Nikon D850
The Nikon D850 has caused quite a stir since its launch, but how does it perform in the hands of a professional user? Michael Topham gave it a thorough workout
Michael Topham is suitably impressed with Nikon’s follow up to its full-frame d810
Acouple of months ago, Nikon announced it was working on a follow-up to its high-resolution full-frame D810. But the statement offered little in the way of detail. Would it be everything professionals had been hoping for? Many had their fingers crossed.
By the time the the wraps finally came off the D850, excitement levels had reached fever pitch. While it was expected that the resolution would exceed the 36 million pixels offered by 2012’s D800/D800E, and the D810, more of a surprise was the radical increase in shooting speed, the boost in the sensitivity range and the host of other improvements that have created one of the most capable professional full-frame DSLRs ever made.
If you’ve wondered why so many professionals carry one camera that’s good for high-speed shooting and another for high resolution, it’s because there’s never been the perfect hybrid. Nikon’s answer is the D850, which sets its sights on being the perfect all-rounder for those who want a blend of high resolution, fast shooting and impressive noise response.
On paper, the Nikon D850 offers a jaw- dropping spec that’s geared up to tackle almost any situation. Even better is the price (£3,499 body only), which is a lot, but less than what many expected.
Features
Inside the Nikon D850 is an all- new 45.7- million-pixel, full-frame (FX-format) CMOS sensor that does away with an optical low-pass filter and packs gapless on- chip microlenses with a backside-illuminated architecture to maximise its
light- gathering capabilities. The camera offers a standard sensitivity range of ISO 64 to 25,600, expandable to ISO 32 and 102,400. Nikon has paired this new sensor next to the same Expeed 5 image processor found in its flagship D5. This has helped bring its continuous shooting speed up to a healthy 7fps, and there’s the option to boost this to 9fps with the optional MB- D18 grip (£369) and EN- EL18 high-power battery. At 7fps, the D850 has a 51-frame raw buffer, and with an XQD card slot next to the UHS- II- compatible SD card slot, it offers good prospects for sports and action photographers who demand nothing but the fastest read/write speeds.
The D850 also inherits an autofocus system directly from the D5. It sports 153 focus points (of which 55 are user-selectable), including 99 cross-type, and 15 that will work with lens and teleconverter combinations with an aperture of f/8. The centre point is sensitive to - 4EV, and the rest to -3EV, allowing the camera to focus quickly in low light. Autofocus modes include auto area, 3D colour tracking, single-point AF and the option to select the number of continuous (AF- C) focus points from a group of 9, 25, 72 or 153. In live view, there’s a new pinpoint AF mode that’s designed to ease precise focusing on smaller subjects in the frame, but without any form of on- chip phase detection, Nikon is still relying entirely on contrast detection for autofocus.
Metering is left in the capable hands of the manufacturer’s 180,000-pixel RGB sensor – yet another feature inherited from the D5. This metering sensor is used for subject-recognition purposes, including face detection, which feeds information to the AF system for accurate and precise subject tracking.
If you’re worried about how quickly the D850 might clog up storage devices with its huge 8256x5504-pixel files, fear not. Nikon has added two reduced image-size options when recording in raw or JPEG. Change the image size from large to medium and the D850 will record 25.6-millionpixel files, with the small setting reducing the resolution to 11.4- million-pixel files. In addition to this, the D850 has a DX crop mode that is automatically selected when a DX lens is attached, but can be used in combination with FX lenses for those who’d like a bit more reach at the telephoto end. It may use only a small area of the sensor, but it still produces adequate resolution (19.4MP) with a 5408x3600 pixel count. To put things in perspective, the resolution produced in the D850’s DX crop mode isn’t much less than the 20.9-million-pixel resolution produced by the D7500 and D500.
On the video side of things, the D850 is capable of in- camera 4K recording at 30fps using the full width of the sensor. While 4K time-lapse movies can also be generated in- camera, strangely, the only feature Nikon chose to reveal early – 8K time-lapse – can’t, instead requiring the use of third-party software. A more accurate description would have been to say the camera has a built-in intervalometer.
Elsewhere, there’s new in- camera focus bracketing to create extended depth- offield composites as well as a
new Natural Light Auto White Balance option, which promises optimal results in outdoor lighting conditions. Hopefully, this should solve Nikon’s inclination to over-neutralise outdoor shots and give them more warmth.
