Nikon D5 20.8 MP FX-Format Digital SLR Camera Body (CF Version)

I LOVE THIS CAMERA! I've had and still use many Nikons including an 800 and a D4. The D4 did what it was supposed to, but had a number of shortcomings. The D5 is simply better everywhere. Superb noise and image quality. Great sensitivity. Super fast shutter and frame rate for action. Lots of customization to make it work the way you want. Buttons in the right places with the right customization capability. Great movie capability as well as stills. Incredible control on images as well as mechanics. Better autofocus on moving subjects than I have had before. Intuitive display. Touchscreen is nice. Feels great in your hand.I just wish it had a built in GPS - but it works fine with several external GPS units, they just add unwanted bulk. And 24MP would have been nice. The 800 is great but more than I need many times. 20MP is right at the edge for great wildlife with sometimes shaky framing. But I think Nikon did the right trade offs on capture rate and image size for this generation.An hour playing with the menus, tweaking the customization and practice shooting and the D5 felt like home. The menus and options follow the standard Nikon formats, with additional possibilities around things like time-lapse, movie settings, controls and notably shutterless photography - using the electronics of the sensor for very quiet and fast operation.I have been using this camera in far more settings than I ever used the D4. It is great for many purposes. Sports. Wildlife. Portraits. News. While I recommend against handheld panos for stitching, the leveling display in the viewfinder has given me great results for landscapes and scenics. It is quickly becoming the first camera I reach for.

After taking almost 10k images, the feature I am most impressed with is the new focusing system... Low light and moving action is where this tool is designed to consistently capture image after image crisp and in focus. Using the D3s, I've learned to use the center point focus capturing that "perfect moment" during action -- sometimes it was "spray and pray" hoping that the right moment was captured. With the D5, I find the group area AF to be most helpful. This uses a diamond shaped pattern of 5 points to track the subject; they act in concert to maintain focus as a single point and avoids mis-focusing on the background. The 3D and Auto AF also have face detection priority which is amazingly accurate. For BIF, I utilize the 25 point dynamic AF most frequently.For static subjects and controlled lighting, I think you can get better images with the D810 where you will have larger files and better dynamic range at 1/2 the price. Find the right tool that works for you!-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Upgraded from a D3s which has served me well over the years. Read those concerns about dynamic range and ISO invariance. While interesting and thought provoking discussion, in the end does the end product look good? Putting down a few thousand shots this week, two things immediately stand out.First, images shot in challenging lighting environments and thus high ISO is just amazing. Perhaps this is because I am coming from a D3s, but its no slouch for low light either... Shooting for competitive swimming, I'm often at ISO 9000-15000. Images have noise but easily cleaned in post processing.Second, the focusing technology is incredible! The auto-area setting in the D3s was not very good in capturing erratically moving subjects. I often used single point focus and this was hit or miss at times. With the D5, I am stunned at the number of in focus images in auto-area AF mode. 153 focusing points is awesome and it does prioritize the face! I also really like the Group-area focus mode for fast moving objects toward me.This camera is a tool built for those who shoot in challenging lighting environments and moving subjects. If your job/work/images are taken under these instances, this is the right tool for you. D5 paired with my 70-200 28 is just magical. Build is solid like all the other Nikon D series bodies. I'm not a video shooter, so its not an important feature for me. I have absolutely no regrets!

I am a professional photographer and I either own or have owned many other Nikon FF bodies, including the D4, D810. D750, and D700. I use these cameras as a job function; they pay my bills. So a lot of the gimmick features are wasted on me. I want bodies that do their job, do it well, and don't fail me.The D5 is not the D4. It's not the same thing with a few tweaks. Even a few days of ownership are enough to be certain of that fact. That statement includes both positives and negatives, both of which I'll try to outline here. As the weeks and months go on I will update this review with further findings. I'm going to touch on four main issues: autofocus, high ISO performance, handling/ergonomics, and overall impressions.First, the autofocus is incredible. Not good, not great; truly exceptional. I almost have to try to make it miss. The D4 does a great job of focusing in most conditions but it does struggle in a few situations. Erratic side to side movements are very tough, for example. I've yet to find a situation where the D5 struggles. Short of using superlatives I'm not sure what there is left to say on this subject. A+, 10/10, AAA.High ISO performance is one of the hallmarks of the D series. It's always excellent and the D5 is no exception. When the light gets low the D5 steps up and doesn't disappoint. I'm primarily a RAW shooter but I've been shooting RAW+JPEG since I have received the camera. The JPEG's are superb. It's very obvious that Nikon has made significant progress with their JPEG engine. The RAWs are also excellent, but not quite as amazing (comparatively) as the JPEGs. They are still MORE than acceptable and I find them to be about a stop better than the D4. However, I expect a future firmware update, paired with software updates, to make them truly amazing in the months to come. JPEGs get an A+. RAWs get an A.The ergonomics of the D5 are every bit as good as their predecessors. Everything is tight, well built, and well placed. There have been some small changes in button layout, all of which I think are improvements. The biggest improvement being the relocation of the ISO button. Instead of being located in the bottom left it's now near the shutter, making changing ISO on the fly much more convenient. It will take some relearning of muscle memory, but in the long run it will definitely be a positive.My overall impressions are highly positive. I think that Nikon's changes have been for the better and that those improvements have been significant. The high ISO quality has been improved and even a minor improvement (combined with more resolution) is impressive. The focus improvements are significant and immediately noticeable. The low ISO dynamic range seems little lower than I would have hoped for, but it's not a concern for my work and I can't imagine buyers of this camera would be concerned with it either.As I said, I will update this review in the future after I use it more, but if my long term impressions are anywhere close to what I've seen so far, I'll be highly pleased with this purchase.