Are you having a trouble deciding which one of these two cameras is the right fit is for you?
The D7500 and D5600 are two DX format APS-C sensor DSLR’s in Nikon’s lineup.
Here is the guide that will show you differences between Nikon D5600 and D7500, and hopefully help you with making a choice.
As you can see, Nikon D7500 has little better specs, but it’s also a little pricier. Both cameras provide great image quality and fine performance for their class.
Check price and reviews of the Nikon D7500 on Amazon.
Check price and reviews of the Nikon D5600 on Amazon.
Detailed Specification Comparison
Sensor
Both cameras have high-quality DX sensors. The D5600 is a 24 MP and the D7500 is 20.9 MP, without an optical low-pass filter, which increases sharpness and level of details. The D5600 has a slight edge in megapixels.
ISO
Both D5600 has a lower native ISO range than D7500 have the same native ISO range, and they don’t perform the same in low light. The Nikon D5600 shows some noticeable noise between ISO 1600 and ISO 3200 while the D7500 only starts to show some noise in details at ISO 3200 but in-focus areas look just fine up to ISO 6400.
By adjusting the menu on the D7500 you can extend its ISO all the way up to 51200. That is the great thing if you want noise as an artistic effect on your photos, but if you don’t want that, you should avoid extreme ISO because it produces too much noise.
Anyway, in this area, D7500 is the clear winner.
White Balance Presets
The Nikon D7500 about the same number and types of white balance presets as the D5600. Still, we can say that D7500 has a slightly better control of light temperature than D5600 and it also has 6 manual presets vs 1 for the D5500. White balance bracketing is better on the D7500 as well and it is the clear winner in this category.
AF Points
Here we start to see differences in performance between the two cameras. The Nikon D7500 has 51 AF points while the D5600 has 39. Performance of both is good but D7500 has the edge, so it is obvious which one is the winner here.
LCD Screen
Both cameras have the 3.2 inch, fixed LCD touch screen with a similar resolution (922,000 dots vs 1,037k dots). No clear winner here.
Video Resolution
The D7500 supports 4k video resolution vs the D5600’s HD resolution. The D7500 wins the video resolution battle. The D7500 can shoot 4k video at 30 fps and full HD at 60 frames per second. The D5600 supports full HD at 60 fps as well, but the 4k capability of the D7500 gives it the nod in this category.
Size
The slightly smaller size of D5600 compared to the D7500 may appeal to some. They are both DSLR type cameras, so will never be as portable as a point and shoot or a pocket camera.
D5600 has the slight edge in size.
Built-in Flash
Both of the cameras do have the built-in flash with a hot shoe for external flash, but the D7500 has better flash control and sync modes, which gives it a slight advantage in this category too.
Continuous Shooting
Continuous high speed is very useful when shooting something in motion, like sports photography, or when the action happens quickly. With its 8.0 fps continuous high speed, the D7500 is once again ahead of D5600 that has a burst rate of 5.0 fps.
Available Lenses
Both cameras use the DX format lenses and there is a large variety available from both Nikon and third parties covering every possible type and budget. This one’s a draw.
Microphone Port
It is the great thing that both cameras a built-in microphone, as well as an external jack. An external jack is helpful to avoid picking up AF noise with the built-in microphone and gives you more flexibility. This category is a tie as well.
Battery Life
The most annoying thing of all is probably the low battery life. If you are shooting in nature or anywhere where you can’t charge your battery, you just need a camera with good battery life. Both of our cameras do have a good battery life – D5600 of 970 shots and D7500 of 950 shots. Slight edge to the D5600 here.
Shutter Speed
The D7500 sports a faster shutter speed of 1/8000 vs 1/4000 for the D5600. Fast shutter speed allows you to capture fast action without blurring. D7500 is the clear winner here.
Weight
Here we can see a big physical difference between these two cameras. With its weight 640g, the D7500 is definitely heavier than the 465 g D5600.
This certainly isn’t the most important thing, but when you’re carrying around your camera for the whole day, it kind of becomes an important detail and you probably want it to be as light as possible. So the lightweight choice is the D5600.
Viewfinder
A viewfinder is a little square on the top of your camera that you look through to compose your picture and sometimes even to focus it. The first difference in this category is the coverage.
The D7500 has 100% viewfinder coverage which is obviously more accurate than D5600’s 95%. Also, the D7500 has a Pentaprism viewfinder that is a lot brighter than a Pentamirror viewfinder that D5500 has.
Alternatives
There are several alternatives in the mid-range DSLR market to consider if either of the Nikon cameras does not fit your needs or budget.
- Pentax K-70 Weather-Sealed DSLR Camera with 18-135mm Lens (Black)
- Pentax K-3 lens kit w/18-135mm WR 24MP SLR Camera with 3.2-Inch TFT LCD and 18-135mm WR f 3.5-5.6 (Black)
- Nikon D750 FX-format Digital SLR Camera Body
- Canon Digital SLR Camera Body [EOS 80D] and EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 Image Stabilization USM Lens with 24.2 Megapixel (APS-C) CMOS Sensor and Dual Pixel CMOS AF - Black
Conclusion
In the end, after all being considered, the clear winner between these two cameras is Nikon D7500. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Nikon D5500 is a bad camera, there is no such thing as a bad camera, it is just that D7500 proved to be better many important categories.
Still, there is one thing that we haven’t considered yet and that is the price. D7500 does have better specifications than D5600, but that goes with a higher price. So if you have a limited budget D5600 may also serve you well.
