Excited about my new system: Nikon Z6iii and 180-600 mm Z lens: Its for the birds.

Eastern kingbird feeding a dragonfly to chicks, Creston, BC.

If you know me at all or have followed my photography blogs, you know that a lot of the shooting I do involves birds.  My bird interest stems from my infatuation with all wildlife, but birds are by far the most common and varied group.  I have, for many years (30, at least), kept a camera system dedicated to shooting wildlife.  My equipment has ranged from film (F90x and 150-600 Tamron) through every digital camera system I have owned.  For the last number of years, it has been my reliable D500 and 500 mm PF prime.  However, I got a new system as of yesterday.

It's the Nikon Z6iii (see image below), the Z180-600 mm zoom, and the Z1.4 TC (teleconverter).  I have yet to play with it seriously, but there are a few features that led me to making this purchase.  These include:

  • faster frame rate (20 fps raw format)
  • lower noise at high ISO (I shot at an ISO of 2000 and the noise was unnoticeable)
  • fast and precise focus (has an ultra-fine spot focus better than my D500)
  • super fast 3D tracking - it will be able to keep up with erratic birds in flight
  • it has a wildlife mode with bird recognition - it finds the bird's eye(s) and focuses
  • large buffer - I can shoot 200 photos continuously without a special memory card
  • full frame vs DX (crop sensor) and 24 mp - reason for the low noise
My new Nikon equipment that I am looking forward to using.


I should be able to acquire focus faster, track birds in flight better, get more shots in focus, and end up with better shots than what I have so far achieved.  

I am keeping my D500 system for now as it is a very good back up system and I can use the 500 mm PF lens on the Z6iii with my FTZ adapter.  We will be doing a cruise later in the year and I don't want to miss the opportunity of a lifetime.  It is also a DX camera, meaning that the sensor has a 1.5x crop factor, so my 500 behaves like a 750.  I will miss that.

The D500 is an excellent camera.  It is weather sealed, has a long battery life, and works with most of my old Nikon lenses that I still have.  It is the best D-series camera I have ever owned.  

I will be posting more images shortly, many will hopefully be taken with the Z6iii kit.  

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com


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