D500: Nikon admits defeat, but takes the title!

[dwswager]

I think that with coming of DSLR, most of us have assumed that a flash is a necessity. I cannot recall a single SLR that came with a built in flash, and we managed perfectly.

Any way both D500 and D5 have a commander mode that will trigger external flash(s), so where is the problem? The inbuilt flash is quite a low power one good for very close distance shooting only.

Mr Usta is dead!  Just because we did without something 30 years ago, doesn't mean I want to do without it now.  30 years ago, I didn't have a cell phone either.

As I understand it, the D5 and D500 commander mode only works with the SB-5000 and newer flash.  A solution to future problems, but not current ones. 

There is no correct answer to this whole flash question.  It was a design choice made for both product and marketing reasons.  Nikon shooters will get comparable or better performance than the Canon 7DmkII without the sensor penalty.  This D500 will sell like hotcakes.

"Although aimed at ‘advanced enthusiasts and professional photographers’, amateurs may have to wait to get hold of the 20.9-million-pixel camera when 
it goes on sale in March, priced £1,729.99 (body only). ‘Due to the anticipated high demand for this new flagship DX DSLR, we will be prioritising pre-orders placed by Nikon Professional Services members and Nikon Professional Users,’ said Simon Iddon, head of product management at Nikon UK."

[Colorado David]

I cannot recall a single SLR that came with a built in flash, and we managed perfectly.

The N6006 had a built-in pop up flash. Although it was classified as a consumer camera body, it was very popular with photo journalists. I had two N6006 bodies before the N90s and then the F5. I never missed the pop up flash with film, but with DSLRs I've used it as a commander. I'd rather have the better view finder.

[kers]

I can imagine a built-in flash can be extremely useful; just to have it when you suddenly need it.
It will work well enough in a lot of situations and permits you to leave the clumsy SB-5000 off the camera.
I may not be very strong but than you can use iso 3200 (or more) and it will do the job.

[dwswager]

I can imagine a built-in flash can be extremely useful; just to have it when you suddenly need it.
It will work well enough in a lot of situations and permits you to leave the clumsy SB-5000 off the camera.
I may not be very strong but than you can use iso 3200 (or more) and it will do the job.

Raising ISO affects overall light level, not the light balance!  You would be amazed at the difference of a indoor candid between just a raising of the ISO and the addition of a little flash to shift the balance to the subjects versus the background.  Too much can be garish, though.

[Dustbak]

I would most definitely rather have the larger viewfinder. Depending on how good the viewfinder is I will buy the D500 or not. If it is large enough I will certainly get one..

[Jimbo57]

Raising ISO affects overall light level, not the light balance!  You would be amazed at the difference of a indoor candid between just a raising of the ISO and the addition of a little flash to shift the balance to the subjects versus the background.  Too much can be garish, though.

Although my D810 and D800E have built-in flash, I very rarely use them. The main problem with them is that, unless one is using a very short prime or w/a lens without a hood, the central position of the built-in flash is such that the lens casts a shadow over the lower part of the image. Even a fairly "standard" zoom such as the 24-70mm f/2.8 gets in the way of the flash.

[Ajoy Roy]

Although my D810 and D800E have built-in flash, I very rarely use them. The main problem with them is that, unless one is using a very short prime or w/a lens without a hood, the central position of the built-in flash is such that the lens casts a shadow over the lower part of the image. Even a fairly "standard" zoom such as the 24-70mm f/2.8 gets in the way of the flash.

Even on my D3300, I can use the inbuilt flash with "Slim" lenses, or for distant objects, as a fat or long lens obstructs the flash to area above the lens. So for macro and with longish lenses I have to use the external flash (in this case SB800).

My SLR never had a flash and I am used to having an external one. While an inbuilt flash is a nice thing to have, its omission is not a deal breaker in my opinion.

[dwswager]

Although my D810 and D800E have built-in flash, I very rarely use them. The main problem with them is that, unless one is using a very short prime or w/a lens without a hood, the central position of the built-in flash is such that the lens casts a shadow over the lower part of the image. Even a fairly "standard" zoom such as the 24-70mm f/2.8 gets in the way of the flash.

First, the D500 has 100% viewfinder coverage with a 1.0x magnification.

And yes, I have been caught by the lens hood on the 24-70mm f/2.8 when using the pop up flash of the D810.  Take the lens hood off and all is well.  Usually not a big deal, especially inside.

