Nikon D5500 Review

With many of the same specifications as the D5300, is the Nikon D5500 really offering enough to stand out from its predecessor?

Nikon D5500 Review – Image Quality

With its 24-millon-pixel DX format sensor that lacks an optical low-pass filter, the D5500 is capable of recording huge amounts of detail, as long as a suitably sharp lens is used. Its JPEG output exhibits Nikon’s trademark punchy colour rendition, with rich, saturated colours. As with the company’s other SLRs, dynamic range is impressive, with a wide range of tones recorded from the highlights to the deepest shadows. Indeed to make full use of the sensor’s capabilities you’ll need to either engage Active D-Lighting when shooting JPEGs, or post-process from raw. Overall you’d have to spend a lot more money to get significantly better image quality.

Resolution

In our test chart shots the D5500 is capable of cleanly resolving up to around 3400l/ph at ISO 100, with strong maze-like aliasing visible at higher frequencies that’s typical of cameras without low-pass filters. At first resolution drops only gradually as the ISO is increased, to around 3200 l/ph at ISO 1600. But from this point onwards it deteriorates more rapidly, to about 2800 l/ph at ISO 3200, and barely 2400 l/ph at ISO 25600.