Unboxed and played with the D500 last night.
This is one Bad A$$ little camera. Even got Snapbridge to work.
+1 on checking RAW vs JPEG for noise. And the reason it would have a better JPEG process would be the Expeed 5 vs 4 capability. Other than the image sensor, the processor in a camera is the most important aspect. It is what makes all other functionality possible. Including AF Tracking.
How is the AF and tracking?
For a body whose primary pro-level application will be shooting wildlife at sports with long lenses, where full-frame bodies would be focal-length-limited anyway, that's probably the most important thing.
Pretty decent, so far as I have tested, which isn't much. Seems better than my D810, but again, not much experience yet. Will shoot a High School Softball game (#1 team in the state) tonight to test it out. From what I've gathered from others, including personal contacts it seems to trail slightly behind the D5 (general impression, not data related), but beats the D4 and 7DmkII. No mention of the 1Dx was made to me, but I guess the 7DmkII is it's direct competitor.
Oh, and though it is targeted at sports and wildlife, and I wouldn't pop the extra over a D7200 if you don't need that capability, there is nothing about the camera that doesn't make it the best DX general purpose camera in the Nikon line, maybe in any line.
I do have a couple complaints...more preference differences. First, it needed XQD for the shooting speed and I find at this point, I would have preferred dual XQD slots. I liked the D810 with 1CF/1SD, but that was only because I already had significant investment in high speed CF and SD. I understand why SD is there, but for most, they will be using XQD at least as overflow or backup and if you already have to deal with it and the reader requirements, you might as well just use it. I also don't like the moving of buttons around. Yes, the ISO button belongs on the right hand side, but why the missing AF-L/AE-L lock button? I back button focus, but still used it from time to time.
