Nikon has announced the development of the Nikon D850, which will be a successor to the D810 launched back in 2014. The Nikon D810 made headlines at the time for offering 4K video recording along with 8K time-lapse capability. So, naturally, the announcement a D810 successor got us thinking about what Nikon D850 specifications we’d like to see.
Nikon didn’t provide much detail in its statement today, leaving us only to speculate at this point. But Nikon’s series of high-resolution, full-frame DSLRs will be in its third iteration (or fourth if you count the D800E) with the Nikon D850, so we do have some guide as to what its specifications might be.
Possible Nikon D850 Specs: 01 SnapBridge
This seems like a no-brainer, as Nikon has been very keen to shout about its new tethering technology. If you’ve not used it before, Snapbridge is Nikon’s new app that enables your camera to stay wirelessly connected to a smartphone or tablet.
The SnapBridge app enables the two devices to maintain a low-power connection so that images can be transferred automatically from your camera to your phone.
We tested the functionality in our Nikon D500 review and found it performs very well.
At The Photography Show earlier this year we spoke with Tim Carter from Nikon UK who told us that Nikon plans to add this functionality to all of its new cameras.
Possible Nikon D850 Specs: 02 A camera shake warning
I’m not sure what snappy name you could call this, but one thing we found straightaway when shooting with the D810 is that it’s very easy to get camera shake in your images.
This isn’t a problem with the D810 per se; it’s just that when you’re shooting at such high resolution, the slightest shake will be noticeable in your image.
It’s an issue that many photographers have noted, whether they’re shooting with the D810 or Canon’s 5DS and other cameras with that much resolution.
If the Nikon D850 spec sheet offered some kind of alarm that lets you know when the camera isn’t still enough to get the best from the resolution, then I can guarantee many landscape photographers would get very excited.
Possible Nikon D850 Specs: 03 Vari-angle touch screen
Vari-angle touch screens got a bad rap from purists in the early days of their existence, but they’ve gradually grown in favour and most high-end cameras these days feature them… except Nikon.
Even the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV boasts a 3.2in touch screen that has 1,620,000 dots. The Canon’s is fixed, however, which was a bit of a disappointment.
It must be said that the D500 also has touch control, but it has limited functionality. The Nikon D7500’s touch control is a bit wider reaching, and this is really what we’d like to see in the D850.
But Nikon could really impress by giving the D850 a vari-angle touchscreen to outpace Canon. That said, even a tiltable LCD like the Nikon D750 and D500 would be an improvement. Just make it touch sensitive!
Possible Nikon D850 Specs: 04 XQD card slot
With the Nikon D500 the company introduced an XQD card slot alongside the standard SD-type media slot.
XQD card slots have much faster read and write times that SD memory card. The flip-side, however, is they are more expensive.
But Nikon has really set the precedent by including it in the D500, so we would expect to see an XQD card slot in a pro-level camera.
Possible Nikon D850 Specs: 05 Moire interference
One of the issues we found with the D810 was that by eliminating the anti-aliasing filter completely (the D800E, while reported as having no AA filter, did actually have a filter over the sensor that provided some anti-aliasing effect) it increased the risk of moire patterning in images.
It wasn’t a major issue, but it was sometimes. Higher resolution in a Nikon D850 would help deal with moire, as the frequency of the patterns that cause it would have to be higher.
But that would increase files size. Which means we’d also like to see
Possible Nikon D850 Specs: 06 Faster processing
Faster processing to enable quick processing of images. The D810 – and the now the Nikon D850 likely as well – produces enormous file sizes. The Nikon D810 uses the old EXPEED 4 processing engine, so it seems a given that the Nikon D850 will at least employ the same EXPEED 5 engine that’s inside the recent D7500.
This might also give the D850 a boost in continuous shooting rate from the D810’s 5fps (or 7fps in DX format).
Possible Nikon D850 Specs: 07 Self-timer electronic level combo
Now, this is pretty out there, and it’s not likely to be on the on the Nikon D850 specs sheet… but something our reviews editor Angela has suggested for many cameras is a self-timer electronic level combination that triggers the camera to take a shot when the camera is level.
Possible Nikon D850 Specs: 08 Record the camera angle
Another staple of our ideal camera’s spec sheet is the ability to record the angle that the camera was at when the image was taken so it can be corrected automatically post capture.
This would be a great feature on the Nikon D850 that would really make a difference for a lot of photographers!