You want a camera.  Or you want to give someone a gift of a camera.  The decision is to go with a DSLR and now it's time to shop.  Then you go to the big box store, or the dedicated photo shop, or you sit in the kitchen shopping online, but in the end you come away frustrated because there are so many choices and when you find something that looks decent, you immediately find a review from someone who hates the thing.  Arrgghhh!   I cannot promise that this article will make your life easier, but if you are seeking a DSLR for the starting or growing photographer, you should take a long look at the D5500 from Nikon.

Let's preface the review with a short conversation about use cases.  I've been a photographer for over 40 years.  I don't specialize in any specific style or subject matter, but I do have very specific requirements that suit my work and my needs.  Most experienced photographers are in the same place.  The only issue that can arise is if a review is bound to the writer's use case which may not match your own.  Consequently, I've worked hard to eliminate any considerations for my own use cases in this review.

Nikon has two "consumer" families of DSLR.  The D3XXX and D5XXX lines are built to hit the price market points for entry level DSLR cameras.  It is a price point conversation because budgets are real.  Manufacturers also want people to be happy and upgrade over time and still be able to do so within a budget.  The D5500 is the present top of the line in Nikon's consumer lineup.  

Be clear, I use the word consumer because that's what the market calls it.  Cameras like the D5500 blow away pro cameras from five years ago pretty much across the board when it comes to features and functionality.  So let's agree not to get caught in segmentation verbiage and instead focus on what real people need and want.

A primary use case for many photographers is the containment of weight and size.  A camera is a tool, but is likely not to be the only thing being carried around.  For a lot of users, weight and bulk would relegate the camera to the closet or the drawer.  That's a waste on all sides, so Nikon made the D5500 small and lightweight.  It's physically smaller than the D5300 it supersedes and smaller than most of the competition.  It is super lightweight as well so it doesn't become a burden on the shooter's neck or shoulder.  This focus on size and weight will mean that the camera will be pulled out and used more often.

The D5500 comes with a "kit" lens.  Kit lens is not synonymous with "piece of crap" although I hear this from sellers all too frequently.  Kit lenses are not made entirely of plastic and even the parts that are made of plastic use very high quality polymers in their construction.  Plastic as a word has become an adjective indicating cheap crap.  If you believe that, go take a walk around your home and determine what you would still have without quality plastics, it's ok, I'll wait.

Plastic weighs less than metal.  For that matter it weighs less than wood, but no one is howling a for a wooden lens instead of plastic.  The focus and lens movement mechanisms are built from high grade plastics as is the lens mount.  It is true that if you abuse them, they will break, but perhaps your use case does not include using your camera body and lens as a sledge hammer.  What does matter is that these lenses are sharp, with excellent colour as well as being lightweight and versatile.  The base lens covers the range of 18mm to 55mm.  The D5500 is, as I'll cover in greater detail later, a crop sensor camera.  That means that if you want to be able to use a single lens for wider images such as landscapes or beaches or groups of people, the lens does that.  if you want to do portraits of friends and family or even just get a decent image of your pet, the lens does that too.  The maximum aperture range is f/3.5 to f/5.6.  The lens is not particularly optically "fast" but the lens is only part of the complete package so combined with an easy to use body and an excellent sensor, you will end up with better exposed and sharper pictures.  And these images will be way better than what you would have been able to get straight out of any camera of this price point two years ago.  It is possible to choose alternates for the base lens, we'll talk about that more as well.

I have average sized hands.  Small cameras with tiny buttons are hard for me to use.  That has nothing to do with use case, it has to do with user interface.  The D5500 is much smaller than the cameras I use every day, but the control layout is well thought out given the space constraints and I would say that anyone will be able to manipulate the controls without problems.  Many people are entering more serious photography from smart phones or point and shoots.  They are accustomed to large bright LCDs and may never have used a viewfinder before.  That's anathema to me, but if it works for you, you're going to love the speed and image quality you get from the D5500 when shooting in what is called "Live View".  It's the same idea as your smartphone, with the exception that however good your smartphone images are, the D5500 is so much better, you may start questioning your prior "awesome shots."

