Real-world Autofocus Performance: Soccer
Since the D5 effectively aced our motorized, airborne version of the Richard Butler Man on a Bike Test™, it was time for another sport. Enter soccer (football for the rest of the world). For this particular match, we had low-ish light, dark blue jerseys that blended into the background, and as always with soccer, various players criss-crossing and moving in wholly unpredictable ways.
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| Ouch. Processed and cropped to taste from Raw. Photo by Carey Rose. Nikon AF-S 300mm F4 PF @ F4 | 1/800 sec | ISO 12800 |
A quick trip to the Nikon Professional Services Global site reveals Nikon's suggested setup for shooting the world's most popular sport. They identify using 25-point dynamic-area continuous autofocus (for nearly everything, curiously), also going so far as to specify the 'blocked shot AF response' value to be 2 and 'subject motion' to be normal. Noticeably absent from any of the sports listed on that page is Nikon's 3D Tracking mode. So, since I personally use 3D Tracking for just about everything and because it worked so well for motocross, I decided to try both it and Nikon's recommendation. Let's start with the oddball choice: 3D Tracking.
Note - rollovers on this page are made from Nikon ViewNX-i screen captures, and have been cropped to allow for easy identification of the AF point. They are not representative of the D5's image quality.
3D Tracking
With soccer, the D5's 3D Tracking performance far exceeded my expectations. I used slightly different settings than Nikon's recommendation for Dynamic-area, setting 'Blocked shot AF response' to 3 and subject movement to 'erratic.' With that setup, if I successfully initiated autofocus on my subject, the camera tracked impressively well, keeping the point over the subject as they moved around the frame. Even during bursts, which is not necessarily my experience with lower end, non-Dx series bodies like the D810. This let me follow my subjects a little less carefully than if I was following them with a manually picked point, and also freed up my compositions a little bit. What's most surprising, though, is how tenaciously 3D Tracking would stick to my subject when it was completely blocked by another player. It remembers.
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My experience largely mirrored that of our Tech Editor, Rishi, who despite it being his first rugby game ever, came back with an enormous number of hits simply using 3D Tracking to specify his subject, then firing away while following, somewhat imprecisely he'd add, erratically moving players at 300mm.
But that's not say that 3D Tracking is completely infallible. When the camera loses the subject, you may find yourself re-framing and re-initiating quickly, but luckily the D5 is really quick at that re-initiating part (focus acquisition is fast). Sometimes though, you just end up with this:
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Admittedly, in the above images, 3D Tracking had a lot working against it. A dark subject, backlit, on a dark background. In any case, you can see how the camera decided to start tracking the player closer to the camera (possibly anticipating movement of the existing subject, possibly influenced by the backlighting), rendering the original subject out-of-focus by the time he decided to kick the ball.
So there's the rub. Despite how well 3D Tracking works, it is fallible in certain situations. It also does slow down, and get more inaccurate, in lower light. And let's just say for the sake of argument that the above play was a crucial one, and all I came back with was a shot with missed focus. That's not good. That's where 25-point dynamic area autofocus might come in handy.
Dynamic-area autofocus
As described on our main autofocus page, dynamic-area autofocus heavily weights a single, user-selected point surrounded with 'helper' points. The idea is that you, the photographer, track the action yourself, and the helper points analyze either a portion of the scene or the entire scene to provide some leeway if you let your point slip off a subject for a short while.* As long as you can follow the action, it works remarkably well, but behaves quite differently from 3D Tracking. Here's an example.
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In this sequence of images, I chose to simply stay with the center point (note that Nikon's software doesn't show you the 'helper' points surrounding it). You can clearly see how, when dialed into Nikon's suggested settings, 25-point dynamic-area autofocus works just as expected. Instead of trying to track the initial subject through the foreground player, it simply reacquires focus rapidly when that player's body takes up the entire 'dynamic area,' then refocuses rapidly back again when the action emerges from behind him. Of course, whether or not it will refocus this rapidly depends on your 'Blocked Shot AF Response' value, which in this case, was fairly short at '2.' What's more, with these settings, this behavior was repeatable and predictable throughout the time I used this mode.
