Nikon D850 SLR camera test: decides everything? Start loving it now..

There’s no point in arguing about it, the Nikon D800 was not just a remarkable camera at the time, it was a groundbreaking camera on the scale of the entire photographic equipment market. It would seem that everyone has already forgotten about the race for megapixels, and now a giant resolution packed into a 35 mm sensor. Landscape photographers have massively switched to 8000, studio photographers too.

The D800E, which came out in parallel, caused some confusion. Which camera performs better, why do we need a moiré filter if it’s only better without it, how adequate is the difference in quality to the price difference.

The D800 upgrade to the D810 was met with jubilation, although the changes were nice, but not colossal. The Nikon D810A that came out later was designed with astrophotographers in mind, and casual photographers got discouraged, but like me they kept shooting the night sky with the D810.

As time went on, everyone was waiting for a major upgrade to Nikon’s premier landscape camera.

What exactly did users want? Faster autofocus, faster continuous shooting. True, landscape photographers are not so picky about these parameters. A bigger sensor? This is an important requirement, because competitors are already flaunting 42 and even 50-megapixel sensors.

Nikon came up with a decent answer. Meet the new Nikon D850. Start loving it right now, for it is exactly what you’ve been waiting for.

All about the new flagship, the Nikon D850

The most important thing

Let’s be honest. You’re not reading this text to describe the camera body, connectors, or button layout. And even the rugged case is important, but not enough to start with this review of the new camera. We love the Nikon D850 series for its great resolution and dynamic range, and it’s just fine here!

The Nikon D850 gets a brand new sensor with 45.7 megapixels, which means the frame resolution will be 8256 x 5504. The sensor has no antialiasing filter and is made by technology of reverse illumination BSI . Technical tricks omitted, it all leads to better picture quality at high ISOs and low noise in shadows. On Nikon D850 low range ISO starts with 64 units with the possibility of digital reduction to 32 and reaches a respectable 25600.

The camera gives a very clear picture even at a completely non-perspective ISO 800, so if you want to add texture to the snow or sand, you can easily raise the sensitivity to these values. Up to ISO 12800 the camera gives very good results.

These aperture values are difficult to recommend for landscapes, but for reportage shots or animalistics they can be used safely. I’d call the maximum sensitivity 25600 a compromise, but acceptable, and everything that hides behind the Hi index I would advise to use only in those cases when you need to get the shot at any price.

Nikon D850. Daytime Photo

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Nikon D850. Evening shooting

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For advanced situations, the camera has the AutoISO function, which will adjust the sensitivity itself based on the maximum shutter speed and ISO speed set in the settings. This function works very precisely and lets you avoid having to worry about the settings if lighting conditions change drastically. This is especially useful for events where the photographer has to continuously move from indoors to outdoors.

Nikon D850, Af-s Nikkor 400mm f/2.8E FL ED VR f/6.3, 1/250, AutoISO 3200

The bison periodically move from the forest to the clearing, and this greatly affects the scene illumination. Also the light that day was constantly changing because of the snowfall. TheAutoISO function makes life much easier for photographers in these situations

NEF files with the Nikon D850 have a huge dynamic range and “stretch” perfectly in RAW. I was very pleasantly surprised by the noise in the shadows – the camera manages to work out the underexposed areas of the image quite well, so that you can then extract information from them during digital processing, which means that quite a few scenes with a wide dynamic range for example, with the counter sun can be shot in one frame. Even though seasoned landscape photographers will still shoot in two or three frames and stitch together one frame with balanced lighting.

Nikon D850, Af-s Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8G ED f/13, 6 sec, ISO 64

The photo is shot in one frame. Dynamic range allows you to keep both highlights and shadows in the same exposure, without losing contrast in the midtones.

Of course, very difficult scenes, where you have to shoot against the light, can not be shot that way, but even this result can be considered very impressive.

