I’ve owned dozens of different cameras over the years but my all time favorite camera body for photographing birds in flight, and wildlife in general, is the Nikon D810.
In the day, it was the best all around DSLR on the market, but time and consumer marketing has passed it by in the digital camera market place, which is a bit of a shame from my view of the road. It’s the most pure photographers tool I have ever owned or used. When I make a photograph using a D810, I have nothing but confidence as to how well it will get that shot.
Released by Nikon in the summer of 2014, it boasts a 36.3 megapixel full frame sensor with no anti-aliasing filter, with a continuous frame rate of 5 frames per second. The body is weather sealed and in the hands of a skilled photographer, it could confidently be used for just about any type of photography. The auto-focus system for the day was best in class and even now holds up to all but the most expensive professional grade mirrorless cameras. The mechanical shutter is robust and makes the finest shutter sound of any camera I’ve ever used. Just hearing that shutter makes my mouth water. The huge viewfinder makes it excellent for tracking birds in flight in just about any light.
The resolution of most of the mirrorless cameras today are still hovering in the 24-33 megapixel range. This is suitable for most things, but the 36 megapixel D810 has more resolution without creating image files that will make your computer crawl when processing. Compared to the even newer Nikon D850 at 45 megapixels, I prefer the file size of the D810. Some of the newer mirrorless bodies will produce 50-60 megapixel images and post processing images of that size even further slows down post-processing. That’s one reason I haven’t switched to full frame mirrorless bodes yet. I just don’t need more than 45 megapixels, but I still like having some degree of high resolution over the 24-30 megapixel offerings. The D810 sits in a sweet spot for resolution in my opinion.
The D810 will make an HD quality video, but it’s not really a video camera so to speak. It’s a photographers camera that can do a video. I don’t do a lot of video so I’m not at all concerned about it. If I want video, I’ll go to my Sony a6700 and get the job done nicely.
If you are worried about photographic dynamic range, the D810 has better dynamic range than the Nikon Z8 and the just released Nikon Z6 III below ISO 800. Not bad for a 10 year old sensor.
The D810 also doesn’t have Bluetooth connectivity. That doesn’t bother me either. I don’t spend a lot of time staring at my cell phone and downloading my shots from a camera until I get in the studio and start my photo editing.
One of my favorite things about the D810 is the battery life. Mirrorless cameras suck batteries dry quickly. The D810 can shoot for days in the field without a battery swap. I’ve accumulated up to 3,000 RAW files on my D810 and still had plenty of battery charge left afterwords.
I still hang on to my ancient D810 DSLR and regularly use it with the Nikkor 200-500mm ED VR lens. I am still amazed by the image quality I get from this camera. The 36 megapixel sensor has plenty of resolution for just about any size print and allows plenty of room for cropping in on subjects without losing image quality.
When people ask me what the best, low cost camera is for photographing wildlife, this is the camera I recommend.
The camera itself was discontinued by Nikon in 2019, so you would be hard pressed to find a new body anywhere on the used market, but lightly used and refurbished bodies in excellent condition are still available for between $500-$800 on the used market. Couple that with a used Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 ED VR lens at a cost between $650-$800 and one can obtain a excellent wildlife photography kit for under $1600.
Today’s photo of a mating pair of Great Blue Heron was made using the Nikon D810 with the 200-500mm f/5.6 ED VR in March of 2019.
The images that come out of this camera today are as good or better than any current camera on the market.