Nikon D5: A pro sports photographer gives us his opinion

Where is the joke?
More megapixels doesn't mean you're absolutely required to use a higher shutter speed, unless you plan on capturing more detail of a moving subject (or lessening the effects of camera shake) than a lower pitch camera. Pixel-peeping a higher pitched image will reveal those minute variances but that doesn't mean you lose detail by shooting with a higher pitch camera. Therefore a 5DSr shooting at 1/2000th would capture just as much detail and quite potentially more than a D5 camera shooting at 1/2000th.

Yes, a 5DSr can be used for sports/action photography. Do you realize that the pixel density of a 5DSr is quite similar to a D500? The AF system in the 5DSr may not be quite as good as a D500 but very similar to the 7DII. Certainly you won't have the frame rate of a D500 but you will have the same ability to capture as much detail with the 5DSr as you would with a D500 at the same shutter speed.
They are not paid Canon photographers? Where did you get that from?

They are talking about capturing more detail, yes there's double the resolution but to acheive any more in focus detail that would mean the shutter speed needs to rise for a moving animal and raising the shutter speed means raising the ISO which high ISO on the 5dsr is not great from my limited use of the camera, many reviews state that as well. It thrives at low ISO. In wildlife 4-5 fps is a bit slow and also having a short buffer doesn't make it a prime choice. So I have no idea why that would be a top choice for wildlife and no review besides them states the 5dsr works well for wildlife, most state not recommended for wildlife and sports. It's a great camera just not for active wildlife or sports.

A search-engine query for 5DSr and wildlife pulled up several photogs who said good things after trying it for wildlife. That doesn't mean its a perfect wildlife camera for every situation, however there are many times where 4-5 fps is perfectly adequate. Would it be the best choice if you could only have one camera body? For myself no.

Being a member of CPS is quite different than being a paid Canon professional. I may have misunderstood you, but a paid Canon professional would be someone paid by Canon for their professional work. In the case of CPS, that is quite the opposite. One pays Canon for the privilege of receiving loaner equipment and repair services from Canon. Unlike Nikon, my understanding is that no level of CPS is free. Now if you were someone like Arthur Morris, Canon designates you differently, giving you free support services in exchange for your undying loyalty to their products.

Another thing about Tony Northup is that he has 500969 subscribers at YouTube so what he is saying might just deserve a little attention from us.
Check out his newest post about 6d mkII, Nikon D820 & Sony A9

This is actually a really nice, real-world review as well that I made a point to read before starting this one. There's a lot of processing on the files, but he does an informal comparison between a D5, 5D III and D750 about two thirds of the way down the page.

@ Carey Rose
"As I've alluded to elsewhere, the base ISO DR is slightly above a Canon 5D Mark III"
is not a very good sign at all in absolute terms, even worse in relative terms (currently tech). To me it is unacceptable that the best of the best of a specific brand has the worst DR in its lineup at base DR. Just a principle. You being in Washington State must have also had a gorgeously hot and sunny weekend (I am based in Victoria) and my wedding shots on the beach and patchy forest sun turned out because of my A7RII, definitely not because of my 1DX. The D5 would have struggled as well.
The D5 has basically the same base DR and ISO variance of a 7DII which was heavily criticized for (and not getting a gold for), but for a camera 3 times the cost and 2 years newer is all cool to overlook.

@ Carey Rose
Btw, about the article you shared, funny Nikon users now starting talking like Canon users defending and justifying the poor DR performance. As Rishi had often well put, iso invariance is not just about recovering highlights in very bright days, but also gaining DR with higher iso settings and contrasting scenes. Barney, as a true sport photographer cannot care less. But many out there, and ironically, low light shooting people, do.

@armandino - Well, I agree in a sense (and I definitely don't doubt your experience with the a7R II). But I've also shot a 7DII recently for a lens gallery, and was really unimpressed with the files overall compared with the D5's as far as post processing, regardless of the low ISO DR similarity.

More progress in terms of base ISO DR would indeed have been nice. I have no direct contacts at Nikon R&D, but I would wager that if they could have upped the base ISO DR while still offering better high ISO IQ + 12fps shooting, they probably would have. As stated in our ISO invariance page, we might be running up against limitations for current production processes. Honestly, this is a far more technical discussion than I'm really qualified to weigh in on currently.

But...fingers crossed there's newer processes around the corner that will yield something spectacular.

And a sidenote - Nikon's flagships have all lagged behind the 'best of the best' DR on the market since the D800.

A camera walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "What'll ya have?" The camera says, "Give me a shot."

P.S. Also joking here.

new to me too. I think it is a valid opinion he laid out.

Michael Reichmann (rest in peace) wrote about higher shutter speeds required for the same focal length with higher megapixels, years ago. I think he recommended at least 1/2x the focal length. He had some good examples of what he was talking about. Maybe you can find a cached copy of what he wrote.

difference are linear with resolution.
Resolution is sides of the pictures, so not linear with megapixel count.
~1.4x more if you double megapixels

I'm pretty sure the D800 series manuals suggested a shutter speed faster than the usual 1/focal length for handheld and tripod for anything critical.

This first came to the fore when the D800 was born. If I remember it right. Thom Hogan said it best; the gist of what he wrote was something like this...

"with the increase in pixels from 12MP to 36MP, comes an increase in sensitivity to your movement on the X, and Y axis. " --- which explains why your shots at 10mp and 12mp were forgiving with your unsteady hands. The jump to 36mp for example had additional pixels on the 4 sides of the sensor plane that "amplified" your handling movement if you weren't careful. You needed an increase in shutter speed to counter that.

