Panasonic LX3, booyah!
I've also been dealing with matters of the heart, but this is not the blog to blab on. In any case, my D300 has been having issues - it was saying the battery was too low, but it's definitely not, as I bought a whole new one for it! I sent it to Nikon Canada for repairs, and they said that were no longer any spares for it. I was highly bummed.
On the flip side, they offered me a D500 at a slightly reduced rate, so I decided to go with it. Honestly, if I were more of a thinking person, I would have just declined the offer and bought another D300. But I managed to convince myself to get it after calculating the "amortization" of my D300 after 7 years of faithful service.
Now to be clear, I haven't actually powered up the camera yet. All I've done are read some reviews, and plugged the battery in to charge. I like to write, ok? That's one of my hobbies.
Ok anyways, so let's go. The first impressions of the body are excellent. It feels a smidge lighter than the D300, and maybe because it's brand new, everything feels so tight (my D200/D300 were used...). There also appears to be a mottled pattern (was it on the d300? hmm) that probably help with how the camera looks when it's worn.
Then I noticed the articulated screen. Hmm. Not a fan of that. More places for dust and sand to collect. It is definitely a boon for low/high angle shots, but still... in my opinion more points of failure. I'll see how it goes.
Battery is, unsurprising, a new type of battery. I don't really care so long as it works. The charger is a lovely piece of work though.
The card slot is still the same place, and features dual XQD and SD slots. I've rarely had a need to fill the buffer on my D300, but from what I read, a top of the line XQD basically means you can't fill the buffer, even on raw. Wow. I don't actually have a XQD card yet, so can't say how good it is.
The prices of the XQD are insanely affordable though. I remember back in '07, I bought on of those newfangled Extreme IV CF cards for... oh, 160AUD thereabouts? Somewhere along the great ocean road. A 4gb card gets me about 350 shots, and I usually carry a portable HDD to dump stuff. Yes, I used to shoot lots of crap back in the day. I'm much better now. Trust me.
A 64GB Lexar XQD 2.0 card runs similar - about 160CAD. And assuming 30 megs a RAW, easily over 2000 shots.
Two thousand shots. That's like 55 rolls of bloody film. Gods. I honestly do not think I'd shoot that much these days. I was having concerns about "OH MY GOD I NEED A NEW PORTABLE STORAGE" but no. Assuming I overshoot the 2k limit, I still have a SD card slot to use as fallover storage.
WIN.
What's next. Ah, the flash. That's probably my number one BLEH thing about the D500. The lack of commander mode. My SB600 is now a pure on-shoe flash :( Oh well.
Oh yes the last gripe. How many megapixels is on this camera?! 21?! That's 11 megapixels more than I'd like thanks. I really don't need the pixel count. But this is mainly a first world, pixel peeping problem on my end, so I'll just squelch it here.
And as for lens choice, I only have one lens with me, my trusty old 16-85VR. When I was looking at the D500s, there was mention about a newer, 16-80VR. That lens shoots from a beautifully wide F2.8, and closes down to F4 at the end of its range. Silence, my fluttering heart. Can you say perfect lens? I checked the price. Nope. Nope. If I were shooting as much as I was in the UK, I'd definitely consider it for the extra stop and supposedly "better" qualities. But not now.
Mounting the lens went without a hitch until... wait, my lens is mounted, why is the viewfinder blacked out?! Glaring at my lens, I was like... why you no let me look. Upon closer inspection.... Oh my good lord. There's actually a built-in viewfinder curtain. I'm assuming it's for those long exposure fans. This camera really is the pinnacle of tech, isn't it?!
Without a charged battery, the last thing I can talk about are the buttons. The AF-ON button falls perfectly under my thumb as before, and there's new joystick besides it. I wonder what's it for. If I could use it to select focus points, and the big-old OK button to reset the focus point it'd be the bee's knees.
A convenient switch for photography/video is at the bottom, and there is a very convenient live view button. There is also a nice italized "i" button which I assume is for info. Somehow it doesn't fit the more serious text around it. But wait, there's a button labeled... "info" besides it. In a serious font. Maybe the i button is for uploading to instagram?
The strip of button on the left appears to be very similar to the D300's, though there's an additional Fn2 button on the bottom.
Given I have no battery, I can't comment on the top LCD, which I guarantee is awesome, and backlit. Please be backlit. On the left, the dial is very similar, with single shot/continuous low etc shooting choice on the locked ring. The top of the dial has 4 buttons. The ISO button has moved to the shutter area, and the mode button and what I assume is exposure metering added to it. There now appears to be a dedicated bracketing button... I used to use that for my flash EV compensation. Wondering where that's gone too.