Other impressive features are found at the back of the camera. The optical viewfinder is the largest yet on a Nikon DSLR, with a 0.75x magnification, and below it you get a 2.36-million- dot LCD that tilts up and down. It fully supports touch functionality so you can use it to navigate menus, browse images in playback or set the AF point in live view.
The camera is powered by Nikon’s familiar EN- EL15a battery, but what’s particularly impressive is that it can take 1,840 shots on a single charge – a big jump from the D810’s 1,200. The D850 gets Nikon’s SnapBridge connectivity as a means of wirelessly transferring images to mobile devices. Images can be transferred as you shoot, and by selecting the all-important down-sampling 2MP mode, it rapidly speeds up transfer times and saves on valuable storage space.
Build and handling
Professional full-frame DSLRs have to be built like tanks if they’re going to withstand the rigours of daily use and rough treatment. The D850 is no exception, and Nikon has produced an incredibly strong camera that feels superbly constructed, albeit with a few subtle body changes over the D810.
To give it its strength and rigidity, the D850 is built around a magnesium-alloy chassis that’s fully weather sealed. Nikon has also taken the decision to remove the pop-up flash – something that isn’t found on many of today’s most resilient professional DSLRs.
From the front, the D850 doesn’t appear too different from the D810, but once it’s in your hands, you realise the grip is a fraction deeper. It’s a beefy grip that accommodates the largest of hands and your index finger is left to rest comfortably on the shutter button. I’d say it’s one of the most comfortable pro DSLRs I’ve used.
Every inch of the body features buttons, dials or connector ports, with sufficient dedicated controls to change every key shooting setting without needing to access the menus. In terms of layout, there are a few nice touches. For example, there’s a new joystick that falls naturally under the thumb for shifting the focus point around the frame on the fly. It’s faster to use than the four-way controller and its knurled texture helps differentiate it from the AF- ON button. Nikon’s decision to put the ISO button above the drive-mode dial on the D810 was always a curious one, so it’s good to see this being exchanged with the mode button. This means sensitivity can now be changed without having to pull your eye away from the viewfinder.
At the rear are the usual menu, lock, playback zoom and OK buttons to the left of the screen, but there’s also a new customisable Fn2 button that’s brilliant for rating images in playback. It can be set up to access My Menu and toggle between stills and movie shooting info in live view. The integrated live view button and stills/movie switch has shifted down and the info button is useful for viewing key exposure settings on-screen.
The D850 has a few other nice touches. Flicking the on/off switch to its bulb position illuminates the top-plate LCD, as well as many other buttons, for shooting in the dark. In addition, there’s a clever folding port cover that keeps the headphone socket protected when a microphone is plugged in.
Viewfinder and screen
As the D810 only had a fixed screen, it’s good to see Nikon embracing a tilting touchscreen on a high-resolution pro-spec DSLR. When we asked Canon why one wasn’t fitted to the EOS 5D Mark IV, the company’s response was that it compromises the weather sealing – something Nikon has set out to prove wrong.
The screen is essentially the same 2.36-million- dot LCD that you get on the D500. It tilts up and down for waist-level shooting, but only when you’re working in the landscape format. The angle of tilt the screen offers is particularly good for low and high-angle shooting, and it can now be used to browse menus and change menu settings. It doesn’t go as far as allowing you to change exposure variables from the info display or live view screen, but it’s a big step in the right direction. As for its response, it’s incredibly sensitive, rivalling the response of Canon’s superb touchscreens.
The viewfinder is equally as impressive as the screen. It doesn’t offer a preview of white balance, exposure or depth of field in the way an electronic viewfinder can,
but with its 0.75x magnification and 100% frame coverage, it offers a very pleasing view when raised to the eye. It’s possible to turn a viewfinder grid display on and I found myself assigning the Fn1 button to viewfinder virtual horizon, which loads a levelling guide on the horizontal and vertical axes. Being the optical type, the viewfinder has zero lag, incredibly short blackout time and there’s the option to block it out to prevent light leaks during long exposures.
Autofocus
Nikon’s professional DSLRs have long had a good reputation for their fast, accurate focusing. The D850 is no exception, and with the same Multi- CAM 20K autofocus sensor module as that found in the D5, it can be relied on to acquire focus faster than you can think. What’s most impressive is its ability to acquire accurate focus in poor lighting conditions. Dimly lit dance floors at wedding venues and low-light wildlife shots are just a couple of examples where the D850’s autofocus system excelled. I experienced no difficulty tracking moving subjects travelling directly towards the camera, even in fading light. A quick-fire burst of 18 frames at 7fps set to continuous AF (AF- C) resulted in just three frames of a train travelling towards the camera at 60mph not being pin sharp. The 55 user- selectable points are expanded relative to the D810, but they’re still grouped towards the centre of the frame, so there may be the odd occasion when your subject is positioned in an area of the frame where you need to focus first and then recompose.