But we are talking a DX body here which means one will usually be using lenses  proportionally smaller in both length and diameter due to the 1.5x crop.  I plan to buy the D500 and pair with my D810.  That it doesn't have a pop up flash is a disappointment to me, but certainly not enough to make me drop down to the D7200 with it's dial interface, 5fps at 14bit and smaller buffer.  I also hope to see some small increase in sensor performance from the D500 over the D7200.

[armand]

But we are talking a DX body here which means one will usually be using lenses  proportionally smaller in both length and diameter due to the 1.5x crop.  I plan to buy the D500 and pair with my D810.  That it doesn't have a pop up flash is a disappointment to me, but certainly not enough to make me drop down to the D7200 with it's dial interface, 5fps at 14bit and smaller buffer.  I also hope to see some small increase in sensor performance from the D500 over the D7200.

Which DX lenses are you talking about? The normal/wide ones?

[Chris Livsey]

"Although aimed at ‘advanced enthusiasts and professional photographers’, amateurs may have to wait to get hold of the 20.9-million-pixel camera when 
it goes on sale in March, priced £1,729.99 (body only). ‘Due to the anticipated high demand for this new flagship DX DSLR, we will be prioritising pre-orders placed by Nikon Professional Services members and Nikon Professional Users,’ said Simon Iddon, head of product management at Nikon UK."

The "Nikon Professional Dealer" with whom I have placed a pre-order phoned yesterday to ask if I had an NPS number. No I replied I've never bothered joining, but I quoted the above. Interesting he said that's going to be fun to police, they just asked us to find out and didn't say why or what to do other than give them the answer of how many were NPS so far. I'll say no NPS but Pro and see where that takes us we can't see ourselves skipping the first 20 on the list who have been on since January say because No21 has an NPS number and ordered two days ago.

[dwswager]

Which DX lenses are you talking about? The normal/wide ones?

I was talking in general, considering the 1.5X crop of the DX sensor where the crop makes a 24mm into a 35mm.  I have only ever owned 1 DX lens (18-200mm VR II).  I always new I would use both FX and DX cameras and was not willing to duplicate lenses for both sensor formats.

Bottomline is that pop up flash has lots of limitations, but they also have a lot of benefits.  They don't solve all problems, but help with some.  There really isn't a definitive right or wrong answer to should the D500 have a pop up flash.  It's not like you look at the camera without it and think they screwed up.  It was a product and marketing decision.  The express target audience clearly would prefer not to have.  The question to be answered later is whether Nikon picked the correct target audience.  That is, would overall profit been higher with the pop up flash or higher without it.

[BJL]

I think that with coming of DSLR, most of us have assumed that a flash is a necessity. I cannot recall a single SLR that came with a built in flash, and we managed perfectly.

Towards the end of the film SLR era, most of them came with built-in pop-up flash – but not the high end "professional" models that you are probably thinking of. I rarely use flash, and never multiple flash setups, so will stay out of the debate about using pop-up flash to trigger other flash units vs doing that by radio control (does the latter have a potential lock-in to using flash units of the same brand as the camera?)

[luxborealis]

Sorry guys, I'm still not getting it. This starting to sound like the first arguements against having a camera in a cell phone. Why would you want that? It can't be very good! I'm not saying a pop-up is very good, nor am I saying it's a necessity but it is convenient!

BTW, I just checked the side-by-side specs of the D500 and D300S. While the D500 has all the techno-wonder one would expect from a class-leading camera seven years newer – improved sensor (=mp+ISO+DR), buffer (duh, let's add $5 more memory) and spectacular AF – the viewfinder only increases from 0.94x to 1.0x and Nikon ditches the pop-up flash that was on the D300S.

Now my math and physics aren't as sharp as many here, so forgive me if I'm off here, but a D8xx viewfinder is "only" 0.7x magnification of a view that is 1.5x larger to begin with. Wouldn't that put it at about the same size, give or take as the D300S and D500? So I'm having a little trouble believing the arguement that Nikon had to trade-off pop-up flash for a significantly better viewfinder. While I recognize 1.0x will be an advantage over 0.94x, I can't imagine it's enough of a difference to ditch the pop-up.

My guess is that it was a price-point thing: Nikon chose not to increase the size of the top shell of the viewfinder by a few millimetres to accommodate both a (slightly) improved viewfinder (0.94x to 1.0x) and a pop-up. I still maintain, though, that this smells more of an "optics" decision to make the D500 "appear" more professional, even though most would agree it's not the camera that makes the pro (except for wanna-bes), but what one does with the camera.

