Nikon D5500 test: many aspiring photographers will want to pick up this particular lightweight and compact DSLR

For some people DSLR is a fashion trend. Others want to master more advanced techniques to shoot quite professionally. Some just want to take higher quality photos than on a smartphone or point-and-shoot, but aren’t going to bother their heads with complicated settings. For advanced amateurs, manufacturers offer entry-level DSLRs: maximum automatic modes, minimum buttons and settings. Among them are such enthusiasts who like taking party photos, photography becomes a serious hobby.

For fans who are rapidly gaining creative “muscle,” manufacturers create even more advanced models. They don’t have a hundred buttons and a dozen of control dials, but they have all the settings to go into conscious creativity and eventually move on to something more technically serious. The new entry-level Nikon D5500 is a good photo springboard for many amateurs. It may turn out that a photographer who grew up with the D5500 will never part with it and will keep it as a spare one – it has so many different possibilities in its arsenal.

Nikon D5500 SLR camera

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Specifications

Sensor – APS-C DX Nikon , 23,5 x 15,6 mm, CMOS 24,72 MP, 6000×4000 pixels

Lens mount – F Nikon lens mount.

Compatible lenses – Autofocus is supported with AF-S and AF-I lenses. Autofocus is not available with other types of G and D lenses, AF lenses IX NIKKOR and for F3AF lenses are not supported and AI-P lenses. Lenses without a microprocessor can be used in mode M, but the camera’s exposure meter will not work. The electronic rangefinder can be used with lenses with a maximum aperture of f/5.6 or higher.

Image stabilization – not available, many interchangeable lenses including entry level have optical stabilization

Viewfinder – penta-mirror direct-mirror viewfinder,

Frame coverage is approximately 95% horizontal and 95% vertical,

Monitor – 8.1 cm. TFT LCD touch screen with 170° viewing angle, near-100% frame coverage, viewfinder sensor switchable and dimmable. Resolution approx. 1037,000. pixels 720 x 480 x 3 = 1,036,800 pixels

Focusing – Single AF tracking AF-S continuous AF tracking AF-C automatic selection of AF-S/AF-C mode AF-A predictive AF tracking, which switches on automatically according to the state of the subject. Manual focus MF : electronic rangefinder possible, Live View focusing, 39 focus points including 9 cross-type sensors

Shutter speed ranges of 30 sec. – 1/4000 sec. in 1/3 or 1/2 EV increments, long by hand, flash sync 1/250 s

Shooting modes – P, A, S, M, 16 scene modes, 10 special effects D-Lighting, HDR

Exposure metering – 2016-point sensor, multi-segment, center-weighted. Correction ± 5 EV

Flash – Built-in, I-TTL, Guide Number 12, the ability to connect an external system of creative lighting.

Sensitivity – ISO 100-25600 ISO in 1/3 EV steps, Auto ISO with flexible adjustment

Photo formats – RAW 12 and 14 bit, RAW+JPG, JPG

Memory cards – All types of SD cards, one slot

Continuous shooting – about 5 frames per second Low-speed shooting: up to 3 frames per second. High-speed shooting: up to 5 frames per second JPEG and 12-bit NEF/RAW or up to 4 frames per second 14-bit NEF/RAW . Note. Frame rates are listed assuming continuous tracking AF, manual exposure or shutter-priority auto exposure, shutter speed 1/250 s or shorter, the shutter is selected for custom setting “a1” “AF-C Priority Selection” , and all other settings are set to defaults.

Interval video – yes, flexibly adjustable

Video shooting is Full HD 1920×1080, 60 fps

Interfaces – USB mini B, HDMI mini C, microphone and headphones, Wi-Fi, NFC

Power – battery EN-EL14a

Dimensions – 124 x 97 x 70 mm

Weight 470 grams with battery and memory card

Retail Price – from 42 000 Dollars

Appearance and design

For a DSLR camera, Nikon’s novelty is, you might say, miniature, but it has a deep and comfortable grip, located, however, quite close to the lens.

