Recently I tested the Nikon D500 sensor for long exposure noise, and to be honest it performed a little worse than I expected initially, but the more I thought about it the more realistic I became about my expectations. After all it was the D500, the new D300(s).
There is no doubt that the D500 is going to do great in the reviews, you only have to look at the specs on paper and combine that with the unchanged layout to entice existing D300 owners, and you are on a winner. With 10 frames per second shooting and 153 Auto Focus points it’s going to be a sports or wedding shooters dream.
But what about the long exposure high ISO?
The D500 performed slightly better at 1 second than it’s closest rival the D7200, but performed worse at 30 and 300 seconds. But the more I thought about this, the more it made sense, after all not many general users push cameras beyond 30 seconds, and most will never be taking shots at even 1 second. For sports or wedding use it’s going to be well above 1 second. In some respects I can understand why manufacturers care little about long exposure and high ISO, it really is the 0.05% use case. For all other uses this camera is going to beat the D7200, and possibly any in it’s class*
However it is worth remembering that manufacturing tolerances do occur from body to body, and with this in mind I will be re-testing the D500 as soon as I can get another body just to confirm the outcome.
The results, can be viewed here.
*I have no idea, just speculation.