Alaskan winter vs. the Nikon D850 (D850 arctic weather torture test report) is by Daniel Fernandez (Facebook | Instagram):
Originally this was going to be a shorter article about just one experience with the D850 over the winter, but it’s been expanded since then. Thankfully the NikonRumors admins have been gracious about the delays. Considering I’d been waiting for the D810 refresh to upgrade from my D7200, I ordered a D850 and MB-D18 grip the moment I could afford it, with the camera ending up in hand early this past November. To say that it was a massive upgrade from my previous camera is a big understatement, with the D850 constantly surprising me with it’s performance in different situations. There was a bit of a steep learning curve to say the least though, but I am in no way a ‘professional’ photographer. So please take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
Alaska isn’t exactly the friendliest environment for photography in the winter to say the least. Naturally the Nikon would get a pretty good torture test over the winter. In temperatures from below -32f (roughly -35c for you metric folks) to around freezing, it’s been an adventure with the D850. I’d imagine the camera is around 7-10,000 shutter actuations already, with the vast majority of them being on continuous high 9fps for sports and the like. That said, it’s been used with a variety of lenses and shutter speeds. As a whole, here are my thoughts after about 5 months of use in all sorts of conditions.
Most of the ‘deep winter’ was my time to learn the camera, with the first real hard use of the camera in February. This was straight into the deep end of the proverbial pool to sink or swim for sports photography. The transition from winter to sports season up here is extremely short and sudden. In the span of two to three weeks, it goes from essentially nothing going on, to events practically every weekend.