It’s no secret that the trouble with DSLR cameras with huge resolution sensors is micro-smearing from the mirror and shutter. It was a flaw that had previously gone unnoticed, but with the advent of large sensors it became noticeable and demanded the attention of the designers. The Nikon D850 features an all-new mirror lift unit and a new shutter, which shakes the camera much less and leads to much less micro-microblur. However, for really serious shooting it is worth either introducing a delayed shutter release and delayed shutter mode after lifting the mirror, or switching to electronic shutter photography, which will be especially relevant when shooting time lapse, which traditionally have a lot of wear and tear on the shutter. Also, the completely silent electronic shutter is useful where you want to shoot silently at all, such as in a theater.

Focus and continuous shooting

In addition to its excellent sensor, the camera has an advanced Multi-CAM 20K autofocus system, inherited from the flagship Nikon D5. 153 focus sensors, including 99 cross-type sensors and 15 supporting an f/8 aperture. The camera focuses steadily even at twilight and in very low light, and maintains high AF capability with teleconverters.

The seemingly landscape camera focuses incredibly fast and clings to objects, tracks their movement and ignores individual objects that might briefly come into the frame and cover the main subject. The tracking focus system offers the already familiar Nikonist autofocus methods of 153, 72, 25 and 9 points, a group of points that may not only be in the center, but can move across the frame. Also has cross group and single point AF capability.

Perhaps the most interesting tracking autofocus mode for me was 3D autofocus, where you set the camera’s initial focus point on a key subject, and the camera itself moves the focus point as the subject moves. Interestingly, to accurately track your subject, the camera takes information not only from the phase focus sensors, but also from the RGB sensor with a resolution of 180,000 dots.

Nikon D850, Af-s Nikkor 400mm f/2.8E FL ED VR f/3.2, 1/500, AutoISO 800

A very tricky case of focusing on a moving subject in a snowstorm.

The camera tracked the main object accurately enough and didn’t try to switch to snow flakes

Unlike the Nikon D810,the autofocus in the new camera, like the Nikon D5, is handled by a separate processor, so autofocus doesn’t start to fail as the buffer fills up. And there’s a lot to fill in. The camera is capable of continuous shooting at 7 frames per second and 9 if you install the MB-D18 battery grip with the EN-EL18b battery pack. Of course, this would require additional expense for the grip itself, an expensive battery and charger for it, but that kind of rapidity with such a sensor size is probably worth it.

Nikon D850. Continuous Shooting CH

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The field tests showed that a 14-bit NEF file with D850 in Adobe RGB color space without compression weighs about 60 megabytes, which is very interesting, because a similar file with Nikon D810 with a much smaller resolution can weigh 65 or even 75 megabytes. The camera records all this flow of information in a buffer. By all specifications, the Nikon D850 has a buffer capacity of 51 frames, but there’s a nuance here. To store information in the camera there are two memory slots – for super-fast and very expensive XQD format cards and no less fast SD UHS-II also not the cheapest pleasure . Do not throw away your slow SD cards – the camera can record frames on them too, but then the buffer volume will decrease to 20-25 frames.

However, if with this landscape camera you need to shoot a lot of events and it is not necessary to make huge photos, you can reduce the file size to medium 6192×4128 or even small 4128×2752 . There’s also the ability to shoot with a cropped factor of 1.2, 1.5, or even change the aspect ratio to 5:4 and 1:1.

The Nikon D850 has another new feature that will be of interest to landscape and subject and macro photographers. Have you ever heard of stacking – assembling a frame sharp from the closest edge to the farthest edge? This technology allows you to take several frames at different focus distances and then stack the frames, taking only the sharpest fragment from each, into one frame with sharpness across the entire field. Previously, you had to refocus manually to create a frame cycle. And it’s good if you didn’t need to take more than ten shots, such as shooting a landscape with a wide angle lens.

If you’re shooting your scene with a televisor and you need three dozen frames to cover the entire frame? And if you shoot macro and you need three hundred shots to get a perfect picture? Had to refocus three hundred times. And the problem here isn’t even that you have to raise your hand to the camera three hundred times. Much worse, you might have moved the camera slightly each time you refocused, which will cause problems when you later stitch the photo together.

With the new Focus Shift Shooting, the Nikon D850 takes all the work out of refocusing. All you have to do is set the initial focus point, the number of frames up to 300 and the step between them. The increments are measured on some abstract scale from 1 to 10, which will take some getting used to. The camera will take that number of frames, or it will stop when it gets to infinity.