It's worth reinforcing that with a larger dynamic area and slower 'Blocked Shot AF Response' value dialed in, the camera's behavior will change accordingly - it may not refocus as rapidly or readily on a new subject blocking the intended subject. It's really up to you, the photographer, to find a starting point, and dial in any changes as you might need them.
The takeaway
If you are a full-time sports photographer that knows the sport you're shooting inside-and-out, there's little reason to give up control to the camera via 3D Tracking mode. Although we've seen how it's very good, a seasoned pro will be able to follow the action just as well and the autofocus system should be able to keep up, so long as your custom parameters are dialed in properly.
But 3D Tracking has its place. It still works exceptionally well as a default, go-to mode for general shooting. It's great for weddings and events, allowing you more compositional freedom. As an example, you might have a great angle of view and shot framed up for the bride walking down the aisle. With dynamic-area or single-point AF, you'd have to place a focus point on the bride and follow her, thereby ruining the composition you'd already picked out. You can also avoid pre-focusing and having to stop down to get you additional depth of field. With 3D Tracking, you can frame everything up, initiate tracking on her and continually focus as she moves through your chosen scene.
And that's the great thing about having all of these modes - once you're familiar with them, you can choose which modes work best for your style of photography.
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| Processed and cropped to taste. Photo by Carey Rose. Nikon AF-S 300mm F4 PF @ F4 | 1/800 sec | ISO 12800 |
Video
4k/24p sample
While the D5 will record full 1080p at 60fps for semi slow-motion footage without any crop, the footage looks very soft. Maybe not quite Leica Q soft, but soft enough to make you second-guess your focusing. This doesn't change if you switch down to 1080/24p, and in fact, while you get less pixelation 1080p than in 720p modes, the former doesn't really offer any detail advantage over the latter. The Full HD crop modes help with detail a little bit, but the crop is so extreme (3.0x) that it's not terribly useful.
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1080/60p sample
1080/24p sample
1080/60p crop mode sample
In terms of focusing, the autofocus in video mode is still leagues behind Canon's Dual Pixel sensors and many mirrorless cameras, like Sony's a7R II. Sure, with the touchscreen you can tap to move the focus point, but the camera will still hunt more than we'd like, to the extent that it can compromise otherwise solid footage. Best to keep it in AF-S and only re-focus as necessary between shots, or just do it manually. But good luck trying to focus manually, as there is no focus peaking and no magnification possible during video recording.
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Tap-to-focus sample
There is no stabilization built into the body of the D5, and no digital stabilization is provided, regardless of the video resolution you choose. Therefore it's best to keep the D5 on a tripod, or use a stabilized lens if you're going to shoot handheld. Lastly, you'll want to be careful of rolling shutter during moderately fast pans.
The D5 does come with a few useful provisions for video shooting. In addition to headphone and microphone sockets, you get zebra patterning and the 'Flat' picture profile mode (used on these sample clips) to help you get the most dynamic range you can out of your footage. Almost all the settings you'd want to change while shooting video are available right from the live view mode, including frame size and frame rate.
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Low-light sample footage - 4K at ISO 64000
In all, as with previous Nikon DSLRs that shoot video, the D5's video mode is useful for those who need to capture occasional clips, but we'd recommend using a more video-centric camera with more flexible files for more meaningful productions.
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Conclusion
Overall conclusion
The Nikon D5 is the latest in the company's evolving line of double-grip, full-frame action-oriented DSLR cameras. With a newly designed 20.8MP sensor, 12fps of continuous shooting with low viewfinder blackout and an intelligent and effective 153-point autofocus system, the D5 handily outguns its predecessor in almost every key area to take its rightful spot atop the Nikon lineup.
Honestly, though, that shouldn't come as any surprise. A careful reading of the 'Pros' and 'Cons' above should indicate that we had a hard time finding many faults with this camera - indeed, many of the marks against the D5 pale in absolute significance compared to what it has going for it.
But no camera, not even a $6500 flagship, is completely and utterly perfect. While the D5 is a powerful machine, it must be mentioned that there are some ways in which it does lag behind cameras in other market segments. It's just a question of whether you care.