The D5500 has a large bright rear LCD display.  This display is of the tilt and flip variety so it can be adjusted for when your subject is lot to the ground and you aren't, when you need to make a shot over the heads of the crowds in front of you, and of course the popular "selfie shot".  I'm not a selfie person, thinking of them as more the harbinger of doom, but lots of folks like them.  Where I do find this ability to see the panel from in front of the camera extremely useful is in shooting video.  If you and your family are all in the shot, you can see exactly what the camera is seeing and recording and this is a huge benefit.

Regular readers know that I am typically not a big fan of touchscreens on camera LCDs.  Mostly I find them to be a pain, but many folks coming to the D5500 will be accustomed to and desirous of a touchscreen.  The D5500 delivers and I will give Nikon a lot of credit here.  This one is pretty darn usable, to the point where a curmudgeon such as myself was using it regularly during the test.  Old dogs can be taught new tricks I guess.  My only frustration, and this is not unique to Nikon is that being a left eyed shooter who likes to use the eyebrow ridge as a stabilization point, my nose presses against the LCD.  It did not make any settings changes on the D5500, unlike other touchscreens I have used, but still tends to collect human facial oils and need a regular cleaning.  I keep a microfibre cloth in my bag for this purpose because no camera has solved this issue properly yet.

A lot of people want the simplicity of a point and shoot, but the ability to take on more control of how the picture will look.  "Look" includes composition, exposure, style and even certain effects.  The D5500 gives that kind of flexibility.  In Scene mode, it's as easy to use as your smartphone.  Pick the scene that fits and go to town.  You'll get much better pictures than you would ever get with a smartphone or point and shoot camera.  The D5500 also has what photo magazines like to call PASM.  Yup, yet another acronym.  It means, Program, Aperture Preferred, Shutter Preferred and Manual.  What it means to you is that you can exercise exactly how much or how little control you want to exert in the taking of the picture.   In essence, the one camera gives you everything from camera does everything other than point itself and take the shot, to you do every last little thing to make the photograph.  This isn't an exercise in planned obsolescence.

We also know that not every picture looks great when the light is dim, so we've had on camera or on smartphone flash for a long time.  Yes, we know it tends to look very flat and sometimes it really produces some ugly stuff.  But it also can make the difference between getting the shot and not getting the shot, so having a built in flash is very handy.  The flash is small and doesn't have a lot of power but will do the job in home and most family situations.  If you're up in the nosebleed section at a concert, the flash isn't going to do anything for you, so use a Scene mode. And you can feel superior to everyone blasting away with the point and shoot flash or smartphone flash since that light peters out after about 10 feet anyway.

So far this D5500 sounds pretty awesome doesn't it?  That's because it is pretty awesome.  In this next section, I'm going to drill down into some of the technical elements and try to explain where the camera sings, and where you may or may not find a gotcha.

We'll start with the sensor.  Megapixels is a horribly abused term.  It has so much spin placed on it, that you should be able to harness it as a power source.  Basically megapixel count is the number of photo receptors (light gathering devices) on the sensor.  More does not necessarily mean better.  The more pixels, the smaller each pixel is, and that usually means the poorer each pixel performs as the amount of light diminishes.  It's a balancing act.  This sensor has approximately 24,000,000 pixels.  That's more detail than the human eye will normally see by a good chunk.  You don't need more.  There are cameras with more, but they get silly expensive and their use cases become more narrow.  This doesn't mean that you should choose a smaller number of pixels either.  The receptors on this sensor do an excellent job and produce at least the same quality in low light as the sensors from competing products with lower megapixel counts, so no loss there.

Where this camera's sensor kicks serious butt is in the area of dynamic range.  Your eye can see over twenty shades of grey.  Camera sensors used to struggle to see six.  Not anymore.  The sensor in the D5500 can readily see 14 shades of grey.  Competitors barely get to 11.  Here's the net.  Wider dynamic range is better.  Always.  And don't worry when I say shades of grey and you think "but I want colour".  Shades of grey is how bright or dark things are.  The wider the dynamic range, the more real the picture looks.