Similarly to other Nikon DSLRs, the AF is changed between single (AF-S) and continuous (AF- C) modes by pressing the AF button that’s located inside the AF/MF switch and turning the rear dial. Holding the button and turning the front dial controls the number of points in use in AF- C mode and is also used to select 3D AF tracking. From the autofocus custom setting menu, you can refine AF settings to suit your way of shooting – for example, speed up or slow down the blocked-shot AF response and tell the camera whether you’re shooting an erratic or steady-moving subject from the focus tracking with lock- on settings. Users can reduce the number of selectable AF points from 55 to 15, and back-button focusing is easily set up from the AF activation submenu.
Performance
As the D850 is such a versatile camera, I found myself shooting a wide range of subjects in many different environments to find out how it performs. First, I shot a series of landscapes and quickly found myself blown away by the astonishing detail the sensor resolves. The marriage of super-high resolution, fast
focus speed and a tilt-angle screen allowed me to capture shots bursting with detail very quickly from low angles – and far more easily than any previous high-resolution Nikon DSLR. The crystal- clear display, with its responsive touch control and accurate colour rendition, is excellent for monitoring results, and I regularly used the doubletap function with the rear dial to zoom in to 100% and check focus between shots. Even if you’re not overly keen on the idea of using a touchscreen on a DSLR, the D850’s unit is so good that you’re likely to use it more than you think, especially to navigate the menu.
Testing the D850 at a wedding produced a pleasing set of results with two of my favourite Sigma Art lenses – the 24-35mm f/2 DG HSM Art and 135mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art. The true test in the church was its silent live view mode, opting for Mode 1 ahead of Mode 2 to prioritise resolution over speed. While it’s great that the D850 can capture shots without a trace of sound, allowing you to work discreetly, you’re still totally reliant on contrast- detection for autofocus in live view, both when shooting stills and video. I did miss a few key shots when the D850 struggled to lock on fast enough, at which point I reverted to phase- detection focusing and composing via the viewfinder at the cost of louder operation. The D850 doesn’t have anything on the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, which benefits from on- chip phase detection in live view thanks to its Dual Pixel AF technology. The caveat is that the EOS 5D Mark IV doesn’t offer a silent mode in live view like the D850.
To test the D850’s speed capabilities, I used it on a car shoot – hanging out the back of a car to get a series of action shots. Without the MB- D18 grip and EN- EL18a battery, I was limited to shooting at 7fps, but the AF system proved more than capable of tracking the car and delivered pin-sharp results frame after frame. However, shooting in raw and Fine JPEG formats at full resolution only gave me around 400 shots or so to play with using a SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB card. If you’re going to shoot at the highest quality at the highest speed on the D850, you’re not only going to need a few high- capacity cards, but you’ll also need the best quality cards. I managed to shoot 20 continuous frames (raw and Fine JPEG) at full resolution at 7fps to my card before the buffer was reached. To get anywhere close to the promised 51-frame raw buffer and reach the full potential of the D850’s speed capabilities, you’ll be required to use the finest UHS- II SD cards or XQD cards.
Just as my time with the camera came to an end, I managed to source a Sony 64GB XQD card. In real-world use I found I was recording around 40 (14-bit lossless compressed) raw files at 7fps before its buffer was reached. This is an impressive number considering the vast volume of data it was being asked to process and write, but is slightly under the promised 51-frame raw buffer. Formatting the card and switching to 12-bit lossless compressed raw saw the number of continuously recorded frames increase to 107 at 7fps.
As for Nikon’s wireless connectivity, I found the camera would automatically pair and connect to my iPhone via Bluetooth without a problem, but wouldn’t always send my latest shots to my mobile device straight away when the auto link within the app was clearly switched on. It seemed completely random as to when new photos would be transferred from the camera. To overcome this, I ended up using the ‘download selected pictures’ option, which initiates a Wi- Fi connection with the camera. I then manually selected the images I wanted to transfer to my camera roll wirelessly before sharing. Having the option to select which shots you’d like to import at 2MB or full resolution is great in this part of the app, but overall I was left with the impression that SnapBridge could be made much more intuitive. The fact it doesn’t offer the option to change exposure settings live in remote shooting mode also puts it way behind other apps from rival manufacturers.