Different strokes for different stokes, I guess (said scratching my head).

[razrblck]

It was done first and foremost for the improved weather sealing. The D500 is on par with the D5, while the D300s was a step lower in that regard. Weather sealing the pop up flash would've been quite difficult and it would've been a weak point in the structure anyway, so they ditched it. The additional space was then used to improve the viewfinder.

If you look at the D500 as a wildlife, sports and concert camera you can clearly see why the removal of the flash has no impact to such uses. The top of the line D models have never had one either, and no one whined so much about it. Hell, just look at Canon's lineup. And what about top Olympus models?
It's called D500, but that's just a name. As I said before, this is a DX sized D5 without the vertical grip. It can be used for everything, of course, but it's designed first and foremost for more demanding tasks and some things had to be sacrificed to improve other aspects of it.

If you can't take my word, just read the official microsite http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/microsite/d500/:

Meet the D500: it's a compact powerhouse fusing the highest performance of Nikon's
professional D5 with the unique agility of the DX format

Unique benefits of DX format: compact,
lightweight system offers outstanding agility with
telephoto advantage

I don't understand why so many are still missing the point of this camera.

[Colorado David]

I think what's happening is this is a new camera that Nikon users have been waiting for and they have a need to discuss it. There's not a lot of new information to talk about. We've discussed everything we can. And so we wind up flailing about at the dead-horse pop up flash. I for one wish that there was more real information that could help us make valuable decisions about this camera or the D5. But it's yet two months until release and few people have had their hands on one so we talk about what we can.

[John Koerner]

If you look at the D500 as a wildlife, sports and concert camera you can clearly see why the removal of the flash has no impact to such uses ... but it's designed first and foremost for more demanding tasks and some things had to be sacrificed to improve other aspects of it.
...
I don't understand why so many are still missing the point of this camera.

Good post.

I don't think most people really understand the difference wildlife photography ... and taking photos in their backyard.

[dwswager]

I don't think most people really understand the difference wildlife photography ... and taking photos in their backyard.

Of course, we understand the difference.  Our point is why have a camera that can do only one of those things.  Having the flash does not preclude using the D500 for sports and wildlife, but without it, it does preclude shooting snapshots inside of your kid putzing around.

I've shot N90s, D300, D7100 and D7200 in the rain for both sports and wildlife.  I've used them bare, with cheap Opt/Tech baggies and dedicated rain sleeves.  Never an issue.

As to positioning, I think the original post title says it all.  They are admitting that pros want a DX body and have offered it to them without actually having to call it the Dx5 and admitting they were wrong. 

[razrblck]

The D500 is the successor to the D2X/D2h, not the D200 or D300 often named in such discussions.

I know the naming and lack of vertical grip confuse a lot of people, but Nikon probably wanted to repeat the D3/D300 success as well as making a smaller body to make DX a more compact solution to the full frame D5 beast.

[John Koerner]

Of course, we understand the difference.  Our point is why have a camera that can do only one of those things.  Having the flash does not preclude using the D500 for sports and wildlife, but without it, it does preclude shooting snapshots inside of your kid putzing around.

I don't think you do.

Creating a larger viewfinder, by removing the pop-up flash, increases the ability to "see" through the viewfinder, a vital element to nature photography.

Taking a photo of your kid "putzing around" is hardly "professional imagery" ... which is why the D7000 is perfect for those kind of owners.

That the D500 removes the pop-up flash, paying no heed to amateurs trying to take a photo of their kid "putzing around" only underscores its target market: pros, not amateurs.

I've shot N90s, D300, D7100 and D7200 in the rain for both sports and wildlife.  I've used them bare, with cheap Opt/Tech baggies and dedicated rain sleeves.  Never an issue.

All amateur cameras ...

As to positioning, I think the original post title says it all.  They are admitting that pros want a DX body and have offered it to them without actually having to call it the Dx5 and admitting they were wrong.

I think Nikon responded to the calling of its fans, and resurrected the D3s, inflated it beyond anyone's expectations, and flushed all the traces of "amateur" down the drain with its specifications.

It is simply a lightweight, PRO DSLR ... with nothing amateur about it.

So if the thought of losing a pop-up flash hurts anyone, they should stick to the D7000.

[Colorado David]

The N90s was a professional body. It lapped the F4 in a number of areas. It was named the F90x in Europe. It was a robust body and did not have a pop-up flash. I'm convinced now that everyone has run out of discussion material.