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Handling
Weighing in at just over three pounds without a lens, there's no denying the D5's big size and relative heft (friends have expressed surprise at my carrying such a 'beast' around with me everywhere). It's covered in buttons, dials and switches, and will be familiar for the most part to established Nikon shooters (you'll need to re-train yourself for the ISO button move, however). Despite its heft, it's comfortable to hold, and with a good strap, you'll be fine carrying it and using it for hours at a time without a hand cramp.
This is a complex camera, though, and we recommend spending some time going through the menus and figuring out how you'd like it set up for you. There is a good deal of customization at your fingertips with the D5 that you'll want to be familiar with to get the most out of the camera for your style of shooting.
Of particular significance is a new-for-Nikon approach of assigning new autofocus area modes to function button presses. As a back-button shooter, I can assign AF-ON to initiate 3D Tracking. A press of the 'Fn1' button shifts to single-point continuous autofocus, and a full-press of the AF joystick (sub-selector, in Nikon lingo) switches to Auto Area AF, all with AF activation. If you include manual focusing since I've decoupled AF from the shutter button, that's four entirely different focus modes that I have access to all the time without even shifting my grip. It's perfect for both rapidly changing shooting conditions and simply getting familiar with which mode will work best for the particular situation you're in.
There will be those that bemoan the inclusion of a touchscreen on a camera of this caliber, but Nikon's put some thought into it and it tends to work well. You can double-tap anywhere on the screen to 100% into that particular spot (as opposed to the one-button 100% zoom, which only zooms to the point of focus), and you can drag along the bottom to scrub quickly through a large quantity of images. And of course, you can always simply disable the touch functionality if you don't want to use it. At which point you may appreciate the ability to use the front dial to scrub through detected faces at 100% in image review.
Click to read more in-depth coverage of body and design and controls and setup
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Autofocus and overall performance
The D5 ups the ante for DSLR autofocus systems, with a total of 153 phase-detection points (99 of which are cross-type, and 55 of which are user-selectable) and an updated 180k-pixel RGB metering sensor. The autofocus module and metering sensor work in tandem throughout most of the D5's more sophisticated autofocus modes to more intelligently track subjects through the viewfinder, and during 12fps burst shooting. That last point is important: while non-Dx series Nikons can often subject (3D) track very well, they tend to falter in doing so during bursts. Not the D5.
The advanced subject tracking also negates some of the perceived issues around 'only' having 55 selectable points: in any dynamic area focus mode, the camera will automatically, and more importantly reliably, select appropriate surrounding points to stick to your subject if your point falls off of it. Importantly, most of those points the cameras may use to track your subject are reliable: 99 cross-sensors all the way out to the edges of the AF area mean consistent focus with little hunting, even in backlit or low light situations.
There's also a new degree of customization for its tracking modes, now offering you the choice of biasing the system toward 'erratic' or 'steady' subjects. Even though many of the subjects I was shooting were more 'steady,' I found that keeping the camera set up for 'erratic' and a 'blocked shot AF response' value of 3 netted me a high degree of keepers without much fuss.
And that's the real story about the D5. The autofocus system just works, and works well, from screw-drive lenses to silent wave motors, 16mm to 300mm, fast apertures to slow apertures, and nearly regardless of lighting conditions. With AF-ON set to 3D Tracking, the camera would lock focus instantaneously and track just about everything very well. With erratic subjects and long lenses, the rapidity of initial focus becomes very important, since you still have to place the AF point over your subject before 3D Tracking can begin. Good thing the D5 excels here, allowing near-instant focus acquisition for situations where I barely had time to place that AF point in the first place. As for the times my subject was confusing the tracking mode, I could easily switch to single-point and follow the subject myself, but that happened incredibly rarely.
Perhaps most impressively, Auto Area AF is a revelation on the D5 - in my experience, it does not simply focus on what's closest to the camera, instead analyzing the scene with some degree of intelligence and trying to decide what I'd actually want it to focus on. It's not a mode I use all the time, but if you're going to miss a moment trying to place an AF point over your subject, letting the D5 do it for you - with just one button press now that AF modes are assignable - might just get you the shot before the moment's over.
Helping you make the best of how well the autofocus system works is the outright performance of the D5. It is, simply, blazingly fast. This is due to instant power-on, short enough viewfinder blackout to allow you to easily follow your subject during bursts, and almost instant image review regardless of how long you've been shooting continuously. Couple all of that with a battery that's easily good for 4,000+ images, and you're set up with a camera that you may not forget is slung around your shoulder, but in terms of creating images, it just gets out of your way and lets you get on with it.