The weight of the camera is a pleasant surprise. New Nikon became not only smaller but also lighter than its predecessor Nikon D5300, and compared to the same Nikon D7200 weighs like a feather -470 grams without a lens vs 765. And that means that instead of heavy full-frame lenses with the Nikon D5500, you can and should use lighter and more compact DX lenses, which take up a fraction of the space in your backpack, and weigh significantly less. At the same time they give excellent image quality, and are also equipped with a system of vibration reduction VR, which greatly expands the conditions for their use and allows you to take a bulky tripod on the less usual. So photographers who choose the Nikon D5500 will have to lug around a lot less cargo. In the mountain hiking is a decisive reason to take with just D5500 instead of something more professional. And simple walks around town with a small and lightweight backpack will be much more pleasant.

Ergonomics and controls

The older camera in the “amateur” Nikon D7200 line loudly proclaims its desire to look “like a Pro” – the size, layout of controls, the number of buttons and switches. The Nikon D5500, on the other hand, says it’s an amateur. In fact, the D5500 has a completely different control system. There are very few buttons on the camera body, the mode dial is on the right side of the camera and instead of two wheels on the camera there is only one – under your thumb. In addition, in the process, it turns out that the most necessary functions are still put on the buttons, and all the others are not so far away.

On the mode dial at the top are: “full automatic”, program modes there are sixteen, from shooting the night sky to portraits of animals , modes with special effects beginners should definitely try – you can get cool photos with the effect of “toy camera” or vanilla colors without the tedious work in the editors .

Of course, there is a creative set of programs – program auto mode with flexible program P , aperture priority mode A and shutter speed S and fully manual M . Fine notches on the dial make it easy to operate the camera even with wet hands or when wearing gloves.

Next to the dial there is a switch to go into LiveView mode. Such an arrangement seems a little risky – long and quite a lot protruding over the body of the switch is always afraid of accidentally hit. But in all the time I worked with the camera I never accidentally switched LiveView on, but when the mode needed to be activated the lever literally jumped into my hands.

The buttons for movie recording, exposure compensation, focus lock and AE Lock, menu and info buttons, and zoom in and out buttons. Nothing is superfluous, everything is under your fingertips and you don’t have to reach for a single button to grab the camera. The size and stroke of the buttons is ideal for comfortable operation. The thumb wheel for adjusting settings and aperture in mode A and shutter speed in mode S is also right where you’d expect to find it. Fine knurling makes it easy to work with gloves on.

Separately, let’s focus on the buttons to the left of the lens. Here are the “Flash Mode” and “Flash Correction” buttons, the programmable Fn button, as well as a universal button that switches the camera from single-shot to continuous shooting at high and low speed, as well as “Self-timer” and remote-controlled shooting. Here, among these buttons hide several windows into the world of professional photography at once. The programmable Fn button can be used to set one of eight functions that are traditionally assigned to separate buttons in professional cameras – such as exposure bracketing or selecting the D-Lighting mode of operation. I put ISO speed, one of the most important shooting parameters, on this button.

Button to select the shooting mode between single-shot, burst, or self-timer is also a joy. In the settings, you can set how many seconds after you press the button the camera takes a picture – two, five, ten, or twenty. The self timer with two or five second shutter speeds is a good substitute for the shutter release when using a tripod. The ten second delayed shutter release lets you get your camera on a tripod and run in for the shot. Self-timer setting also lets you specify how many shots the camera takes after one press – from one to nine.

If you continue to explore the settings, it turns out that Nikon D5500 has a function from the category of professional – pre-lift mirror. When you turn this feature on, the camera will first raise the mirror, but will take the picture a second later. This eliminates camera shake from slamming the mirror and gets perfectly sharp shots. Such a function is very valuable in landscape photography, where sharpness and technical perfection of the picture are especially important.

I must say that in all my time with the camera, I have never accidentally bumped a single button, switch, or wheel. But the buttons on the sides of the camera should be at least a little higher above the body – when you’re not used to finding them, it’s almost impossible, especially if you’re working with a camera with gloves on.

The Nikon D5500’s display deserves special attention. A huge 8.1 cm diagonal , high resolution 1036800 dots , wide viewing angle and excellent color reproduction, and even touch. Right from the screen you can control focus and exposure metering, set shutter speed, aperture, aperture ratio and other key shooting parameters. What’s more, in LiveView mode, you can use one touch of the screen not just to select the focus point, but also to focus and take a picture. It’s very handy when you’re shooting a fast-moving scene and you just don’t have time to choose your focus point with the multi selector.

