I've been doing a bit of shooting with the D500 lately, and while doing some editing I came across this image of a Marsh Wren taken at extreme close quarters when it landed on a reed right behind me. The EXIF data shows that it was taken at ISO 2000, but there was very little noise in the file. I have to shoot a lot more before I will have a definitive conclusion, but I'm starting to think that with careful pushing of exposure to the right, great picture quality can be had up to and beyond ISO 2000 - maybe even up to 3200.

Here's a 100% crop of the image without any sharpening or noise reduction applied.

I've gone and done it again. I bought a camera that I had never seen before. Or used. Or read a proper review of. What gives??

The last DX camera (Nikon parlance for 1.5x crop factor DSLR's) I owned was the Nikon D300S, and I sold it way back in 2012. Almost a lifetime in camera terms. Since then I've missed the combination of reach and speed that a good DX body offers for wildlife photography. As much as I missed my D300S, advantages like high ISO performance, dynamic range and autofocus performance made the switch to a D800/D4 combination a no-brainer. Until now. Why not a D7200 you may ask? The smaller form factor of the body, but mostly a very shallow buffer were the major issues for me.

10fps, decent high ISO performance, cutting edge AF all wrapped up in a tough body - what was not to like? My D4 went on sale the same day I ordered the D500! I got to use a pre-production D500 (and a D5) at a local Nikon event recently, and it seemed that all the hype might actually be true, though I obviously haven't had a chance to play with any actual images. I can hardly wait to get mine!