D500 or 5D iv, for AF, macro/wide, battery life and on land use

Hi all,

This may be a difficult question to answer, but I'm looking for the be all and end all camera for the next 5-10 years.

Ill be using this camera on land and underwater, and its currently a tossup between the nikon d500 and the Canon 5d iv.

Price; a factor, but they're not hugely different

AF: seems nikon wins here hands down?

IQ: technically nikon edges here, but I believe they're similar

Lenses: cheaper with aps-c without a doubt. Not for macro. However Canon offers an f4 and an f2.8 option. I assume the latter is as per formant underwater?

Macro: easier with aps-c due to crop and working distance + depth of field.

Wide angle: no differentiation, as the tokina 10-17 should provide what I need

Landscape on land: i use the rokinon 14mm,which should be equivalent of the tokina 10-17

Batterylife: a lot of users complain about the 5d iv, I'm in lembeh now and my friend who did one dive came up with 50%! I may as well get a mirror less at that rate!

Conclusion: have i talked myself into buying the nikon d500? It seems better in all aspects but it's only downside is being crop, which I feel I can combat with the tokina 10-17.

What are your thoughts?

Looks like you have talked yourself into the D500. Also bare in mind that there are other Wide Angle lenses which work very well with the D500 and do not cost a arm and a leg. The Nikkor 10.5mm f2.8 FE is an outstanding lens which can be bought at a reasonable price. If you want rectangular wide angle the Tokina 11-16mm is also a great lens to play with.

Battery life with the D500 is great. But you have to use the new batteries for it. Use the older batteries and there be shorter battery life. This is only an issue if you already have the older batteries from earlier models. If you do Nikon will replace them with the new batteries free of charge. I shoot close to 1000 shots with video over 2 dives and still have maybe 80% battery life.

I also turned off WIFI on my D500 as i found it used battery life as it was searching for a decent WIFI at the dive shop (lots of wifi connections). I turn on airplane mode and never had a problem since.

Any questions just ask,

Regards Mark

Awesome thanks Mark. How do you find the AF and working distance with macro?

I'd love an excuse to buy another full frame but in all honesty it seems the crop is perhaps the way to go unfortunately!

Which housing do you have?

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I dont shoot macro very often but when I do its like 3-4 long dives a day for several days and normally in Indonesia. Last trip I bought a Tokina 100mm macro lens and used this for the whole trip and used with the Aquatica close up lense (+5 and +10). The reason why I bought the Tokina was because I didnt want to spend the money on the 105mm when I dont shoot macro often. I was surprised with the quality and performance of the Tokina 100mm macro. The AF was super fast and pin point accurate and there wasnt a need to go manual. There was some very fine rocking back and fro when using the +10 but this was in only a few rare occasions during the trip.

I have my D500 housed in an Aquatica AD500.

Regards Mark

Hi,
i have a Hugyfot housing for the D500.
And used a Nikon 85mm macro on the last trip.
Cheap and very leight weighted.
Alternative i have a 60mm AFS, and a 70 - 180mm macro zoom.
The Sigma 105mm OS macro was great, very sharp, but got stolen with my first D500.
With my D300 i often was using the af to get close to the focus point and then move back and forward.
The D500 just nail it.....

Regards,
Wolfgang

awesome, I'm going with the d500!

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