The 9fps burst shooting does come with a couple of provisos. You can get excellent results if you’re happy to manually focus, of course, but if you want reliable autofocus for shooting lots of video, though, you’re better off looking elsewhere. When shooting in live view, the camera is limited to a contrast-detect AF system, which inherently pulses as it hunts for the highest and lowest points of contrast in order to determine the point of focus – something that’s very ugly for video. While the D850 lacks the clever subject detection of modern mirrorless cameras like the Canon EOS R5 (opens in new tab), it recognizes most shapes and sizes of subject and delivers an impressive hit rate of keepers. Okay, let’s start with the fantastic stills autofocus, which does a great job of keeping up with the action thanks to its 153 phase-detection AF points (99 of them cross-type) that are sticky as syrup. Nikon D850 with Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 (1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO640) (Image credit: James Artaius) Nikon D850 review: Performance
In addition, 8K timelapse videos can be created – though this is via a bit of trickery involving interval timer shooting, producing stills that need to be combined using external software afterwards. The ridiculous resolution also means that the camera can capture full-width 4K video that’s completely uncropped – which means it doesn’t affect your lenses’ focal length or depth of field. The D850 tops out at 9 frames per second, albeit with a couple of caveats (more on that in Performance, below), though that’s still pretty speedy and gives you plenty of opportunity to capture the winning shot. While the speed is still impressive, it’s not quite the star of the show that the pixel count is. And of course, having so much resolution means that you can crop way into your images if your subject doesn’t fill the frame – effectively extending the reach of your lenses. You’ll have no issue blowing up these shots for huge prints, and if you want to pixel peep you will be rewarded with stunning clarity. Obviously this offers many benefits, namely the sheer scale of detail captured.
The 45.7MP backside illuminated sensor comes without an anti-aliasing filter, which means that it captures extra sharpness (at the risk of introducing artefacts like moiré, though there’s minimal risk of that in wildlife or sports). While the D850 is designed to offer the best of both worlds, one of these worlds is unquestionably better than the other: the resolution. Nikon D850 with Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 (1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO640) (Image credit: James Artaius) Nikon D850 review: Functionality