Camera sensors are not as sensitive as our eyes to different light levels so we have different ISO settings in the camera.  You can let it decide or make the choice yourself.  The good news is that the D5500 has an ISO range of 100 to 25,600.  That covers most any shooting situation.  The lower the number, the better the image quality, both in quality of colour and reduced amount of digital noise.  But there will be situations where getting an image at all is the important thing.  Perhaps your son or daughter is playing in a big game on an outdoor lighted field.  Your eye can compensate for the crappy light but many cameras cannot keep up.  A wider ISO range can mean the difference between getting the shot and not.  Understand that the higher the ISO, the less rich the colour and the more digital noise you'll see.  Also understand that you might actually get an image, instead of wishing for one.

As we choose to work on our photographic skills, the D5500 remains useful.  At first you may not care to know about exposure compensation at all, but if this photography thing becomes important, it will be good to find that the D5500 supports both ambient exposure compensation and flash exposure compensation, accessible through menus and buttons on the camera.  You might want to try your hand at High Dynamic Range (HDR) so the D5500 even supports Automatic Exposure Bracketing, specifically to allow you to take a sequence of the same image at different exposure values for the purpose of combining into an HDR or even just to learn when a certain type of compensation will make a positive difference.

The camera stores images on the ubiquitous SDHC and SDXC style memory cards.  If you're starting out, don't get sucked in to buying cheap cards.  Stick to SanDisk or Lexar and buy the fastest and largest cards you can afford.  Lots of small cards are a pain in the butt and slow cards will make you want to attempt the shot put with your camera as the shot.  You will hear a lot of bull on the web and in some retailers about how their house brand card is just as good.  No, it isn't.  That picture you take could be a lifetime memory and you shouldn't risk it to some junk card.  In today's marketplace, it's false economy to buy a card with less than 32GB capacity.

The other reason you want fast cards with lots of space is that the D5500 does outstanding video.  What's that?  You already have a video camera or you don't care about video?  If you have a video camera now, plan on never using it again once you see the quality of the video that the D5500 can shoot.  Don't care about video?  Try it out.  But be warned, it's addictive.  The video capability of the D5500 is 1080p60.  That means great images on your Full HD television set at a frame rate that looks like pro video because 1080p60 IS pro video.  There are built in microphones for recording audio and while you will never win a sound award with them, they will be the difference between hearing your child's first words and hand waving forever or just trying to remember what it was like.  DSLR cameras have been used for video by pros for years.  If you've watched a major TV show or major movie in a theatre in the last three years, you've seen video shot on a DSLR.  Since the sensor in the D5500 produces the same quality video as the sensors in higher end DSLRs that may be built tougher, you already know that you cannot tell the difference between cinema video and DSLR video unless you know exactly what to look for.  Video is here, it's built in, so what are you waiting for?  Oh and that video from your smartphone?  Plan on getting snobbish about poor quality video pretty quickly once you've shot it on the D5500.

In my use cases, I shoot everything in the RAW file format.  RAW means uncooked and I understand that EVERY single image will need post processing on the computer if I want it to look like something other than what the cat hacked up this morning.  There are plenty of people who hear the words "post-processing" and develop a cringe reflex.  These folks want amazing images right out of the camera with no, or very little post-processing required.  You know, just like a smartphone.  Excellent.  The D5500 is built to do that.  It will shoot in JPEG mode and has built in WiFi so you can upload images from your camera through your smartphone to your favourite social media sites.  The big difference is going to be in the image quality.  The D5500 image quality will be so far superior to anything coming out of the smartphone that you'll become more discerning, using your smartphone for some images, and your D5500 for the ones that really matter.  But wait, suppose you DO want to engage in post-processing, or you want 100% control over the output image?  No problem.  The D5500 can shoot in RAW.  You can even shoot RAW+JPEG at the same time so you get the best of both worlds.

In addition to Scene modes, the D5500 also comes with a number of Picture Styles built in.  Picture Styles are prewritten processing recipes for the the JPEG files that the camera produces.  Want a portrait look?  Choose Portrait!  Want to see punchy colours?  Choose Vivid.  Want to get black and white images?  Choose Monochrome.  You could do all this stuff in post processing, but if your goal is to spend your time taking pictures and not in the digital darkroom, Picture Styles can save you a lot of time.  Don't worry about what other people tell you to do, take the pictures you want the way you want to take them.  The great news is that the D5500 will accommodate you, regardless of where you stand in most all situations.

