Went down to Conowingo Dam yesterday morning to engage in the spectacle that is peak eagle season. Sadly, no great shots of eagles. Froze my butt off for three hours, no great eagle pics, and, to top it off, my Sony a77 died. Stuck shutter curtain. Too expensive to have it fixed (it is 10 years old). There is a YouTube video that shows you how if you remove 10,000 screws (all of which are different sizes), and avoid being shocked by the capacitors that operate the built-in flash, you just might be able to re-tension the springs on the shutter. Just so I can keep shooting this weekend, I stopped at Jack's cameras and ended up purchasing a used Sony a6000. A classic that will get me through the weekend and then replace my NEX5 (turns out, I like small cameras). I thought about scouring the interwebs in search of a used Sony a77, a77ii, or a99 to pair with my a-mount bird lenses, but in the end I decided to opt for a Sony LAEA5 adapter first. Inevitably, it seems I'll move towards a Sony e-mount mirrorless camera for my primary kit, and the LAEA5 adapter will be an inevitable purchase to be able to use all my older A-Mount lenses. I tired out the Sony a6000 this morning and even in full manual and manual focus it was tolerable with the Tamron 150-600. So the LAEA5 will get back my autofocus and image quality will be bearable until I decide on what new (or used) Sony camera to get.
Best guess is that there were over 50 photographers there at Conowingo yesterday... on a Thursday morning... in 20 degrees... during a pandemic. It really is an addiction.  And all the damned eagles stayed on the other side of the river.Â