Nikon Camera Buried for 7 Years Reunited With Its Owners

Apr 17, 2025

Jaron Schneider

A Nikon digital camera covered in dirt and debris, with mud on the lens cap and body, sits on a white surface. The camera appears weathered and likely found outdoors.

This week, a Nikon camera was found buried in the ground near a footpath on the Isles of Scilly. After checking the SD card, it was estimated to have been lost somewhere between 2017 and 2018. After publishing a few of the photos on Facebook, the owner was found just a day later.

As reported by the BBC, the camera (which appears to be a Nikon Coolpix S9900 from 2015) was discovered by Sean Lewis, a local 64-year-old man who lives on St. Marys, the largest of the Isles of Scilly, which is an archipelago off the Cornish coast of southwest England.

A heavily rusted and dirt-covered digital camera sits on a white surface, showing significant signs of damage and neglect. The buttons and dials are encrusted with grime and the screen is barely visible.

“I was walking between Porth Mellon and Thomas Porth — it’s a route we often walk. The grass beside the path had just been trimmed and there the camera was, down in the foliage at the foot of the hedge, it was clear that it had been there a long time,” Lewis tells the BBC. “Initially I wasn’t very hopeful of getting anything out of it because it was all full of water, but after it had dried out for a couple of days I was able to access the SD card and found it was full of pictures and videos, 3,500 of them. It’s remarkable, really.”

The SD card was filled with a lot of family photos, Lews says, which encouraged him to post the images on Facebook in the hopes of finding the owner.

A man and a woman crouch together on rocky terrain by the sea, with an island and green hills visible in the background under a cloudy sky.

“It appears they’re fairly well traveled because a lot of the images are from around the country; Scotland, Ireland, certainly Wales, they seem to feature quite a bit there. I’m sure if they haven’t got copies of them already they’ll be wanting them back.”

The photos, which Lewis posted to the Isles of Scilly Notice Board public Facebook group, yielded nearly immediate results. As of this morning, Lewis updated the post to note that the owner had been located.

Four people, two adults and two children, smiling and posing closely together for a selfie in front of a white-framed window. The adults wear glasses, and one child wears a rainbow headband.

The camera’s owners are a family from Wales who tell the BBC that they are “overjoyed” at its return. The Taylor family says that they got a flurry of messages from friends who saw the post on Facebook and Debbie Davies confirms she’s the bride in the photos and that the camera had been lost by her parents Catherine and Andy Taylor in 2018.

A smiling bride in a white dress and veil stands next to a groom in a suit holding a bouquet of pink and white flowers. Both are indoors, with a woman and other guests in the background. — Photo from the recovered camera of Matthew and Debbie Davies on their wedding day.

“I’ve spoken to my mum. They thought they had lost the camera on the beach and spent ages scouring the place to find it,” Davies tells the BBC. “They will be overjoyed to see all the family photos. It’s like looking back on a holiday from 2018. But there’s no way I’m sitting through 3,500 photos — I’ve asked for the edited highlights.”

Davies says she’s surprised Lewis spent as much time as he did trying to track her family down.

“We are all very grateful he took the time to follow it up. And it goes to show the power of Facebook, I guess.”