The Franken-Nikon P520

The Franken-Nikon P520, secret weapon or paperweight?

The Franken-Nikon P520 I have hanging in a dusty camera bag in my office is a keeper.  Or maybe I should sell it.  Well, maybe not.  

But lest my uncertainty be misunderstood, let me tell you about it.

The Nikon P520 “entrance level” digital camera came out a few years ago.  It was pretty impressive with stunning 42X optical zoom capabilities.  It has since been replaced by the even more ridiculous Nikon P900 with 83X.  It in turn has been replaced by the Nikon P1000 with an absolutely insane 125X optical zoom!  (That’s the equivalent of a 3000mm telephoto lens!)

Note that I call the P900 and later “ridiculous,” mainly because I don’t have them.  But I digress…

My Franken-Nikon kind of came to me by accident.  I threw a lowball bid on a camera on Ebay.  It was listed “as is,” a non-working camera suitable for parts or repair.  The battery door was snapped off.  The filter ring on the lens had a chunk missing altogether.  Furthermore, it was missing the rubber “grip” on the back.  It looked like it had been through the mill.  But I was a bit intrigued by the possibilities of a single camera with that kind of zoom.

But why would you want one?

Let me explain for those mentally asking if I was maybe a bit insane, considering the fact I have a Canon 60D and a pack full of lenses.  You see, last year there was a blood moon, a total eclipse of the moon.  The sky was nearly perfectly clear, with just a few wisps of high cloud.

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I got home late, dragged out my tripod and my 50D, a great camera I still owned at the time, and went to shoot some spectacular photos.  But boo… It had been a while since I had done any shooting and the batteries were all dead!  Why, oh why didn’t I charge them up before I put it away?

So I had to put the batteries on charge and grab the mirrorless 4/3 camera I was trying.  Let me just say, it was a great little camera for using in daylight, but the tiny diameter long lens I had was just not the thing for trying to do anything at night!

I finally got the batteries for the 50D charged up enough, but by then the bright curve of the moon was creeping rapidly out from behind this old ball of mud we hurtle through space on.  That and my astigmatism made it a real challenge to get it right, and I got maybe a couple of decent shots in total.

The next day, I saw these beeyooteeful shots on Facebook!  I contacted the photographer to offer my condolences and asked what kind of equipment she captured those spectacular shots with.   Was it the latest super expensive professional Canon camera with massive glass and a motorized tripod?  How long had she been a professional photographer?

Then she told me, well, she was just starting. She used a Nikon P900 she had just purchased and just shot the photos in her bare hands, using something called “Moon Mode!”  Moon mode!!!  Like Nikon said, “Here, hold this camera for me.  I’ll take a perfect moonshot for you!”

Let me assure you:  the photos were quite spectacular.  I don’t think you could have improved on them much with the best equipment out there.  So I was very interested.

Pricey choices for an experiment

Needless to say, the P900s are still a bit more than I want to fork out for an experiment, but when I saw the busted old P520 on Ebay, I though, “Well, what the heck.  I can fix that!”

And sure enough, it wasn’t difficult to fix.  It really just needed a battery (not included) and a battery door.

But good grief!  The going price for just the door was getting up to $50.00!  That was about double what I spent on the camera to start with, and I still needed a battery!  But then I noticed battery doors for a P530 going for about $10 and they sure looked the same.

So I did a bit of research and found out the same door fits the P500, P510, P520 and P530, so I ordered one.

When the door came, I had to take the camera apart to replace it.  Unlike my Canons, the pin for the Nikon cannot be removed without splitting the case.  But it’s not a difficult job.

The Discovery

What I discovered as I was taking it apart is that this camera has a P520 top, but the bottom is labelled as P530.  So what is it?

The Firmware Version listed in the menu makes it clear it’s a P520.  And since the firmware was out of date, I updated it.  You seldom notice much difference with a firmware update, but this one really made the camera sparkle! 

This camera works great.  Flawlessly, in fact.  But let me be clear:  this little unit has some history!

It’s definitely been apart.  The reason the grip was removed on the back corner was to access one of the screws.  That’s one hint.  But to end up with a P530 label on the bottom wasn’t a quality control issue at the Nikon factory!

The only way to get it labeled like this is to start swapping pieces.  So something happened to the camera at some point in history that didn’t kill it, but required the entire front half of the camera body housing to be replaced.

I would suggest it would take a pretty good drop to break that!  But it still works perfectly.  I seen expensive Canons become paperweights from a fall that broke the housing.

The battery door was snapped off just a bit past the hinge.  The whole thing, including the steel that runs from the pin all the way to the other end was snapped off, just gone.  How do you do that?

And the filter ring, the outer part of the lens housing where you’d screw a filter on has a big chunk missing, as you can see in the photo, but the lens is fine, and it still works flawlessly.  

I screwed an adapter into the broken housing.  It isn’t a standard size, butby buying a relatively cheap adapter, I could put a plain filter on it to protect the front element, and could put a lens hood on it, too.

In searching out parts, pieces, and indeed, which camera it is, I’ve discovered that from the P510 to the P530, there are a lot of pieces that are exactly the same.

That said, there are lots of pieces that aren’t the same.

The front housing, as a previous owner or camera shop discovered, is interchangeable.

But the back housing is very different.  The P530, for example, does not have the hinge protruding like the P520.  But the battery door for the P530, which was selling for WAY below the price of a P520 door, is identical.

From paperweight to useful backup camera

So that’s the story of my lightweight, sharp little 18MP Franken-Nikon P520.  It has the heart of the heart of a P520, but the battery door and front housing of a P530.

Now if I can find a dead P530 with a nice lens housing.  I’m told they’re the same as the P520 lens.  Same shutter, too.  And while I’m patching it up, if I get a P530 in red, I could have an even more unique shooter.  As long as I keep it out of the rain.  They may be almost bulletproof in a drop, but unlike my Canon 60D and Canon 5D, the Nikon P520 doesn’t even pretend to be water or dustproof.

I’d love to hear about any experimenting you’ve done with digital cameras.  Please share in the comment section.  And if you have any questions about d.i.y. repairs for your digital camera, leave them in the comments, too.  There’s a wealth of information out there!