The magic of a DSLR is that you can change lenses.  Nikon makes over 200 different lenses and most of them can be used on the D5500.  You may not mount a $20,000 800mm on the D5500 but you could.  Nikon has an excellent reputation for lens image quality.  So you have a lot of choices.  There's also a thriving third party lens pantheon that will mount to the D5500.  

Now remember that chat about sensor size in the D5500 being WAY larger than in the smartphone and the point and shoot?  That does mean that you will never see the massive optical zoom ranges in a single DSLR lens that you will see in cameras with teeny tiny sensors.  You choose a DSLR because image quality is more important than zoom range.  So you may find yourself thinking about more than one lens.  Good for you!

When you purchase your D5500, you will be presented (at least I hope that you will) with a variety of options.  The most common is the combination of the body and the aforementioned 18-55mm zoom.  It's an excellent value.  Next up is the same kit with the addition of the 55-200mm zoom.  This, by the way is what the kind folks at Nikon provided for this review.  One body, two lenses and most every scenario that the average photographer will encounter is completely covered.  Another option is the body, the 18-55mm and a 55-300mm lens.  This pairing costs a bit more than the first one, but the 55-300mm gives another 100mm of reach with no sacrifice in lens speed, and it uses Nikon's proven ED (extra low dispersion) glass for superb image quality.  The longer lens is a tiny bit heavier, but not so much that you won't take it with you.  The primary difference is cost.  Another option is the D5500 body with the 18-140mm lens.  This kit is designed for the user who doesn't want to be carrying multiple lenses and hopes to get everything in one place.  I confess that this is not my favourite all around lens, and this leads me to the final option, to buy the body alone and add the lens you want.  In my mind, for the photographer who wants lots of focal length flexibility at minimum weight and is willing to spend a bit more money, this is the way to go.  Couple the D5500 with Nikon's superb 18-300mm zoom and you have a single system that will cover pretty much any shooting situation you could encounter.  You will have to go to a proper photo store if you go this route as the big box stores tend only to carry pre-packaged kits.  In my experience, you'll be better served at a speciality camera store anyways.

Note that all the Nikon zooms mentioned here include Nikon's VR, or vibration reduction, capability.  What VR does is help to address the camera shake inherent in all of us.  VR works to counter this shake and produce sharper images.

So what are the downsides?  Surely there must be some.  There are, but remember the context of use cases.  The camera is built from high performance plastics but if you are a photojournalist shooting in a war zone, it's not as likely as a D4s to hold up to wear and tear.  If you are shooting 200,000 images a year, the shutter in the D5500 won't last you all that long.  If you want to leverage Nikon's excellent Creative Lighting System to control off camera flash, you will not find that capability in the D5500.  That one missing element bugs me more than it probably should.  Nikon uses excellent CPUs in its cameras so the decision to leave out CLS is a marketing one, not a technical one.  If a buyer wants CLS they have to jump substantially to the D7X00 series.  Please Nikon, stop the silliness and put your awesome CLS in everything you make.  If you are looking for thousands of images on a single battery, that's not going to happen.  If you have lenses without built in autofocus motors from Nikon, they won't do autofocus on this camera, although manual focus will work.  That is a legitimate reason to move up to the D7200 by the way because there is more in the camera to justify the price jump.  If you want maximum feature programmability and button customization, that's not in the D5500, you need to be looking at a more expensive model.  I'm not a fan of on camera flash at any time, and if you aren't either, you'll want to consider adding a hotshoe mounted flash unit.

If none of these downsides matter to you, then they aren't downsides at all are they?  You can find the body and 18-55mm selling for around $930 to $1250 for the 18-55 and 55-300 kit.  Body alone price is around $820 and you are looking around $950 for the compact Nikon 18-300/3.5-6.3 lens.

