Camera Reviews / Nikon Cameras / Nikon D i Review

24.20 Megapixels	Nikon F	APS-C size sensor

Nikon D5600 Review

by Mike Tomkins, Jeremy Gray, Zig Weidelich and Dave Pardue
Preview originally posted: 11/09/2016
Review finalized: 08/04/2017

Sharing: In a nutshell, that's the story of the D5600 DSLR. Thanks to an overhauled, more comprehensive wireless networking setup, the D5600 will help you share your images more quickly and easily than the D5500 in whose footsteps it follows. And there's sharing of a more tangible kind, too. In most respects other than wireless networking, the D5600 shares most of its features -- including its body and entire imaging pipeline -- with last year's model.

So what's new in the 24.2-megapixel D5600's wireless networking feature set? There are a few changes, but all come under the banner of Nikon's SnapBridge technology for simple image sharing, which is rapidly expanding across the company's entire lineup.

The Nikon D5600 now sports quick-and-easy SnapBridge sharing tech

The D5600's SnapBridge sharing setup uses a new Bluetooth Low Energy radio to communicate with your Android or iOS smartphone, phablet or tablet. This allows it to transfer every image you capture straight away, without any user intervention. When you want to share some of your photos on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking site -- or even if you still rely on email to stay in touch with friends and family -- those images will already be waiting for you on your phone, albeit at greatly reduced two-megapixel resolution.

For social networking and the like, though, that reduced resolution likely isn't an issue, especially when you consider the advantage it brings. With all of your photos already transferred to your phone at capture time, you won't have to sit and manually connect to the camera, choose which photos to transfer and then wait on them to make their way to your phone -- perhaps at full-resolution and still needing to be downsampled -- before they can be shared.

And since it's using Bluetooth Low Energy technology, SnapBridge shouldn't reduce the battery life of either your phone or camera by too much, either. If you want to transfer full-resolution versions of some images, you can still do so manually much like you would with any other camera, but you shouldn't need to manually establish the connection between devices. Instead, the Bluetooth Low Energy connection will be used to establish a faster, more power-hungry Wi-Fi connection for your full-res transfers.

And for Android users, even the initial pairing process should be extremely quick and easy. That's because as well as its Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios, the D5600 also includes a Near-Field Communications radio that can communicate with the NFC hardware in most modern Android devices. With a range of just a few inches, this allows you to establish your initial connection and to locate the necessary Android app for installation, all by simply bumping your phone against the camera body a couple of times.

At the same time as SnapBridge features have been added, Nikon has removed built-in infrared remote control support from the D5600 body. Where its predecessor had twin infrared receivers on the front of the handgrip and at top left of its rear panel, the D5600 has neither. Remote control can done via SnapBridge instead, essentially using your phone as the remote control device instead of requiring a standalone one. The D5600 also supports Nikon's MC-DC2 remote cord, and WR-1/WR-T10/WR-R10 wireless transmitters and receivers.

The D5600 brings with it some firmware tweaks, as well

Obviously, the updated SnapBridge setup is the big news here. That's not to say it's the only change, though. There are some changes in firmware as well.

Perhaps the coolest of these, for our money, is the new frame advance bar, a feature inherited from the higher-end D5 and D500 models. This allows D5600 owners to quickly scrub through their images in full-frame playback mode using the touch-screen display, so you can search out the shots you're after more quickly. It's very intuitive, and a welcome addition at the entry level end of the market.

There's also a new crop function which cleverly works hand-in-hand with playback zoom, letting you pinch to zoom the image and then drag to pan to the area you want cropped. One more tap confirms your chosen area, and the image is cropped for you automatically in-camera.

Nor is that all. You can now also toggle automatic ISO sensitivity control on the touch screen while using the viewfinder in addition to the touch shooting functions the D5500 offered, and Nikon says that use of the display alongside viewfinder shooting has been improved in other ways too, although it doesn't say just how this has been achieved. Nikon has also added the in-camera time-lapse movie function we've seen in other recent models.

In other respects, the D5600 is much like its predecessor

As noted previously, other details look to line up pretty closely with the D5500.

Comparing the two cameras' bodies, the D5600 seems to be near-identical to its predecessor, with only a couple of minor changes to fill in holes for the now-removed infrared remote receivers, and to the screen-printed labeling on the camera body to reflect these changes. (There's no longer a remote control icon next to the drive button, and a Bluetooth logo has been added next to the Wi-Fi logo on the camera's left side.)

As mentioned previously, the imaging pipeline is unchanged. The D5600 still has 24.2-megapixel resolution with no resolution-sapping optical low pass filter in front of the sensor. It also retains an EXPEED 4 image processor, providing for burst shooting at up to five frames per second with a wide sensitivity range of ISO 100 to 25,600-equivalents.

Also retained are a 3.2-inch vari-angle articulated LCD monitor with 1,037,000-dot resolution, and a 39-point autofocus system complete with nine cross-type points. And just as in its predecessor, the D5600 will provide a two-shot in-camera high dynamic range function, as well as support for movie capture at up to Full HD (1,920 x 1,080-pixel) resolution with a maximum capture rate of 60 frames per second.

As in the D5500, you can use the full sensitivity range of ISO 100 to 25,600-equivalents for movie capture, and can apply some in-camera special effects functions like miniature, etc. There's also both a built-in stereo microphone and support for external stereo mics as well. Battery life for still imaging is CIPA-rated at 970 shots on a charge, up from 820 shots for the D5500 using the same EN-EL14a battery pack.

Nikon D5600 Pricing and availability

The D5600 started shipping in the U.S. in January 2017 for a suggested retail price of about US$700 body-only, or for US$800 bundled with the AF-P 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lens. It is also available in a two-lens kit option, including the AF-P 18-55mm VR and AF-P DX 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3 lenses, for a suggested retail price of about US$1,150. The D5600 is also sold with an AF-S 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lens for a list price of US$1,200.

 

• • •

 

 

• • •

 

 

In the Box

The Nikon D5600 retail kit with 18-55mm lens (as reviewed) contains the following items:

• D5600 Body
• NIKKOR AF-P DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR lens
• EN-EL14a Rechargeable Lithium-ion Battery
• MH-24 Quick Charger
• DK-25 Rubber Eyecup
• AN-DC3 Camera Strap
• BF-1B Body Cap
• BS-1 Hot-Shoe Cover
• LC-55A 55mm Snap-On Lens Cap
• LF-4 Rear Lens Cap
• Warranty Cards

 

Recommended Accessories

• Large capacity SDHC/SDXC memory card. 16GB Class 10 should be a minimum, USH-I recommended.
• Extra EN-EL14a Rechargeable Lithium-ion Battery (~US$45)
• Additional lenses
• Nikon Speedlight flash
• Small to Medium DSLR bag