These photos were taken on 01/26/2023 on South Padre Island. I am posting this to remind myself of the joy of shooting photos with an obsolete, heavy Nikon D7500 camera and equally obsolete and even heavier Nikon 200-500mm lens, the combination of which weigh a boat anchor. Previously I had a Nikon D5600 camera which ... which I dropped :-(. The lens survived quite well; the camera body seemed okay, then acquired a mind of its own, randomly changing settings before commenting suicide.
Nikon has embraced mirrorless camera technology to the point where the D7500 is the last Nikon DSLR in current production. It shares the sensor and processor as the previous Nikon "flagship" D500. It has the basic internal guts only in a crop format.
Lorna has a marvelous new Canon mirrorless camera and I was having a quite a bad case of camera envy. Yesterday I got my settings tuned in and got my photo groove back. I have come to the realization that I too am old and obsolete. When I die they may have to pry my rigor mortis stiffened fingers from this howitzer of a camera.
Gunnar Berg
Addendum: Although I still possess the 200-500mm zoom, day-to-day it has been replaced with a Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 prime lens and 1.4x teleconverter.