Nikon D7500 Field Test

Some seven years ago, Nikon plugged the gap between its professional DSLR lineup and its more consumer-friendly offerings with the launch of a brand-new, mid-range DSLR camera series. The Nikon D7000 was the first product in that line, and it was aimed with laser-like precision at enthusiast photographers.

With no replacement as of then having been offered up for the earlier D300 and D300S, and full-frame as yet still only available in pro-grade bodies, the D7000 became the company's de-facto flagship enthusiast DSLR from late 2010. And the same was true of its DX-format successors, the D7100 and D7200, which launched in early 2013 and 2015 respectively to bear the APS-C flagship crown themselves.

A week or so back, I posted my first Field Test for the Nikon D7500, an enthusiast-oriented followup to the extremely popular D7200. (Not already had a chance to read that first report? If so, you'll want to start here and then return to this page when you're done.)

At the time, I noted that an unfortunate mistake on my part meant that I'd missed capturing any raw files for my first batch of shots, instead recording only compressed JPEGs. Hence, I wanted to return as quickly as I could with a second field test rectifying this.

Two more shoots, one in the day and one spanning sunset
With an overnight road trip to Cincinnati, Ohio planned anyway to take my son to see a show by his favorite YouTube celebrity, I took the D7500 along for the journey and shot a bunch of daylight photos. (After very, very carefully double-checking to be sure I enabled raw capture this time.)

Over the last few weeks, I've posted two field tests looking at how the Nikon D7500 performs in the real world. In my first field test, I took Nikon's enthusiast DSLR on the road to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, then followed up with a daytime shoot back home in Knoxville, Tennessee. In the second field test, I continued with a sunset and evening shoot, rounding things out nicely with a raft of gallery shots across the sensitivity range.

If you've not already read those two field tests, I recommend you start there to get the full benefit of my real-world shooting experiences. Click here to read the first field test, or click here for the second one.

For the third test, I want to move the focus away from still image quality for a bit, and take a look at sports shooting performance and movie capture, as well as answering a few reader questions that cropped up since my previous reports.