Nikon engineers have found another clever use for the camera’s touch display – you can set the base-mounted display as a touch button and program it with one of eight functions, including bracketing mode, D-Lighting, focus mode and more. And it works like this. When you hold the camera up to your face and peer through the viewfinder, the display turns off, thanks to a special sensor, so as not to dazzle the photographer. At this point, without moving the camera away from your face, you can touch the right half of the touchscreen display, as if pressing a touch button. It’s worth mentioning that during my time with the camera I’ve never accidentally pressed the display.

Also, the Nikon D5500’s display swivels. It opens up additional opportunities for creativity – with such a display you can get very high angles, and to shoot “from the ground” you do not have to lie down on the same ground. Very cool, especially in late autumn when you mostly have to lie down in puddles, wet grass or mud. The pivoting display also helps in street photography. People, especially in America, react very ambiguously to attempts to shoot them. Negative reaction, as a rule, is when the camera is held up to the eye level and directed at them. But if you flip down the display and hold the camera at chest level, your attempts to photograph a person up close most likely won’t even be noticed.

There is an opinion that every additional hinge in the design of the rotary screen increases the risk of breakage. This is not the case with the Nikon D5500. The hinge on the camera’s display is structurally sturdy and reliable, but it also moves smoothly and locks securely into position.

Sensor and processor

Like most amateur cameras, the Nikon D5500 uses a cropped sensor, meaning its diagonal is half the size of a standard 35mm film frame. That means you have to multiply the focal length of any lens by one and a half. Seemingly not the best option if you want to shoot with wide-angle lenses. But today Nikon has an AF-A DX Nikkor 10-24, which becomes a 15-36 on a cropped lens, and that’s good enough for taking pictures of impressive landscapes with a “hard” foreground. Similarly, the cropped factor affects the focal lengths of telephoto lenses. For example, the already respectable focal length of 300 mm turns into 450, and this is enough to take pictures of wild animals or planes at the MAKS air show.

The comparatively large sensor size of 24.78 megapixels allows you to not only take huge 6000×4000 pixels pictures, but also to crop some frames with not the most successful composition without much loss of quality. Although do not rely heavily on this feature – remember, professionals are always trying to compose a future photo as accurately as possible at the time of shooting. But if you took a picture of some animal, plant or insect, and you just missed the zoom, then the cropping can be an excellent option to zoom in on the main character in your picture.

Also DX-matrix cameras and DX lenses are objectively smaller and lighter than their full-frame counterparts, which means that with the Nikon D5500 your backpack or photo bag will be much lighter. It’s hard to experience the joys of light weight when you’re at home, but if you take your camera on a long trip through the mountains or even on a long walk through town, you’ll realize how much the DX format saves you.

Lightness, together with shutter speed and aperture, is one of the most important shooting parameters. For a long time high ISO values were the prerogative of professional full-frame cameras, and DX-matrices of amateur segment cameras started to make a lot of noise at high ISO, pervert colors and lose the dynamic range. Fortunately for beginner photographers those days are in the past and low-noise sensors are being used in budget-priced equipment as well.

So, it’s the ISO range that is the main difference between the Nikon D5500 and its predecessor, the D5300, and its younger sister, the D3300. The new camera has an ISO range of 100 to 25600, and the entire range can be considered working ISO. At the lowest ISO of 100 the picture is perfect, the noise is insignificant and almost imperceptible even in places with a uniform color fill. This is the speed you can, and should, set for landscape photography to get a technically perfect picture.

Daytime shooting with D5500

ISO 100

ISO 125

ISO 160

ISO 200

ISO 250

ISO 320

ISO 400

ISO 640

ISO 500

ISO 800

ISO 1000

ISO 1250

ISO 1600

ISO 2000

ISO 2500

ISO 3200

ISO 4000

ISO 5000

ISO 6400

ISO 8000

ISO 10000

ISO 12800

ISO 16000

ISO 20000

ISO 25600

See Night Photography on the Nikon D5500

However, if you don’t have a tripod with you when you take landscapes and you need a fast shutter speed that is fast enough for handheld photography, you can go as fast as ISO 400. Noise is still minimal up to ISO 800, although it is already noticeable, but fine detail on uniform surfaces such as textured plaster is perfectly preserved. Noise continues to increase with increasing aperture ratio, but you can consider it acceptable up to ISO 3200 and even 4000.

Further increasing the aperture ratio may be useful in special cases, for example, when taking reportage pictures in dark places, where it is important to tell the story and not to get a perfect picture. Above ISO 6400, on the other hand, the zone of extreme measures. Noise on monochrome surfaces becomes quite strong and clearly visible.

