Nikon Df Performance

Generally good speed for a prosumer full-frame DSLR, though autofocus is somewhat sluggish for its class, and burst speed is unremarkable.

Startup and Play to Record mode switching times were fairly quick. Buffer clearing time depends on the image size and quality, burst length and the speed of memory card used, but was generally pretty good with a 95MB/s UHS-I SDHC card.

In terms of the Nikon Df's ability to determine that it's properly focused when shooting the same target multiple times (with no change of focus setting between iteration, to remove the impact of lens AF speed), its speed was a little slow for prosumer model. With its 50mm f/1.8 kit lens, the Df 's full autofocus shutter lag was 0.274 second using single-area center AF mode, and 39-point Auto Area AF lag measured 0.493 second. Quite a few consumer DSLRs are actually faster in this test.

Manual focus shutter lag was very fast, though, at 0.079 second, and prefocused shutter lag was faster, at 0.054 second.

Full autofocus was much slower in Live View mode, as expected. The Nikon Df only offers contrast-detect AF in Live View, which took about 1.39 seconds to focus and take a shot with the 50mm f/1.8 kit lens. (How fast the lens can adjust focus makes a big difference here -- with our Sigma 70mm f/2.8 lens, it took about 1.74s.) Prefocused shutter lag was also much slower in Live View mode but not too bad, at about 0.23 second.

To minimize the effect of different lens' focusing speed, we test AF-active shutter lag with the lens already set to the correct focal distance.

Single-shot cycle time performance was good, at just over 0.5 second per frame no matter the file type.

Continuous High Speed modes were fair for a prosumer full-frame SLR model. We measured a consistent 5.4 frames per second, not matter the file type, just slightly lower than Nikon's 5.5fps spec. The Nikon Df also has a Continuous Low Speed mode with a programmable 1 to 5fps framerate.

Buffer depths were good at over 50 best quality JPEGs, 29 14-bit lossless compressed RAW and 22 14-bit RAW+ best quality JPEGs. (Even better buffer depths are likely available when shooting typical subjects and/or using lower quality settings.) Buffer clearing was fairly swift considering the buffer sizes, ranging from 7 to 10 seconds after maximum-length bursts.

Download speeds were fairly fast, fast enough that you probably won't feel the need for a separate card reader.


Bottom line, the Nikon Df's performance is generally good for a full-frame DSLR with fast startup, single-shot cycle times and low shutter lag, though both autofocus and burst mode speeds are a little slower than most DSLRs. Even the more budget-friendly full-frame D610 had slightly faster AF and burst rate despite being higher resolution, though the Df has deeper buffers.

Battery Life

Excellent battery life for a prosumer DSLR.

The Nikon Df uses a custom rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack for power, and comes with both a single battery and charger. The CIPA rated 1,400 shots per charge using the optical viewfinder is excellent, but keep in mind the Df does not have a built-in flash which is normally fired for 50% of shots when tested using the CIPA standard. Unfortunately, Nikon does not seem to publish battery life results for when Live View mode is used, but it's a safe bet that it's considerably shorter.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of on fully-charged battery, based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))