I think the point is that at the same SS any blur would be the same, but becomes more noticeable now you have more pixels - taken with the same SS and viewed at the same size they would obviously look the same in terms of sharpness.

This is something I experienced when going from D300 to D610, it was pretty interesting to experience with that, with another factor being the D610 weighing less, something I saw in the old days when I took portrait with both Nikon F4s and F80.

Weight is not necessary a concern, it could be a clear advantage, even with a 50mm f/1.4!

Neither...it's where you sit. You're not going to get any of these kinds of shots from row 37, even if they do let you in with your big white lens.

Don't get me wrong, these sports photographers are definitely very skilled shooters, and some of them are true artists, but it's much like they say in real estate...location, location, location.

""What's a pro sports photographer?""
generally most people would say: anybody that gets paid for their photos, to some extend can make a living off it. It isn't the gears or skill that define it, just need to make money for it. Generally if your stuffs are good/different enough people will buy it.

@fatdeeman: Your comment is based on the fallacy that canon fans usually have negative things to say about Nikon. They generally don't.

Great snark! You took his thoughtful comment and really showed him who's boss!

I did the same move in early 2008 from Canon to Nikon D3 (and later added a D3X to it) . For me the ISO capability of the D3 was unmatched this time and I liked the fact to bring back highlights so easily. My Canons couldn't do that. Second you forgot the big AF problem the 1D Mark III had. Today I work with a 1DX, but the D5 is very tempting.

In 2008 Canon users became too frustrated with the Pro DSLRs. The 1D Mk II was riddled with bugs that were patched by an almost constant flow of firmware releases. The release of the 1D Mk iii promised to finish with all the issues that plagued the Mk ii but the reality was different. Many big agencies told Canon where to go and Nikon, who had just released the D3 capitalised by offering photographers worried about the cost of new glass, a trade in program which made the transition much smoother and less costly.

True the two extra frames per second are great if the autofocus system can keep up, otherwise a faster frame rate with less keepers doesn't help.

Don't agree.

Might as well say "Its really sad this photography thing - artists should paint with brushes and oil on a matte canvas."

The moment is captured. Thats what matters. Don't get sentimental about "anticipating and hitting the mark" as you put it.

Technology moves on.

I would be a little sentimental. When global shutters mature, AF technology continues to mature, and robotics and sensor technology become cheap commodities, photography will be gear you purchase, mount on a robot, and click record on your smart watch.

Not all photographers believe its about the end results but also the journey. Taken a little further, it will eventually be similar to who enjoys a nice game of chess, and who enjoys building the best computer to play chess for them. The computer can very well match or exceed the average person's ability to play chess, doesn't mean because the 'results' of the computer is statistically better that automatically should be the way to play chess.

@Gesture, you're missing the forest for the trees.

Yes on the one hand, people lean on technology as a crutch. FPS, ISO, DR, MP, it can all become a tool that some shooters use to get shots they otherwise might not be able to get without tons of experience.

But, we also need to realize that such impressive new features do raise the bar for what is possible, period. Maybe 30 years ago, a highly skilled sports photographer might come away with a dozen incredibly well-timed sports images in a year. Or three dozen, I don't know how prolific sports shooters were in the 80's. But my point is, take whatever keeper rate that was, and multiply it by ten, or a hundred, to get the keeper rate of an experienced pro using a D5 today.

It's not just quantity of course; quality goes up too. In fact 20 years ago you simply could not have shot in certain light at all. So new photos are now possible that were literally impossible before.

Gesture, I get where you're coming from, but you'll have really few people agreeing with you on a gear forum (which is the same as saying: tech adoring forum). The replies you've got probably confirm that.

I agree with you, and get where you're coming from, and will leave it at that. ;)

Full disclosure: my last serious sports photography was about 1980, at the college sports level. To answer your question about prediction, if you follow a team and its' players over a season, you absolutely can and do anticipate plays, goals, etc. It isn't even at a cognitively aware level. You just know, and (before autofocus) would pre focus on where the action was going to be. Does today's tech enable many more keepers? Absolutely. What feels as though it is missing in these discussions is any nod to the value of a deep understanding of the game and individual athlete's style of play.

Thanks for all the good replies. Interesting, I saw the same logic applied by portrait, model photographers just a few weeks ago.

I wonder how one of the most famous images in sports history we unfortunately saw featured this week would play out in modern times.

I go back to the film days when, what did those Nikon cassettes hold?, there was some limitation. The interesting thing is that every time a new advance came along,metering, autoexposure, autofocus, autowind, etc., the "pros" would say "we want to control those parameters, we can do better."

Yet pros are the first to adopt automation in the field, for the reasons just mentioned.

Higher resolution means that something that was sharp across one pixel might be blurry across 2 pixels if the new sensor is twice as dense (4x megapixels), if the subject is in motion.

Therefore increasing shutter speed would be the solution to freeze the motion even further.

Contrary to what some old grumpy dudes will tell you, 35mm film tapped out at about ~12 megapixels, in the practical world. Yes, the detail was "infinite" and you could scan more and more resolution, but let's just put the law of diminishing returns somewhere around there.

I mention this because either way, (no matter what you believe about resolution) ...the bottom line is that if you increase resolution without increasing sensor size, you are effectively putting a bigger and bigger magnifying glass up to your final image, or your final print. You're taking a 20x30" print and standing with your nose practically touching it, instead of viewing it from across your living room.

That is what higher and higher megapixels are doing. They're looking closer and closer at your subjects.

This inherently also scrutinizes many other things, mainly your lens' optical quality, and your shooting technique. Both of these must be improved in order to get the most out of higher-resolution sensors.