Sample Gallery

I found myself carrying the D5500 around a lot during the evaluation, it's lightness and speed being a very nice boon to all the other stuff I have to haul around.  I shot it indoors and out, and the gallery shows what you can expect from the camera.  All images were recorded using either the 18-55 or 55-200, all in RAW and all outdoor images were handheld, even at some potentially too slow shutter speeds.  Because I shot in RAW, all images have had some digital darkroom work done as is required for any RAW images.  All the processing was done in Lightroom, with one exception of removing an annoying sign in Photoshop.  I used my standard workflow in every case and didn't spend more than three minutes on any image.

The landscape images were shot on the same day as the sun was going down and before the winter chill hit.  The image of my wolf-dog was shot outdoors using a Metz 44 flash with a Nikon compatible foot mounted as I did not have a Nikon flash at hand.  No light shapers were used so you get a sense of how the camera handles on camera flash, and I think it does a great job.

Conclusions

There are certainly a lot of entry level cameras in the market to choose from.  Your own use cases should be your guide, not primarily what I or other reviewers have to say.  That said however, my personal opinion is that the D5500 is the camera to beat for the 2015 holiday season.  It has a much wider selection of lenses than the otherwise excellent Sony offering in the same price point and I find it easier to handle.  Canon's offering is very well laid out, but the sensor offers lower resolution (not a big deal) and much less dynamic range (a very big deal).  Were I in the position to be starting out, or buying a camera for someone who was, or looking to help someone upgrade from a smartphone, point and shoot or whatever, the D5500 is the one I would choose.  If it were for me, I would likely go with the body and the 18-300 or the two lens kit with the 18-55 and 55-300.  In addition to the camera, I would add a second battery since having a spare is just smart and Nikon doesn't rob you for their batteries, but I would ONLY choose a Nikon branded battery, never a third party offering.  A couple of 32GB high speed cards would be a good place to start unless there was a good sale on a single 64gb SDXC card from either SanDisk or Lexar.  Given the quality of Nikon lenses and their relative low cost, I would probably do without a protective filter, since buying a filter of acceptable quality would add at least $60 per lens after tax, and I've only ever had the situation once where a filter saved my lens.   A generic filter will only degrade your image quality, so there's no benefit there.  However, I would definitely be buying a hood for every lens if one did not come in the box with the lens.  A hood provides some frontal protection and definitely reduces glare improving photo quality.  I would probably add a speed light flash, because I am a flash kind of guy.  All the price estimates are in Canadian dollars because I live in Canada.  If you live in the United States, your prices will be a bit less right now.

Thanks for reading and until next time, peace.

Specifications (Courtesy Nikon Canada)

 Type

1. Type

   Single-lens reflex digital camera

2. Lens Mount

   Nikon F bayonet mount

 Image Sensor

1. Picture Angle

   Nikon DX format

2. Effective Pixels (Megapixels)

   24.2 million

3. Sensor Size

   23.5 mm

    

   x 15.6 mm

4. Image Sensor Format

   DX

5. Image Sensor Type

   CMOS

6. Total Pixels

   24.78 million

7. Dust-reduction system

   Image sensor cleaning
   Image Dust Off reference data (optional Capture NX-D software required) 

8. Dust-Off Reference Photo

   Yes

9. Image Area (pixels)

   DX-format
   (L) 6,000 x 4,000 

   
   (M) 4,496 x 3,000 

   
   (S) 2,992 x 2,000 

 File System

1. File Format Still Images

   JPEG: JPEG-Baseline compliant with fine (approx 1:4), normal (approx 1:8), or basic (approx 1:16) compression
   NEF (RAW): compressed 12 or 14 bit
   NEF (RAW) + JPEG: Single photograph recorded in both NEF (RAW) and JPEG formats

2. Storage Media

   SD
   SDHC
   SDXC

3. Card Slot

   1 Secure Digital (SD)

4. File System

   Compliant with DCF (Design Rule for Camera File System) 2.0
   DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) 
   EXIF 2.3 (Exchangeable Image File Format for Digital Still Cameras
   PictBridge

 Viewfinder

1. Viewfinder

   Eye-level pentamirror single-lens reflex viewfinder

2. Viewfinder Frame Coverage 

   95% horizontal
   95% vertical Approx.

3. Viewfinder Magnification

   0.82x Approx.

