Nikon D7500 Performance

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Nikon D7500 Performance

Timing and Performance

Very good to excellent performance for a prosumer DSLR.

Startup/Play to Record
Power on to first shot	~0.2 second	Time it takes for camera to turn on and take a shot.
Play to Record, first shot	~0.2 second	Time until first shot is captured.

The Nikon D7500's startup time was very fast and switching from Play to Record and taking a shot was also very fast.

Shutter Response (Lag Time), Optical Viewfinder
Full Autofocus Single Area AF (Center AF point)	0.075 second	Time from fully pressing shutter button to image capture. (All AF timing measured with Nikkor AF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro lens.)
Full Autofocus Single Area AF, Flash enabled	0.106 second	Time from fully pressing shutter button to image capture, Auto Flash enabled.
Manual focus	0.052 second	For most cameras, shutter lag is less in manual focus than autofocus, but usually not as fast as when the camera is "pre-focused."
Pre-focused	0.050 second	Time to capture, after half-pressing and holding shutter button.
Live View
Pre-focused	0.119 second	Time to capture, after half-pressing and holding shutter button.

The Nikon D7500's full autofocus shutter lag when shooting the same target multiple times was quite fast for a prosumer DSLR. The D7500 required 0.075 second for full AF using the center focus point. Enabling the flash raised shutter lag only slightly to 0.106 second, reflecting the added delay caused by the metering preflash. Manual focus shutter lag was very fast at 0.052 second. When prefocused, shutter lag was 0.050 second which is also quite fast for a DSLR.

When prefocused in Live View mode shutter lag was 0.119 second, more than twice as long as when using the optical viewfinder, but still quite fast for a DSLR in Live View mode. We no longer test autofocus speeds during Live View mode for DSLRs, since it's very lens dependent.

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.

Cycle Time (shot-to-shot)
Single Shot mode Large Fine JPEG	< 0.3 second	Time per shot, averaged over a few frames (we no longer test for buffer depths in single-shot mode).
Single Shot mode 14-bit Lossless RAW + L/F JPEG	< 0.3 second	Time per shot, averaged over a few frames (we no longer test for buffer depths in single-shot mode).
Early shutter penalty?	No	Some cameras refuse to snap another shot if you release and press the shutter too quickly in Single Shot mode, making "No" the preferred answer.
Continuous H mode Large Fine JPEG	0.12 second (8.20 fps); 100 frames total; 10 seconds to clear*	Time per shot, averaged over capped 100 frame buffer.
Continuous H mode 14-bit Lossless RAW	0.12 second (8.20 fps); 47 frames total; 11 seconds to clear*	Time per shot, averaged over 47 frame buffer. Then slows to an average of 0.35 second or 2.86 fps when buffer is full, with a lot of variation.
Continuous H mode 14-bit Lossless RAW + L/F JPEG	0.12 second (8.20 fps); 31 frames total; 15 seconds to clear*	Time per shot, averaged over 31 frame buffer. Then slows to an average of 0.54 second or 1.84 fps when buffer is full, with a lot of variation.
Flash recycling	2.5 seconds	Flash at maximum output.
*Note: Buffer clearing times measured with a SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s UHS-I SDHC memory card. Slower cards will produce correspondingly slower clearing times. Slow cards may also limit length of bursts in continuous mode. ISO sensitivity and other settings such as Advanced D-Lighting or NR can also affect cycle times and burst mode performance.

Single-shot cycle times were so fast that they were difficult to accurately measure as they depend on the tester's dexterity and ability to maintain an optimum rhythm, so your results may vary. (Note that we no longer test single-shot mode with just RAW files, as the results are usually somewhere in between JPEG and RAW+JPEG.)

Continuous H mode burst speed was very good, at 8.2 frames per second no matter the file type, slightly faster than Nikon 8 fps spec. This is a significant improvement over the D7200 which topped out at 5.8 fps for JPEGs, and only 4.9 fps with 14-bit RAW files. There is also a Continuous L mode with a programmable rate between 1 and 7 fps.

Buffer depth in continuous mode was excellent when shooting Optimal Quality JPEGs, artificially capped at 100 L/F JPEG frames (the limit is programmable from 1 to 100). When shooting 14-bit lossless compressed RAW files, the buffer depth was still very good at 47 frames, which is quite an improvement over the D7200's 18 frames despite the faster frame rate. Buffer depth when shooting 14-bit lossless compressed RAW+JPEG files was 31 frames which is still very good for its class, and again much better than the D7200's 11 frame limit. According to Nikon, shooting 12-bit RAW files increases buffer depth by about 50% and selecting lossy compression yields about a 45% improvement in buffer depth, but we did not verify those claims. The D7500's 1.3x crop mode is also said to increase buffer depth, to up to 100 frames for all file types.

Buffer clearing was pretty fast with our 95MB/s UHS-I SDHC card, ranging from 10 seconds after 100 Optimal Quality JPEGs to 15 seconds after a max-length burst of 14-bit lossless RAW + JPEG files.

The D7500's built-in flash took an average of 2.5 seconds to recharge after full-power shots, which is good.

Bottom line, the Nikon D7500's performance is very good to excellent for its class, with fast startup, fast autofocus, low shutter lag, and a quick burst mode with deep buffers and reasonably fast buffer clearing. A significant upgrade over the D7200 in terms of performance.

Battery

Battery Life
Very good battery life with the optical viewfinder.

Operating Mode	Number of Shots
Optical Viewfinder, (CIPA standard)	950
Live View LCD, (CIPA standard)	Unknown

The Nikon D7500 uses a custom rechargeable EN-EL15a lithium-ion battery for power, and ships with a dedicated battery charger (in-camera charging via USB is not supported). Battery life when using the optical viewfinder is very good though a bit lower than the D7200's 1,100 shots. Nikon does not specify number of shots on a charge in Live View mode, which will certainly be a lot lower. We recommend you pick up a spare battery and keep it freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings, especially when using Live View a lot.

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on either a fresh set of disposable batteries or a fully-charged rechargeable battery as appropriate), 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))