Further down they start to eat up the fine details on monochrome surfaces and in the area of partial blur. But even at the radical ISO 12800 and 25600 the details in the sharpness area are fine, though color reproduction slows down a little and the dynamic range gets narrower, which is not surprising at these limiting aperture settings. Optionally, high noise at such ISO’s can be used as a creative trick to create a special atmosphere of the picture.

The fact that the camera does not make a lot of noise even at high ISO, is especially important for another reason. Most entry level lenses even with good picture quality don’t have the best aperture ratio. There is only one way out – lack of light, increase sensor sensitivity, so high and low-noise ISO will let you comfortably shoot with entry level optics at short shutter speeds and get decent photos.

It can also be said that the low noise at ISO 3200 and ISO 4000 makes it a good tool for beginner astrophotographers.

AutoISO D5500

To stop worrying about choosing a proper aperture setting, you could use AutoISO mode. In the special menu item you can set the maximum aperture value for example from 100 to 3200 and the longest shutter speed, on the basis of which the camera will increase the ISO. This function is a great help when you have to work with constantly and unexpectedly changing lighting conditions.

How many times have I forgotten to re-set the ISO during a reportage, when I went out of a room where I had to crank the ISO to maximum, into daylight, and the camera would literally go crazy, setting super-short shutter speeds. I had to throw overexposed, noisy photos in the trash. With Auto-ISO the photographer is immune to such mishaps. This is even more important when you consider that the camera doesn’t have a separate button for quick ISO changes, and that the Fn button you can assign this function to is not in the most obvious place.

The Nikon D5500 is an amateur camera that gets a pretty professional Expeed 4 processor, the same one found in the bestselling Nikon D750 and Nikon D810. The processor-level function does a great job of vignetting and noise reduction at slow shutter speeds and high ISO settings. But you do not have to turn them all the way up, you can leave them at their default setting, even with that setting the camera effectively suppresses noise and vignetting.

The EXPEED 4 processor also helps expand the dynamic range somewhat with D-Lightning – dimming lights and brightening shadows. Don’t expect D-Lightning to do wonders, the sagging midday shadows will still be black, and the sun will still be a scorched spot. But these are rather extremes. In milder cases this feature, even in auto mode, will soften the difference in the brightness of lights and shadows. For more complicated cases you will have to either master the add-on gradient filters or the post-processing techniques like brightness masks and digital blending.

Focusing

The Nikon D5500 uses a Nikon Multi-CAM 4800 DX sensor module with 39 focus points, including nine center cross-type focus points, which helps the camera more clearly cling to subjects in both landscape and portrait orientations. True, focusing in the Nikon D5500 is not the camera’s strongest point. On a bright day and in bright contrasting light the camera focuses clearly and confidently. But as soon as there is less light and the objects you are trying to focus on have low contrast, the camera starts wobbling and loses noticeably in its focusing speed. However, even in low light, the Nikon D5500 focuses on static objects, albeit not very fast, but accurately. For an amateur camera this is a very good result.

it is obvious that the camera is much more confident in focusing on the central point than on points on the periphery, so sometimes it is appropriate to focus on the center of the frame, lock the AF by half-pressing the shutter button and then recompose the frame in the viewfinder.

The only focus modes available to the user are spot focus or auto-area focus. In the second case the camera does a pretty good job and almost always “guesses” the main character of the frame accurately, especially in good light conditions. Combined with a pretty good tracking autofocus mode the camera is a good tool to shoot if not sports then some everyday dynamic scenes. By the way, the continuous shooting mode also helps in this case. Nikon D5500 is capable of shooting up to 5 frames per second. Speed is slow, but not bad for an amateur-level camera. This speed is enough to capture in all the details, such as a child blowing out the candles on the birthday cake or “daddy Karlo” sawing his Pinocchio from a log..

A great aid for beginners

It was clear from the first moment that the camera was not just created with the first-time photographers in mind, but with them in mind. You’re picking an ISO speed and you’re not sure which one’s right? In the selection menu, a small icon will appear next to each value, showing the typical shooting situation in which that ISO value can be used.

