Nikon D5600 review: More connected than ever
Being connected – it’s all the rage. Of all the slogans used by Nikon for its cameras, “Always share your moments” seems most apt with the Nikon D5600.
The D5600 is the sixth iteration of the well-established Nikon D5000 series – a DSLR camera range with APS-C size sensor – which is positioned one up from the entry-level model.
To date, each new version has brought minor improvements over its predecessor. This time round the changes are the most subtle yet and you’d be forgiven for thinking “is that it?”.
Nikon D5600 review: All about the Bluetooth
- Always-on Bluetooth connectivity to SnapBridge
- Compatible with Nikon’s MC-DC2 remote cord, plus WR-1/ WR-T10/ WR-R10 (wireless) transmitters/ receivers
- No infrared
The Nikon D5600 includes virtually all of the same key features as the D5500, which are hard to beat at this level: a 24.2-million-pixel sensor, 39-point phase detection AF, vari-angle 3.2in LCD touchscreen. It’s all there.
So what is new? Bluetooth. Continuous connectivity to your smartphone via SnapBridge to be exact. This means you can connect the camera to a smart device through Nikon’s free SnapBridge app, which is available for iOS and Android platforms.
In SnapBridge, it’s possible to download images from the camera to the connected device or to Nikon Image Space, which is an online cloud storage subscription service (that is also available as an app).
Furthermore, it’s possible to remotely control the camera through SnapBridge and access its live view in real time. This has resulted in Nikon doing away with the front and rear facing infrared receivers, so it’s not IR compatible.
In one sense, such wireless features are regular fare these days. Yet, SnapBridge can be setup to automatically receive new pictures from the camera via Bluetooth, immediately after they are taken. Make a photo on your camera and then it’s there on the phone, ready to share, in no time at all.
By default, SnapBridge creates web-ready 2-million-pixel JPEG photos, though the original size JPEGs can be imported too. We’d expect very few people to be interested in filling up their smartphone unnecessarily with full-resolution files, when the web-ready versions are plenty big enough to share on social media.
SnapBridge works well but it’s not perfect. We mentioned our frustration trying to work the system out in our Nikon D7500 review – because it’s not as intuitive as we’d like.
Take the “Download selected pictures” option, for example. SnapBridge is set to ask if you would like to revert to Wi-Fi first over Bluetooth in order to view videos. This is unnecessary – a separate video menu would suffice.
However, the bit that grates is the regular “Downloading information from the camera” message, especially the delay whilst this occurs. These delays happen when a new menu in Snapbridge is opened – which even includes moving from single image view to gallery view.
If you are anything like us, your patience will be tested while waiting for the images to load for viewing. On the flip side, you’ll skip all this if the camera is set to auto-download all pictures and the downloads themselves complete quickly.
Nikon D5600 review: Size, build, screen and viewfinder
- 3.2in vari-angle LCD touchscreen with 1.04-million-dot resolution
- Optical viewfinder with 0.82x magnification and 95% coverage
- Small body with comfortable grip
- 970 shot battery life
In the new-age of interchangeable lens cameras, it’s the battle between mirrorles and DSLR cameras that gets people talking. Mirrorless cameras are always smaller, right? Well, yes and no.
If you’ve used a DSLR camera at all, especially one of the big boys, one of the most striking things about the D5600 is just how small and light it is. You’d struggle to find a smaller DSLR, except for something like the canon EOS 200D. We have an Olympus OM-D-E-M1 with kit lens and its dimensions are very similar to the D5600.
The physical size of Nikon viewfinder displays – as in the scale you’ll see to the eye – increase as you move up the range. At 0.82x magnification (that’s 0.55x full-frame effective), the D5600 display appears bigger than the one in the D3400, smaller than in the D7500, and positively dwarfed by the class-leading full-frame Nikon D850.
A neat feature is Assign Touch Fn, where you can select any one from eight controls that the touchscreen operates while using the viewfinder. The most logical use for this function is to touch and swipe the screen to select the focus point, which will then display in the OLED overlay of the viewfinder. Olympus offers a similar feature in its OM-D cameras. This Touch Fn feature can also be used to select exposure controls such as ISO and aperture.
Nikon D5600 review: Autofocus and video capture
- 3.5mm microphone port, no headphone monitoring
- Full 1080p HD videos unto 60fps
- 5fps maximum burst shooting
- 39-point phase detection AF
It’s much the same between Nikon D5600 and D5500 on the features front. That means continuous high-speed shooting remains at a rather modest 5fps, which is no patch on competitor mirrorless cameras.
There are the usual beginner-friendly scene modes and picture effects – the latter of which we feel is now largely redundant, given how easy it is to connect to smart device and find all those picture effects and more using image-editing apps.
There’s also no 4K video, which Nikon does provide in its higher-end cameras, but the D5600 offers Full HD 1080p capture at up to 60fps, with no sensor crop. You won’t find slow-motion modes at any resolution. It’s possible to connect an external microphone, but there is no headphone port.
When it comes to AF, Nikon has again forged a clear difference between its DSLRs. In the D5600, the phase-detection AF is made up of a 39-point AF array, none of which are cross-type for heightened sensitivity in both portrait and landscape orientation. That’s more than the 11 AF points of the D3400 and less than the 51-AF points of the D7500.
Autofocus sensitivity operates down to -1EV, which makes for sharp focusing in low contrast light, like a room in the house at night with the lights on. That’s not to the same level of the D7500, which has a -3EV sensitivity good for shooting under moonlight. Equivalent Canon EOS DSLR cameras are a few stops ahead in this regard, too, which puts the D5600 a shade behind.
In live preview – where you use the rear LCD screen to compose in real-time – autofocus is a contrast-detection system, where the AF point can be selected anywhere in the frame by touch of the LCD screen. In high-contrast light like outdoors during a bright day, it’s snappy – not the most snappy around, but quick none-the-less. It’s in low-contrast light where the system struggles, often hunting for the subject or even failing to latch on at all. Again, Canon has a better live preview mode.
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