Nikon Price Increases

I’m seeing various reports of prices rising from not bad to ok and from ok to ok+a little in the US.

Nothing like the Armageddon that was being talked about. But maybe I’m different- another $100 on $1,800 isn’t going to make my choke because the $1,800 already made me choke.

On the other hand- that 200mm f/2 you had your eye on is now $4599.95 from B&H! I’m pretty sure they were ~$4,000 in December. Yikes. (But you already knew- “Only pro’s buy this lense.“)

I used to think used Hassy lenses at $1,000 were expensive.

[Update: Link fixed, sorry- Wordpress feature tripped me up again.]

In these times of the end-of-days of NIkonians, megapixel-wars, full-frame vs cropped-frame riots, and competing flagship bodies, it’s nice to see a place where both camps can get together and gripe show some shots:

Eric dropped me a messsage and would like me to plug the forums that he’s set up here:
www.mycanikon.com

Full warning though, I’ve let him know that NikonWatch is setting up its own forums- soon as I find the time to monkey with CSS pages and, (ugh not again), PHP.

Olivier Giroux has taken the SDK I just posted about and used it to grab frames from the D700’s live preview function!

This means that, presumably and subject to tinkering, any of the bodies supported by the SDK and having Live View functionality can also do the same thing. It’s not full resolution (it’s only what the LCD on the camera body would show), but it’s still remarkably decent.

Here’s an example:

Please see his post for another video and more details.

Nikon D3x Prices Lower in CA

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet- last week, I walked into a pawn shop around where I work and saw the random old Canon and Nikon (FM’s mainly), huge Mamiya, and wasn’t too thrilled. Looked a little longer and saw a MINT F’ing F3! The best one I’ve yet seen in person. Looks like grandpa never used it once.

Price? $498.00. Conversation went about like this:

Matt: I’ll give you $250 right now.

Them: No.

Matt: $300.

Them: I don’t think [the owner] will go for that.

Matt: Look- how often is someone going to walk in off of the street, spot a film-body and offer you cash on the spot?

Them: …(unphased)…

Matt: On ebay, I bought one recently in similar condition for $300, you’re not going to do better than that and if you don’t want to sell it to me now, then I’d recommend you sell it on ebay, because no one else is going to walk in and want to buy it.

Them: …(unphased)…

Matt: (leaves)

I can’t quite understand the shop’s way of thinking- presumably they bought the camera with cash and it’s likely sat on the shelf for a while. They’re paying rent and utilities and labor- having inventory sitting on the shelf does nothing to generate income. Also- while their $100 (let’s pretend that’s what they bought it for) is sitting on the shelf in the form of a mint F3, they’re losing the interest they could have been earning on it. A store’s goal is to have as little inventory as practical- they only make money on product turn-over.

I mention this because Brad points out to me that in Canada, the price of the D3x is actually coming down, probably because shops figure it’s better to get a few hundred less on the D3x than nothing at all- inventory sitting around is actually costing you money:

…by last week a number of western Canadian Pro Nikon dealers have dropped the price by $250 and are now advertising the camera at $9199.00. It would seem that the D3x is NOT flying off the shelves in western Canada (an area quite well buffered from the economic malaise hitting almost everywhere else in the world). I haven’t bothered checking, but odds are this is happening right across Canada (both the slow sales and dealer discounts on the D3x).

I’ll be going back to that shop on Friday- maybe I’ll be able to convince them. Likely as not, it’ll be gone and I’ll be kicking myself for letting a near MIB F3hp get past me. Or maybe they’ll see thinks my way- $300 in hand is better than $500 in the form of a camera on the shelf.

Thanks Brad!

The reason I started this site is because the second anyone on Nikonians would post a rumor, the admins would lock the thread or nuke it and tell the person to take a hike.

This turned me off- speculating and (preferably) getting rumors on Nikon equipment was the main reason I was there. So I stopped bothering and read dpReview instead.

Well we’ve just been told that they will allow a free registration and entry to their forums for a month and then you’ll have to pay $25 (or slightly less with a code) in order to access the forums from then on.

This is the death of Nikonians.

Invariably, sites do this right before they go under in an attempt to recoup costs. But when they have to resort to this, it means they’re about to die anyway because they can’t make enough money from advertisements, and the reduced ad traffic isn’t going to be covered by people paying for the memberships. Then a death-spiral until one day the site merely says they’re gone.

The only workable model yet to be devised for non-pr0n sites like this and Nikonians is: free access, advertisements and referrals bring in money. If your overhead is too high for the money coming in, then you do it because you like it or you shut down.

While their announcement doesn’t specify what their costs are, I’ve read somewhere it was $2m/year, and I can say from experience, if they were spending $2m/year running their website, they have no business being in business.

Circuit City Owes Nikon

Circuit City was a not so great (in my opinion) ‘big-box’ consumer electronics store.

A couple of years ago, they started to do poorly, got a new CEO who then laid-off their best sales people because they were getting paid too much (in his opinion). Shortly after that, they did a lot worse (surprise!) and have been near death until just recently when they’ve gone totally bust.

The last time I visited, around Christmas, I saw a D40(?) and D60 and some crappy kit lenses in barely working order in the their “camera” gulag. Unfortunately, those crappy lenses and low-end bodies and Coolpix’s will likely cost Nikon nearly $15m.

Nikon-When to buy

In case you didn’t know- there’s another Nikon site out there that maintains a list of where they expect the prices for various bodies and Nikkor lenses to go and when you should buy.

Let’s get this straight: in general, the longer you wait to buy something the less it’s going to cost, with few exceptions.

