As I write this I am waiting for the delivery of a rental lens - Nikon 80-400 mm lens - and a 1.4 teleconverter; both are the most recent versions of those items.
I’m sort of caught between a rock and a hard decision. My long-term plan has been to replace my aging Nikon D610 at some point. I’ve been saving money for several years toward that goal.
Initially, I thought I was going to buy a Nikon D850, considered the best DSLR out there. But long before I got the money saved, Nikon entered the mirrorless market with their Z6 and Z7 cameras.
I wasn’t sure mirrorless was the future of photography but I was curious. Neither of those were exactly what I wanted. As it became more popular and moved into the mainstream, I eventually became interested in moving to mirrorless.
I kept saving money.
Nikon came out with the Z6 II and the Z7 II. They were greatly improved and peaked my interest even more.
I saved more money.
Then, the rumors started about the possible future existence of a Nikon Z9. The rumors were quite exciting. I decided to wait and see what the Z9 was really going to be like. It turned out even better than the rumors, and not as expensive as I thought it might be.
I saved even more money.
But then, is it always happens, new rumors about a Nikon Z8 started surfacing. There were two different possible versions, both just rumors. One version did not interest me. But the version that would be the rough equivalent of a baby Z9 — same processor, same sensor, smaller body — was enough to make me decide to wait longer, even though by then I had enough money saved to make that purchase.
So now it’s the waiting game.
And I don’t know for certain how long I must wait.
This will most likely be the last camera I will ever buy, so I need to try to get it right. The most believable info available right now suggests that a formal announcement could be coming as early as late in March or sometime in April. At that point I should have enough information to help me decide whether or not I need to continue to wait, or just go ahead and buy the Z9, a much more expensive camera.
Rumors are all that keep me going right now, keep me waiting. In the past, the rumors became more accurate as the formal announcements got closer. One set of rumors suggest the camera will have a larger sensor than the Z9, but a Z7-sized body. That would spoil it for me. But the most recent rumors, from a fairly reputable source, suggest that the Z8 will have lots of Z9 tech — sensor, processor, etc. — and a body size similar to the D850, just a little thinner. That would be perfect for me.
The issue for me in the present involves lenses. Spring and early summer are the best times for wildlife photography in my local parks. And I need a longer lens to capture the photos I want.
That’s why I’m waiting on a rental lens right now. I have rented it for one month, costing around $600, money that now I won't have for my camera.
Doing the best thing has become a juggling act. But if I don’t rent this lens, I can’t get the photos I want for this year. And there’s no guarantee I will be healthy enough to even do photography in the spring of 2024.
The lens I’m renting is not a great lens. But it will help me get fairly decent photographs of distant herons and their nests, and egrets, and bitterns, etc. It’s a big compromise, but it’s the lens I can justify renting. I would certainly prefer to rent the 500 mm PF lens, but there was no way to justify the cost of renting that lens for a month.
And so I make this compromise … in order to take some photographs that my trusty 100-200 mm lens cannot handle.
And I will be patient, as I wait for more information about the rumored Nikon Z8 camera, which I hope will be configured to my preferences, and reward me for waiting.