Click to read more in-depth coverage of autofocus and performance
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Stills and video image quality
The D5's newly designed 20.8MP full-frame image sensor seems to be a compromise of sorts. Lacking the insane dynamic range we've come to expect from other full-frame cameras across different systems, the D5's sensor partly makes up for it with better high ISO performance and incredibly fast read-out speed. So in the unlikely event that you want to shoot at an insanely high frame rate and still get D810 levels of Raw dynamic range, you can't. In a turn of events, Canon's new 1D-X II actually supersedes the base ISO dynamic range of the D5, thought it falls behind at high ISO.
In real world shooting, the D5's dynamic range hasn't been a huge problem. Sure, you'll need to watch your exposure in high contrast scenes more than you would on, say, a D750 or D810 - pushed low ISO Raw files out of the D5 exhibit a lot more shadow noise than those other cameras. But that's taken care of by either sacrificing some highlight detail during your exposure, or with a little bit of luminance noise reduction in post. And if you shoot JPEG and nail your exposure, or routinely in low light, there's even more to like. Nikon's JPEG processing still doesn't retain quite as much detail, particularly at high ISO, as Sony's content-aware algorithm, but it's noticeably better than the D4S, retaining more detail at higher ISOs with less noise and better color retention.
In fact, high ISO JPEG quality with regards to color is excellent on the D5, and that's something that will be very important to those photographers that shoot on a deadline with clients who only accept JPEGs. And when, as a photographer, your images are being pushed primarily to the web and being viewed on smartphones, the overall appearance (which is very much influenced by color) matters more than the retention of very slight details that your audience won't be able to see anyway.
For a camera being touted for its updated video specs, the overall video experience on the D5 is still lacking. The 4K video quality is good but not outstanding, and the 1080p and 720p modes are so soft as to make you wonder whether you missed focusing. Speaking of focusing, Nikon's live view autofocus still hunts enough to effectively ruin your footage, so the tap-to-focus functionality is much less useful than on, say, a Canon 1D-X II, which racks very smoothly thanks to its Dual Pixel tech. If you choose to leave it in manual focus, there are no focusing aids whatsoever - no peaking, and no magnification during recording. There are both microphone and headphone ports, though, as well as zebra patterning and a 'flat' picture profile to help you get the most dynamic range out of your footage. But as with other Nikon DSLRs that shoot video, the D5 is first and foremost a stills camera, with video being a bonus if you need to take the occasional clip.
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The final word
For much of the prospective camera-buying market, the D5 represents a benchmark against which to compare more practical purchases. But what a benchmark it sets. Use one, and you'll be rewarded with as close to a polished, pure and responsive photographic tool as you can get. To be clear, that's 'pure' in a much different sense than when you compare it to, say, a Leica. It's pure in the sense that it just gets out of your way and lets you get on with taking pictures, whether you're someone that needs maximum control at your fingertips, someone that's looking to free up some brainpower by letting the camera do some of the work for you, or if you're somewhere in-between.
In that sense, the D5 ably carries on the tradition set forth by its predecessors. It gives professionals the tools they need to do their jobs effectively, with very little fluff. This camera is likely to stand up to wet, freezing, projectile-laden or otherwise unsavory conditions better than its operator. And with the best JPEGs I've seen from any Nikon in the current lineup, the D5 helps photographers get photos of those unsavory conditions out to the rest of the world quickly (though built-in Wi-Fi would help even more with that).
The D5 is a big camera that represents a big investment. But with increased battery life, an updated metering sensor and autofocus that's more reliable than ever, the D5's value proposition for those that truly need it is better than its price and sensor specification might suggest. The D5 may not re-imagine the high-end sports camera market segment, but it doesn't need to. It's an eminently enjoyable and reliable camera to use in the real world, and has the best autofocus system that anyone in the DPReview offices has ever used - bar none. The D5 will serve established photographers very well at the upcoming Olympic games in Rio, to say nothing of the wedding photographers, action photographers, or other photographers that just need ultimate speed, durability and reliability for their livelihoods.
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