The Nikon D850 doesn’t take the job of stitching photos together, which is good, because it’s a complicated process that requires manual intervention. But it can put all the photos of a series in a separate folder, so you can find them later.

Nikon D850, Af-s Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8G EDf/14, 1 sec, ISO 64

Nikon D850, AF-S NIKKOR 70-200 mm f/2.8E FL ED VR, 64-nutral gray filter, f/16, 3 sec, ISO 64

Both pictures were taken by stacking or shifting the exposure

Body and ergonomics

All of the above power packed into a lightweight magnesium body – the camera weighs 1005 grams with battery and memory card. The camera is insulated against dust and moisture, which will be quite relevant for travelers who often have to shoot in not the most comfortable conditions. During the test the camera survived very well through freezing temperatures down to -20 and a snowstorm.

In the cold

In the snow

The camera has had no problem surviving such abuse

The most serious change is that the camera has lost its internal flash, and with it the button that is responsible for its settings. We don’t have the ability to fire external flashes as well as the flash. But with the abundance of radiosync systems that are now on the market, it’s not such a terrible loss. Losing the flash allowed Nikon’s engineers to increase viewfinder size from 0.7 to 0.75, so the new camera has one of the biggest viewfinders among 35mm SLRs. The viewfinder, though big, is the most normal one. So the conspiracy theorists who see sensors in screw holes and suspect a hybrid viewfinder may relax.

Like previous models, the Nikon D850 body is moderately weighty and grippy. The camera fits snugly in your hand. The body is reminiscent of the Nikon D810. Differences in small things, but they are all quite significant. Perhaps the most important difference is the position of the ISO button which has moved from the dial on the left side of the camera to the shutter button. If you³’re used to working with D810 you will look for the ISO button in its old place for a long time in your inertia and find the Mode button there.

There is a video recording button and an exposure compensation button next to the ISO. And to the latter I have the biggest complaint. It is made almost flush with the body, and it would be very difficult to feel it with gloves. I’m sure landscape photographers who often have to shoot in winter will be complaining about such an ergonomic flaw for a long time.

On the back panel, in addition to the usual multi selector, a small joystick, like on the D5 and D500, makes it very easy to select the focus point. Gone is the AF-L/AE-L button serving as a joystick and now there’s only AF-ON, which can be assigned the functions of exposure meter deactivation, autofocus or both at once. The Nikon D850’s controls can be freely adjusted in general. Not only the two programmable buttons Fn1 and Fn2, but also the center multiselector button and several other controls can be assigned functions as you wish.

Another useful new feature is the button light, which is turned on by turning the rocker bar around the shutter button. A feature especially useful for those who shoot a lot at night. I for instance was much more comfortable setting up my camera to take pictures of the Milky Way with the keys illuminated. But not all the buttons are illuminated – the control elements block near the shutter button and on the right side of the display stay dark.

Screen, LiveView and Video

I’ve said many times that LiveView is the Achilles heel of modern DSLRs. It’s time to change your mind. Nikon D850 is equipped with a high-end rotary touch screen. Like the D500 and D7500, the screen only tilts up and down. The D850’s screen size, viewing angle, brightness and resolution are all good for a comfortable on-camera experience, and the touchscreen makes it much quicker and easier to use. By touching the screen you can scroll through the pictures, zoom in and out and switch between the functions. This is especially handy in shooting mode, as it gives you quick access to a number of key camera functions, which are displayed on the screen when you press the i button.

Nikon D850, Af-s Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8G ED f/7.1 1/800 sec, ISO 320

The only way to get this shot was to hold the camera up high above my head, so the fence was not covering the houses in the background. And the flip down screen was a great help in taking the picture in the first take.

Switching to LiveView mode is traditionally done by a small rocker on the right side of the screen. It is much quicker to switch to LiveView than any of the previous models I have come across. Here’s where the fun begins. Whereas before you could only shoot in this mode out of sheer desperation, things have changed now. The contrast autofocus started to work wonders, and I began to catch myself thinking that with the Nikon D850 I was much more willing to use live view mode than before. Of course, the autofocus speed is still slower than with the phase sensor in the viewfinder, but it is much faster and the focusing system is much more confident and accurate.