4. Viewfinder Eyepoint

   17mm (-1.0 m¯¹)

5. Viewfinder Diopter Adjustment 

   -1.7 to +0.5m¯¹

6. Focusing Screen

   Type B BriteView Clear Matte Mark VII screen

7. Reflex Mirror

   Quick-return type

8. Mirror Lock Up

   Yes

 Lens

1. Lens Aperture

   Instant-return type

2. Lens Compatibility at a Glance***

   AF-S and AF-I CPU lenses only

3. Compatible Lenses

   Autofocus is available with AF-S and AF-I lenses. 
   Autofocus is not available with other type G and D lenses, AF lenses (IX NIKKOR and lenses for the F3AF are not supported), and AI-P lenses. 
   Non-CPU: Can be used in mode M, but exposure meter does not function; electronic range finder can be used if maximum aperture is f/5.6 or faster

 Shutter

1. Shutter Type

   Electronically controlled vertical-travel focal-plane

2. Shutter Speed

   1/4000 to 30 sec. in steps of 1/3 or 1/2 EV

3. Fastest Shutter Speed

   1/4000 sec.

4. Slowest Shutter Speed

   30 sec.

5. Flash Sync Speed

   Up to 1/200 sec. 
   Synchronizes with shutter at 1/200s or slower

6. Bulb Shutter Setting

   Yes

7. Shutter Release Modes

   Continuous low-speed [CL] mode; 1-3 frames per second
   Continuous high-speed [CH] mode; 1-5 frames per second
   Delayed remote (ML-L3) 
   Interval timer photography supported
   Quick-response remote (ML-L3) 
   Quiet shutter-release
   Self-timer mode
   Single-frame [S] mode

8. Continuous Shooting Options

   DX-format
   CH: Up to 5 frames per second

   CL: Up to 1-3 frames per second

9. Top Continuous Shooting Speed at full resolution

   5 frames per second

10. Self-timer

    2, 5, 10, 20 sec.; 1 to 9 exposures
    Timer duration electronically controlled

 Exposure

1. Exposure Metering System

   TTL exposure metering using 2,016-pixel RGB sensor

2. Metering Method

   Centre-weighted: Weight of 75% given to 8mm circle in centre of frame
   Matrix: 3D Colour Matrix Metering II (type G, E and D lenses); Colour Matrix Metering II (other CPU lenses) 
   Spot: Meters 3.5mm circle (about 2.5% of frame) centered on selected focus point

3. Metering Range

   0 to 20 EV (3D colour matrix or centre-weighted metering) 
   2 to 20 EV (Spot metering at ISO 100 equivalent, f/1.4 lens at 20°C/68°F)

4. Exposure Meter Coupling

   CPU

5. Exposure Modes

   Aperture-Priority (A) 
   Auto
   Auto (flash off) 
   Manual (M) 
   Programmed auto with flexible program (P) 
   Scene Modes
   Shutter-Priority (S)

6. Scene Modes

   Autumn Colours
   Beach / Snow
   Blossom
   Candlelight
   Child
   Close-up
   Dusk / Dawn
   Food
   Landscape
   Night Landscape
   Night Portrait
   Party / Indoor
   Pet Portrait
   Portrait
   Sports
   Sunset
   Special Effects Mode (Night Vision, Colour Sketch, Toy Camera, Miniature Effect, Selective Colour, Silhouette, High Key, Low Key, HDR Painting)

7. Exposure Compensation

   ±5 EV in increments of 1/3 or 1/2 EV

8. Exposure Bracketing

   3 frames in steps of 1/3 or 1/2 EV

9. Exposure Lock

   Yes

10. Picture Control

    Flat
    Landscape
    Monochrome
    Neutral
    Portrait
    Standard
    User-customizable Settings
    Vivid

 Sensitivity

1. ISO Sensitivity

   ISO 100 -

    

   25,600 

2. Lowest Standard ISO Sensitivity

   100

3. Highest Standard ISO Sensitivity

   25,600

4. Long Exposure Noise Reduction

   Yes

5. High ISO Noise Reduction

   Low
   Normal
   High
   Off

6. Active D-Lighting

   Auto
   Extra High
   High
   Normal
   Low
   Off

7. D-Lighting Bracketing

   2-3 frames
   2 frames using selected value for one frame or 3 frames using preset values for all frames

