D850 vs D500 (1 Viewer)

Sorry if this has already been hashed out. Would a cropped bird image from a D850 come out better quality than the same size image on a non-cropped D500 shot?

proudpapa56 said:

Sorry if this has already been hashed out. Would a cropped bird image from a D850 come out better quality than the same size image on a non-cropped D500 shot?

Click to expand...

No, D500 seems to be a tiny bit better in noise but D850 (in DX) has a slight edge in DR. I doubt the difference would be visible.

http://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm

proudpapa56 said:

Sorry if this has already been hashed out. Would a cropped bird image from a D850 come out better quality than the same size image on a non-cropped D500 shot?

Click to expand...

I recently switched from d500 to d850 (well, I still have my d500 for a bit too).

My observation from taking lots of photos is the d850 is better if you do not need to 11 fps. It has better image quality, and the slight loss in MP (24 to 20 in DX crop mode) is unnoticeable. I actually find the d850 focuses very well and I can crop down very small from it. I've regularly done 5x - 7x crops (i.e. from 6148 px wide to under 800 px wide) and even at kind of high ISO (say 1000 - 2000) the cropped jpeg off of camera looks good.

I shoot the d850 in FX mode and if I need to crop I crop later. I have a button set to select DX and 1:1 modes, but I usually don't do it. It would save memory in raw mode, but that's not an issue for me.

I do not have the fancy battery for 9 fps, so I am down to 7 fps from the d500s 11 fps. I do notice that. Though when I use a tripod, I've been doing the full electronic curtain shooting and that is very fast and gives fantastic results without flopping the mirror around. I've been shooting at 800mm (400mm + 2x tc) with full electronic curtain at 1/200th or slower and get perfect results. Makes me almost want to ditch the d850 for a7riii or the new Z7 rumor....

You could look at the photos I've posted on this forum, most of them are from the d850 and some of them are extreme crops.

https://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/146952

A few of the recent posts on my IG are also from the d850. you'll need to look at the hashtags, some are d500. In any case, the IG feed will show d500 next to d850.

https://www.instagram.com/marcmosko

Marc

Thanks for the thoughts.