My lovely 23 yr old daughter has developed a love for travel as well as a talent for photography well beyond my abilities, and I'm a bit jealous.
Her equipment is becoming more sophisticated and correspondingly expensive as well.
Combine that with my love of practical jokes (at her expense), I've developed a intricate & devious plan to absolutely devastate her and then gleefully surprise her at the same time. Please tell me what you think.

We have plans in place to go back to beautiful Iceland this summer for 2 weeks mainly to explore the various waterfalls and mountain peaks, photographing them in detail as we go.

Her birthday will fall during this time, and I plan on upgrading her equipment to a Nikon D810 as a surprise. Of course I will have brought it along, bragging that it is 'MY' new camera.

Now for the practical joke:

I plan to "borrow " her current Nikon D7200 body with the intent of photographing her, as we stand in a precarious position above a cliff , a waterfall or other similar location.

As she stands watching, I'll make a point to change out a lens on what she assumes is the current D7200, fumbling to the point were she sees me 'accidently' drop her camera body perhaps hundreds of feet down to the ground or into the water. I will of course have changed out the D7200 body with an old non-working D40 i just picked up off of EBay for a few bucks -having safely ensconced the D7200 in my bag.

Oh, the look of sheer horror i expect to see on that beautiful face.

Of course being the dutiful dad I am, I will immediately offer up 'my' brand new D810 and the corresponding lenses as a sacrifice for her loss ( which was really for her anyway). I'm just wondering at what point should I hand back the original D7200 and try not to laugh so hard?

My lovely 23 yr old daughter has developed a love for travel as well as a talent for photography well beyond my abilities, and I'm a bit jealous.
Her equipment is becoming more sophisticated and correspondingly expensive as well.
Combine that with my love of practical jokes (at her expense), I've developed a intricate & devious plan to absolutely devastate her and then gleefully surprise her at the same time. Please tell me what you think.

We have plans in place to go back to beautiful Iceland this summer for 2 weeks mainly to explore the various waterfalls and mountain peaks, photographing them in detail as we go.

Her birthday will fall during this time, and I plan on upgrading her equipment to a Nikon D810 as a surprise. Of course I will have brought it along, bragging that it is 'MY' new camera.

Now for the practical joke:

I plan to "borrow " her current Nikon D7200 body with the intent of photographing her, as we stand in a precarious position above a cliff , a waterfall or other similar location.

As she stands watching, I'll make a point to change out a lens on what she assumes is the current D7200, to the point were she sees me 'accidently' drop her camera body perhaps hundreds of feet down to the ground or into the water. I will of course have changed out the D7200 body with an old non-working D40 i just picked up off of EBay for a few bucks -having safely ensconced the D7200 in my bag.

Oh, the look of sheer horror i expect to see on that beautiful face.

Of course being the dutiful dad I am, I will immediately offer up 'my' brand new D810 and the corresponding lenses as a sacrifice for her loss ( which was really for her anyway). I'm just wondering at what point should I hand back the original D7200 and try not to laugh so hard?

"precarious position above a cliff.... waterfall .. fumbling...accidently drop...hundreds of feet... sheer horror...laugh so hard". There is a lot there that could go tragically wrong - like your daughter falling over the cliff while trying to save her camera. Your 'joke' is much to elaborate and not even funny. Best jokes are short and simple.

If you want to surprise your daughter, try treating her like a grown woman instead of your eight year old 'daddy's girl'. She is old enough and sophisticated enough to decide for herself what equipment she wants. Doing the research, reading the reviews, asking for advice is half the fun of acquiring equipment. Your way - she gets a very nice hand-me-down camera, but you get all of the GAS relief. Surprise her by taking her to a good camera store and giving her carte blanche to buy what she wants.

My lovely 23 yr old daughter has developed a love for travel as well as a talent for photography well beyond my abilities, and I'm a bit jealous.
Her equipment is becoming more sophisticated and correspondingly expensive as well.
Combine that with my love of practical jokes (at her expense), I've developed a intricate & devious plan to absolutely devastate her and then gleefully surprise her at the same time. Please tell me what you think.

We have plans in place to go back to beautiful Iceland this summer for 2 weeks mainly to explore the various waterfalls and mountain peaks, photographing them in detail as we go.

Her birthday will fall during this time, and I plan on upgrading her equipment to a Nikon D810 as a surprise. Of course I will have brought it along, bragging that it is 'MY' new camera.

Now for the practical joke:

I plan to "borrow " her current Nikon D7200 body with the intent of photographing her, as we stand in a precarious position above a cliff , a waterfall or other similar location.

As she stands watching, I'll make a point to change out a lens on what she assumes is the current D7200, fumbling to the point were she sees me 'accidently' drop her camera body perhaps hundreds of feet down to the ground or into the water. I will of course have changed out the D7200 body with an old non-working D40 i just picked up off of EBay for a few bucks -having safely ensconced the D7200 in my bag.

Oh, the look of sheer horror i expect to see on that beautiful face.

Of course being the dutiful dad I am, I will immediately offer up 'my' brand new D810 and the corresponding lenses as a sacrifice for her loss ( which was really for her anyway). I'm just wondering at what point should I hand back the original D7200 and try not to laugh so hard?

My lovely 23 yr old daughter has developed a love for travel as well as a talent for photography well beyond my abilities, and I'm a bit jealous.
Her equipment is becoming more sophisticated and correspondingly expensive as well.
Combine that with my love of practical jokes (at her expense), I've developed a intricate & devious plan to absolutely devastate her and then gleefully surprise her at the same time. Please tell me what you think.

We have plans in place to go back to beautiful Iceland this summer for 2 weeks mainly to explore the various waterfalls and mountain peaks, photographing them in detail as we go.

Her birthday will fall during this time, and I plan on upgrading her equipment to a Nikon D810 as a surprise. Of course I will have brought it along, bragging that it is 'MY' new camera.

Now for the practical joke:

I plan to "borrow " her current Nikon D7200 body with the intent of photographing her, as we stand in a precarious position above a cliff , a waterfall or other similar location.

As she stands watching, I'll make a point to change out a lens on what she assumes is the current D7200, fumbling to the point were she sees me 'accidently' drop her camera body perhaps hundreds of feet down to the ground or into the water. I will of course have changed out the D7200 body with an old non-working D40 i just picked up off of EBay for a few bucks -having safely ensconced the D7200 in my bag.

Oh, the look of sheer horror i expect to see on that beautiful face.

Of course being the dutiful dad I am, I will immediately offer up 'my' brand new D810 and the corresponding lenses as a sacrifice for her loss ( which was really for her anyway). I'm just wondering at what point should I hand back the original D7200 and try not to laugh so hard?