 Focus/Autofocus

1. Single-point AF Mode

   Yes

2. Dynamic AF Mode

   Number of AF points: 9, 21, 39 and 39 (3D-tracking)

3. Auto-area AF Mode

   Yes

4. Autofocus System

   Nikon Multi-CAM 4800DX autofocus sensor module with TTL phase detection

5. Detection Range

   -1 to 19 EV (ISO 100, 68°F/20°C)

6. Lens Servo

   Autofocus (AF): Single-servo AF (AF-S); continuous-servo AF (AF-C); auto AF-S/AF-C selection (AF-A); predictive focus tracking activated automatically according to subject status
   Manual focus (MF): Electronic rangefinder can be used

7. Focus Point

   Can be selected from 39 or 11 focus points

8. AF-area Mode

   9, 21 or 39 point Dynamic-area AF
   Auto-area AF
   Single-point AF
   3D-tracking (39 points)

9. Focus Lock

   Focus can be locked by pressing AE-L/AF-L button
   Focus can be locked by pressing shutter-release button halfway (single-servo AF)

10. Focus Modes

    Auto AF-S/AF-C selection (AF-A) 
    Continuous-servo (AF-C) 
    Face-Priority AF available in Live View only
    Full-time Servo (AF-A) available in Live View only
    Manual (M) with electronic rangefinder
    Normal area
    Single-servo AF (AF-S) 
    Wide area

11. Maximum Autofocus Areas/Points

    39

12. Autofocus Sensitivity

    -1 to +19 EV (ISO 100, 20°C/68°F)

 Flash

1. Built-in Flash

   Yes

2. Built-in Flash Distance

   Approx. 12/39, 12/39 with manual flash (m/ft, ISO 100, 20 °C/68 °F)

3. X-Sync Speed

   1/200

4. Flash Control

   TTL: i-TTL flash control using 2,016-pixel RGB sensor are available with built-in flash and SB-910, SB-900, SB-800, SB-700, SB-600, SB-400 or SB-300; i-TTL balanced fill-flash for digital SLR is used with matrix and centre-weighting metering, standard i-TTL flash for digital SLR with spot metering

5. Flash Sync Modes

   Auto
   Auto with red-eye reduction
   Auto slow sync
   Auto slow sync with red-eye reduction
   Fill-flash
   Rear-curtain sync
   Rear-curtain with slow sync
   Red-Eye reduction
   Red-Eye reduction with slow sync
   Slow sync
   Off

6. Flash Compensation

   -3 to +1 EV in increments of 1/3 or 1/2 EV

7. Flash-ready Indicator

   Lights when built-in flash or optional flash unit is fully charged; flashes after flash is fired at full output

8. Accessory Shoe

   Yes

9. Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS)

   Advanced Wireless Lighting supported with SB-910, SB-900, SB-800, SB-700 or SB-500 as a master flash or SU-800 as commander; Flash Colour Information Communication supported with all CLS-compatible flash units 

10. Flash Sync Terminal

    Sync Terminal Adapter AS-15 (available separately)

 White Balance

1. White Balance

   Auto
   Cloudy
   Direct Sunlight
   Flash
   Fluorescent (7 types) 
   Incandescent
   Preset Manual
   Shade

2. White Balance Bracketing

   3 shots in steps of 1

 Live View

1. Live View Shooting

   Photography Live View Mode  
   Movie Live View Mode

2. Live View Lens servo

   Autofocus (AF): Single-servo AF (AF-S); full-time-servo AF (AF-F) 
   Manual focus (MF)

3. Live View AF-area mode

   Face-priority AF
   Wide-area AF
   Normal-area AF
   Subject-tracking AF

4. Live View Autofocus

   Contrast-detect AF anywhere in frame (camera selects focus point automatically when face-priority AF or subject-tracking AF is selected)

