Category: photography

Over the past six or seven years I have slowly acquired a camera system with which I am satisfied with. It began with the D610, a Nikon camera body that stood at the level to entry professional photography gear.

Finding the lenses I used to be insufficient I then purchased an old 70-200mm f/2.8G. It was a generation before the D610 but it worked perfectly with this body. But then I found the D610 could not keep up with this lens. The lens was clearly a true professional tool. It could handle faster shutter speeds and auto focus. My D610 was simply not truly professional in that sense.

Later, I acquired a few more professional lenses before I realized how lacking the body really was. By the time I had accumulated a set of serious professional lenses I knew I needed to upgrade my body.

It was then I found a secondhand D500. This camera was able to handle these lenses. But it was a crop sensor so I was covering the wide end with my D610. No longer was the D610 a joy to shoot with after you have seen what a true professional body can do.

So I took the plunge and bought the D850.

This body came out one year after the D500. It is still a current production model. While Nikon, like everyone else, is moving to mirrorless cameras this is thought be the last DSLR Nikon will make for now. Nikon did the same thing when it transitioned to digital SLRs form film cameras. It created the F5 as a farewell. This time it was the D850 and the already discontinued D500. In other words, I now own the pinnacle Nikon gear of the DSLR era.

And what would have cost me double if not triple or more I got for what would be considered a bargain.

I now have a professional kit which will cover landscape, lowlight, portraiture, macro, astrophotography, street/documentary, action, wide, zoom, detail, pretty anything you can throw at me with a set of six lenses and two bodies. And I didn’t need to sell my house for it.