But you can’t hide.

Well, maybe you can hide a little bit.

I kinda hate this camera.  I bought it for its long reach — the lensn extends to 539mm, but with a 1.66 sensor (7.7 diagonal) it calculates to a whopping 3000mm on a full frame!  What nature photographer doesn’t like that!!!

Unfortunately, what Nikon fails to tell you in the small print is this:  The camera is significantly front-heavy at full extension.  That means that even on a tripod it tends to dip. . .so much so that the camera shakes to the point that it misses the target.  At best the results are soft images.   Really soft. At worst you have to resist the urge to fling it across the marsh.

And since the focus points are contrast-only, don’t even try to take a photo of a mostly brown eagle sitting in its fairly brown nest on an 18% gray day.   With full extension, the results you get could be captioned, “Guess what I took a picture of today.  No, really, you have to guess.”  Because by looking at the brown blob in the middle of a drab sky, it’s anybody’s guess as to what it really is.

But as you can see, at mid extension the camera performs quite well, even when taking a chance photo with one hand through a (dirty) car window.  While driving! Which is why I’ve gone ahead and ordered a few things from B and H, to see if I can somehow stabilize the p1000 at full extension and get the awesome photos that Nikon tells me I can.

More later, once the B&H package arrives and I’ve had a chance to play with the toys.

P.S.  Isn’t today’s date a dyslexic’s nightmare???

(published February 20, 2020)