The Nikon menu is renowned for its ability to customize everything. Dozens of settings – it’s easy to get confused. Don’t understand why you need each option? Bravely click the small question mark in the lower left corner of the touch screen and you will see a short but comprehensive description of the chosen function. And if the camera detects that the shooting conditions are too tough – not much light, for example – it discreetly advises you to turn on the flash.

EFFECTS D5500 special effects

Night Vision

Super bright

Pop

Photo illustration

Toy Camera Effect

Thumbnail effect

Selective color

Silhouette

The High Key

Low key

Picture Control technology

D-Lightning functions

Not without a whole slew of automatic modes. Sixteen options. If the beginner understands the principles of shutter speed, aperture and aperture ratio and quickly gets used to them, the EFFECTS mode is worth trying for everybody.

The camera automatically processes the photo and applies one of ten effects to it – such as a toy camera effect, miniature, selective or super-saturated color, or conversion to black and white. Of course, you can get all of these effects in the editor, but it takes much longer. The result from the camera is not much worse, if at all, and you will spend much less time to get it. However, this is not a reason to postpone mastering the photo editor for later.

Video

The Nikon D5500 shoots Full HD video at 50 frames per second. The video quality can be set down to 1280 x 720 or 640 x 424 and the frame rate to 25 fps. The camera also softens wind noise with the software. It doesn’t help when you’re blowing too hard, but the camera has a jack for an external microphone, so DSLR video enthusiasts can still get good sound in their videos.

To activate the video shooting mode it is necessary to go to LiveView and then press the video recording button – right after that the camera will start to record the clip. You might have some trouble with the fact that there is no dedicated switch on the camera to switch to video mode. The thing is that Nikon D5500 in LiveView mode shows the picture in 2/3 format, and switches to video format 16/9 only after the start of recording. Makes it somewhat difficult to frame when you start shooting.

All Nikon D5500 videos

In auto mode, the camera gives a very smooth response to changes in light in the frame. For those who prefer to control everything themselves, the settings have the ability to enable manual control of video. In this case, if you put the camera in mode M and start shooting a clip, you can fully control the shutter speed, aperture and aperture ratio directly while shooting.

Autofocus, on the other hand, behaves rather strangely. If you move the camera slightly, the Nikon D5500 starts frantically refocusing, even when the distance to the subject hasn’t changed. Exactly the same is the automatic transition of focus between the plans – the camera is long “looking for” an object. That’s why I recommend learning to focus in manual mode, especially since the Nikon D5500 has the ability to zoom in on the display of an individual section of the frame you want to focus on and check the accuracy of hitting the target.

I can’t help but mention interval shooting. Just set the number of frames in a series and the gap between frames, and the camera will start shooting a series of photos, from which you can then put together a spectacular video TimeLapse, where the clouds will not float, and night in the city will come in a few seconds. This kind of video will make a spectacular addition to any video, and the Nikon D5500 gives you a fully controlled tool to create it.

Always in touch

Nikon D5500 is equipped with Wi-Fi. This means that photos from the D5500 using a special Nikon Wireless Mobile Utility can be transferred to a smartphone or tablet running iOS or Android, and from there send to social networks. By the way, photos taken with the creative EFFECTS modes will be able to surprise your friends on Instagram – many of the filters available in Nikon D5500 are not available on this social network.

Conclusions

Nikon engineers have fairly rigidly separated the Nikon D5500 amateur segment camera from the older models in every way – from the focusing system to the location of the controls. It’s even powered by the same type of EN-EL14a battery as the entry-level D3000 series. Nevertheless, the amateur miniature Nikon D5500 is a powerful and flexible tool that provides photographers with extensive functionality and paves the way for professional growth.

Let’s list the strengths of the Nikon D5500:

– The high-quality, high-resolution sensor and mirror pre-lift mode, along with D-Lightning, take your landscape shots to an advanced level.

– Low noise at ISO 4000 using wide-angle optics will allow you to make the first and quite serious steps in technically difficult night sky photography, dotted with stars of the Milky Way.

– Considering the weight of the camera and DX-format optics, we can assume that many novice landscape photographers will want to take this lightweight and compact camera on hiking trips.

– Low noise at high ISO, a good focusing system and the ability to use external flash and syncro will allow you to shoot good reportage. And the flip-down touchscreen will help bring original perspectives to this kind of shooting.

– Wide possibilities for video, including interval-shot for TimeLapse, will let you learn to shoot not only stills, but also video, and of very decent quality.

There are quite a few.

Nikon D5500 Gallery