It’s a sad tale I have to relate in this blog post!

On Saturday, February 18, 2023, I spied both our female Varied thrush and a White-throated sparrow in the yard at the same time.  I threw out some sunflower seed, grabbed my camera (a Nikon D500) and positioned myself in the yard for photos. The birds quickly ate the seeds and dissipated into the surrounding bushes leaving me with no photo opportunities. I leaned my camera (affixed to a monopod) against the side of the house, braced against the rain gutter downspout, as I have done over 1000 times before.  I reached for the seed and heard a horrible “clunk”.  The camera had slid down the side of the house and landed on our concrete walkway!    A quick examination of the camera revealed it was history!  

The Nikon D500… 

The last photo taken with the D500, a beautiful female Dark-eyed (Oregon) junco… 

Thus began a week of consulting with three photographer/friends, to whom I am indebted for their help and advice. I first ran some informal tests with my Nikon 500mm f5.6 lens that had been attached to the camera when it fell. It seemed OK.  (My next post displays some of the photos taken with the 500mm lens on a Nikon 7100 backup camera.).   

I initially decided to purchase one of the new Nikon mirrorless cameras (Z-series) which, with an adapter, would accommodate my existing lenses.  However, after examining a friend’s Z-series camera I recognized a design feature (actually lack of a design feature) that would make the Z-series camera, in my opinion, unsuitable for birding photography. 

One of my friends then suggested a Nikon D850 which offered a full frame sensor and 44mp  (megapixels), more than twice what my D500 had.  This camera will be fully compatible with my existing lenses… no adapter needed, and the controls will be familiar.  At this point I expect to have a new Nikon D850 by the first week in March.