Nikon D850 / SHOOTING REPORT vol.1 vol.2

At last, the so-long-awaited Nikon D850 has been released with great fanfare.

Let's start with the looks. One of our photographers, who is a D810 user, felt the body thinner and he is right. While the height and length are almost the same as the D810, it has become 3mm thinner. That's a big difference and our hands are sensitive enough to feel it. In fact, the D850 doesn't employ the monocoque body construction like the D750 does. While products using monocoque construction tend to be bigger, the D850 is thinner and this is what it means to be a Nikon. Of course, they did it to improve the rigidity and it's an important improvement particularly when using large-diameter lenses and a tripod.

Other differences from the D810 include the shape of the pentaprism area as it doesn't have the pop-up flash anymore. As for the area around the "Nikon" logo, I think the D850 looks cooler and more professional. Another good news is that it now has a tilting rear LCD. We finally can enjoy the convenience when taking low angle shots. The extra 35g must be the result of the body construction and the tilting LCD. Now, let's take a look at the samples. They're all JPEG images SOOC.

( Photography & Text : NB )

One of the new features of the D850 is the backside-illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor. Although we will examine the difference brought by the new sensor by comparing it with the D810 in our next report, I already felt the difference. One element to explain the difference is the increase of the number of pixels, not to mention. However, I think the effect of using BSI CMOS sensor is more tangible as the images look clearer and unclouded even though they are shot in lowlight conditions.

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The CMOS sensor of the D850 is now loaded with outrageous 45.75 megapixels, 9.4 megapixels more than the D810's 36.35 megapixels. To be honest, even 36.35 megapixels were just enough for me and for you, right? Usually, when the number of pixels is extremely large, it brings many issues. Nikon solved them by using the efficient BSI sensor.
* You can view the two images above at their original size by clicking on them.

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Another issue with large number of pixels is the size of data. But, the D850 writes out the data so quickly! Actually, I never had to "wait" because it was so instant. This is hard to believe considering the size of the data, but it was a reality even though I used an SD card whose writing speed wasn't the fastest. If you use an XQD card or an SD card with a higher performance, you will never have to complain. While it still uses the D5's image processor (EXPEED 5), the image quality is still excellent.

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Perfect!

Because I could test the camera only for two days, I will ask the second reviewer to check the ISO 26500, silent mode, and continuous shooting capability. If someone asks me to describe the D850 with one word, I'd say "perfect." Even though I was extremely meticulous in testing this camera, I couldn't find any flaws. This camera best represents the spirit of Nikon, who is cerebrating its centennial anniversary this year. We sometimes had to hear unpleasing news, but I'm happy to feel their real strength by shooting the D850.

( 02.09.2017 )