fps continuous shooting rate was a much-welcomed improvement (even faster than a D750). The group area autofocus was able to nail the subjects for most of the time and works nicely to complement the 8fps rate.
The average JPEG file sizes at full resolution and Fine quality is at 15mb, and I’m pleased as those of my D750 normally lie in the 30mb range.
In conclusion, the D7500 is the camera perfect for all enthusiasts, packing a punch worth more than its humble price. For anyone deliberating which DSLR to start their photography journey with, the answer is straight: Get the D7500.
Nikon D7500 sample photos can be found on Flickr:
If you have an interesting idea for a guest post, you can contact me here.
For additional coverage, follow the new Nikon D7500 Facebook group.