5. Live View Scene Auto Selector

   Aut mode
   Auto (flash off) mode

 Movie

1. Movie Metering

   TTL exposure metering using main image sensor

2. Movie Maximum recording time

   Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 60 fps (10min. High / 20min. Norm) 
   Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 50 fps (10min. High / 20min. Norm) 
   Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 30 fps (20min. High / 29min. 59sec. Norm) 
   Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 25 fps (20min. High / 29min. 59sec. Norm) 
   Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 24 fps (20min. High / 29min. 59sec. Norm) 
   HD 1,280x720 / 60 fps (20min. High / 29min. 59sec. Norm) 
   HD 1,280x720 / 50 fps (20min. High / 29min. 59sec. Norm) 
   VGA 640x424 / 30 fps (29min. 59sec. High / 29min. 59sec. Norm) 
   VGA 640x424 / 25 fps (29min. 59sec. High / 29min. 59sec. Norm)

3. Movie File Format

   MOV

4. Movie Video Compression

   H.264/MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding

5. Movie Audio recording format

   Linear PCM

6. Movie

   Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 60 fps
   Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 50 fps
   Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 30 fps
   Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 25 fps
   Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 24 fps
   HD 1,280x720 / 60 fps
   HD 1,280x720 / 50 fps
   VGA 640x424 / 30 fps
   VGA 640x424 / 25 fps

7. Movie Audio

   Built-in microphone, stereo
   External stereo microphone (optional - sold separately) 
   Microphone sensitivity can be adjusted

Monitor

1. Monitor Size

   3.2 in. diagonal

2. Monitor Resolution

   1,037,000 Dots

3. Monitor Type

   Wide Viewing Angle
   Vari-angle Touch TFT-LCD
   Eye Sensor Control 

4. Monitor Angle of View

   170 -degree wide-viewing angle

5. Monitor Adjustments

   Brightness adjustment and eye-sensor controlled on/off

 Playback

1. Playback Functions

   Auto Image Rotation
   Full-frame and thumbnail (4, 12, or 80 images or calendar) 
   Highlights
   Histogram Display
   Image Comment
   Location Display
   Movie Playback
   Movie Slideshow
   Photo information
   Playback with Zoom
   Slideshow

2. In-Camera Image Editing

   Colour Balance
   Colour Outline
   Colour Sketch
   D-Lighting
   Distortion Control
   Edit Movie
   Filter Effects
   Fisheye
   Image Overlay
   Miniature Effect
   Monochrome
   NEF (RAW) Processing
   Perspective Control
   Quick retouch
   Red-Eye Correction
   Resize
   Selective Colour
   Side-by-Side Comparison
   Straighten
   Trim

3. Image Comment

   Yes

 Interface

1. Interface

   Accessory Terminal: Remote Cord: MC-DC2 (available separately); GPS unit: GP-1A (available separately) 
   HDMI Output: Type C mini-pin HDMI connector
   Hi-speed USB
   Stereo Microphone Input
   WR-1 and WR-R10 wireless remote controller (sold separately)

2. Wi-Fi Functionality

   Yes (Built-in)

3. GPS

   GP-1A GPS unit (sold separately)

Menus

1. Total Custom Settings

   21

2. My Menu

   Yes

3. Recent Settings

   Yes

4. Supported Languages

   Arabic
   Bengali
   Brazilian Portuguese
   Bulgarian
   Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) 
   Czech
   Danish
   Dutch
   English
   Finnish
   French
   German
   Greek
   Hindi
   Hungarian
   Indonesian
   Italian
   Japanese
   Korean
   Marathi
   Norwegian
   Persian
   Polish
   Portuguese
   Romanian
   Russian
   Serbian
   Spanish
   Swedish
   Tamil
   Telugu
   Thai
   Turkish
   Ukrainian
   Vietnamese

5. Date, Time and Daylight Savings Time Settings

   Yes

6. World Time Setting

   Yes

 Power

1. Battery / Batteries

   One EN-EL14a Rechargeable Li-ion Battery or EN-EL14 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery

2. Battery Life (shots per charge) 

   820 shots (CIPA)

3. AC Adapter

   EH-5b AC Adapter; requires EP-5A Power Connector (sold separately)

4. Battery Charger

   MH-24 Quick Charger

Miscellaneous

1. Tripod Socket

   0.64 cm

2. Approx. Dimensions (Width x Height x Depth)

   124 mm x

    

   97 mm x

    

   70 mm

3. Approx. Weight

   420 g

   camera body only

4. Operating Environment

   0–40 °C