In LiveView, you can use single-frame autofocus, as well as narrow- and wide-area tracking autofocus, face-tracking autofocus, and subject-tracking autofocus, which is analogous to the 3D focus I wrote about above. the tracking system is not bad for subjects that move at a slow speed, but as soon as your character starts to get a little faster, the autofocus starts to lag behind. So for fast-paced scenes, I recommend switching to manual focus. This is especially true when shooting video.

As for video recording capabilities, the Nikon D850 is impressive. The camera has learned to shoot full-frame 4K video yes, yes, no more cropped-factor extras at up to 30 fps, and FullHD at up to 60 fps. But that’s not all. You can shoot FullHD video at up to 120 frames per second and get the slow motion effect.

Also, the Nikon D850 has features that can help when shooting video: when shooting FullHD movies, you can turn on digital image stabilization, which gives very good results. Paired with lens stabilization, it lets you shoot handheld, even with long-focus optics. You can also turn on focus picking and “zebra” – oblique stripes that mark areas of over-exposure. The camera has a microphone input and headphone output, and you can connect a full-fledged video recorder via HDMI.

But perhaps most interesting is the ability to shoot Time Lapse or time-lapse video, and at once in 4K. You can set the interval between shots, time of shooting and the camera itself will calculate the length of the final clip and mount it itself from separate frames, and will counteract the change of light, allowing you to automatically shoot time lapses, in which day turns into night.

But if you’re not ready to trust all the work to the automation, you can use the built-in intervalometer, which allows you to take a series of frames of a specified length at a selected interval. And all this camera can shoot in RAW format, which means you’ll be able to process the frames before stitching them into a video sequence or select one of the frames and use it as a single photo. What’s more, the resolution of the Nikon D850 makes it possible to capture 8K resolution timelapse footage in this way!

Interfaces and wireless capabilities

Nikon D850 retains the standard for Nikon’s professional cameras, with a central sync terminal and 10-pin connector for connecting wired and wireless remote controls. The camera has a Wi-Fi module and Bluetooth the camera even has an air mode , but both of these modules are only used to communicate with mobile devices with SnapBridge installed on them. With this program you can copy files to a cell phone or tablet and remotely control the camera.

Lenses for the landscape photographer

The highest resolution sensor of the new camera requires the highest quality optics.The camera is designed with landscape photographers in mind and the prime lens for this camera is the legendary wide-angle AF-S Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8. The lens is not new by today’s standards, but has not lost its relevance. This renowned wide-angle camera has excellent picture quality at all focal lengths and all apertures, including the maximum aperture, and its high aperture ratio and wide angle make it ideal for stargazing.

AF-S Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8

Before the release of the camera there were a lot of questions, but will the resolution of the old 14-24 be enough to work effectively with the new sensor? Practice has shown that it is sufficient to. I can also say that I didn’t get any micro-smudges in my photos by using the mirror pre-lift and shutter release delay functions. So, for landscape photography, the lack of a stabilizer in the AF-S Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8 isn’t going to be a catastrophic disadvantage.

AF-S NIKKOR 24-70 mm F/2.8G ED

Next in line is the stock lens. No need to compromise here either. As a tripod on the D850, I recommend either the time-honored AF-S NIKKOR 24-70 mm F/2.8G ED, or its new stabilized version, the AF-S NIKKOR 24-70 mm F/2.8E ED VR. The latter features not only better resolution, which in the case of the Nikon D850 would be very relevant, but also a larger filter thread, which can cause some inconvenience if you already have a fleet of filters.

AF-SNIKKOR 70-200 mm F/2.8E FL ED VR

Take the fast AF-SNIKKOR 70-200 mm F/2 as your telephoto lens.8E FL ED VRII or an earlier version of the AF-SNIKKOR 70-200 mm F/2.8G ED VR. Both of these lenses offer superior image quality, fast autofocus, and excellent stabilization. But the updated 70-200 lets you shoot more effectively with wiring thanks to its sporty stabilization mode

AF-S NIKKOR 200-500 mm F/5.6E ED VR

AF-SNIKKOR 200-400 mm F4G ED VRII

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