The main exception is whacky currency fluctuations. The current economy is doing strange things and that’s why we’re seeing Nikon prices tending upward.

The Yen has gone up ~11% vs the USD since the D3 became widely available. Nearly 17% versus the Australian dollar, not quite doubled (if I’m reading the graphs correctly) vs the British Pound, and up >20% vs the Euro.

Recent headlines regarding Yen include: “Nikkei may hover before US data, yen rise a worry” , “Japanese Yen May Strengthen On Declining Global Outlook“, and “Japanese Yen Makes Gains Against Euro, Majors Following Unexpected BOJ Rate Cut“.

Keep in mind though, that currencies fluctuate, meaning that the current runup in the Yen can also go the other way, if you’re being priced out of the market, you might as well wait if the increase is painful to you.

Secondary exceptions are mainly relegated to scarcity and the “Only pro’s can afford this”-tax. Basically, that 600mm Nano VR2 lens you had your eye on is probably not ever going to see any appreciable price reduction. Why? Because “Only Pros Buy This.” That is- businesses that need it can afford it. Amateurs like me generally won’t bother.

Nikon D3x vs Nikon D3 on Noise

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but a bit ago, PBase put up a quick comparison between the Nikon D3x noise and the D3’s noise.

Apparently, the D3 is the low-noise Emperor while the D3x does a respectable job, especially given its megapixel count.

From quickly looking at the shots from the D3x, you produce (what looks to me) like a much sharper shot at a NR setting of “Low” than you’d get without any NR. But that might just be their setup.

I’ve posted about this before, but Pete wants me to point it out again:

I don’t control the advertisers that Google feeds this site.

Some of them will be unscrupulous.

If the price is looks too good to be true – guess what? Either you will avoid that advertiser, or your momma raised a sucker.

One guy actually went around taking pictures of some of these places- guess what kind of operation you might be buying from?

From the previous post:

A Word About Advertisers- Warning.

On many sites, and even this one (because I don’t control what ads Google feeds me) you will see things like “D2xs Camera Kit- $999!!!!!”.

It’s just like your momma told you- if the price is too good to be true, then it’s not true.

If you see ridiculously low prices like this, it means that it’ll likely be imported (Nikon only warrants their stuff if you buy within your own country, with very few exceptions), they’ll not sell you the whole thing- you might get the body then they’ll tell you that it doesn’t include the battery, etc, they might REQUIRE you to spend a wad of money on crappy lenses, they will probably make you wait months before shipping anything (because you didn’t buy their lenses- you’ll eventually cancel your order), etc.

Deal with a reputable outfit only.

That’s why when I go to NYC or I need a big purchase, I deal with B&H Photo Video. While yes, I will probably join their affiliate system, I’m only recommending them because I use them and never have had any undue problems with them.

If I ever have any trouble with them, I will tell you about it. If you’ve ever had any issues with them, please leave a comment or mail me directly, I’d like to know about it.

My hosting company’s email setup it not swell. So I’m trying to change it and I’ve got monkey with various DNS settings, etc, to get that done.

Which means that there may be some hiccups now and then, no need for alarm.

So you just bought your nice new 24mm (let’s pretend) $1800-ish PC-E lense and you’re all like, “The manual says I have to send it in to get tilt and shift on the same axis?!”

But you’ve got no time and a pair of:

PC-E Tilt/Shift Axis Change

And you’re all like, “Whatever, I do what I want!” Well, just 4 screws and a 90′ twist and you can conveniently do it at home– MotifNation shows you how!

In fact, it looks so easy, you might wonder why Nikon didn’t make it possible to do on the fly without removing the screws.

Some comments by people who’ve done this here. The screwdriver has been reported to be a Phillips #000 and you might want to use some less-adhesive loctite before you put the screws back if you intend to keep it that way.

It reportedly costs $126 to have Nikon perform the same process.

Canon 5D MarkII vs Nikon D700

Photography Bay has a really quick noise comparison between the Nikon D700 and the Canon 5D Mark II.

No huge surprise, the Nikon does better all around in my view, but this is clearly meant as a cheeseball comparison.

(Hat-tip to Leonardo)

Nikon 14-24mm vs Zeiss 21mm - Comparison /Review

David Clapps pixel-peeps the Zeiss 21mm ZF lens and compares it to the Nikon 14-24mm. Zeiss lenses are generally considered to be great and the 14-24mm has been considereding amazing for a zoom.

While I love my Zeiss lenses, you have to give it to the 14-24mm, it either matches or clocks the the Zeiss everywhere after f/2.8.

Nikkor 50mm f/1.4g AF-S Review

If you follow Ken at all, he’s got a review of the 50mm AF-S f/1.4g up now.

Oh and look! His kid’s growing up You’d expect a guy like Ken to take some more interesting test shots than pictures of his son… At least if he wants to maintain my interest.

The only gotchas are that this new lens has more barrel distortion than the old 50mm f/1.4 AF-D, it has a weird 58mm (not standard 52mm) filter size, and that this new lens is useless on Nikons made before about 1990.

Oh hey, wait a minute- MORE barrel distortion? That’s not cool.

I’m getting sharp, haze-free shots dead-on in-focus at f/1.4 on all of my cameras, where at f/1.4 my old 50/1.4 AF-D often had more veil, bloom or glow (what scientists call spherical aberration) in real shots.

…

This new AF-S 50 has more linear distortion than any other fixed Nikon 50mm ever made.

Ha:

Complain about kid pictures all you want, but unlike shooting Formula One racing or American hero Lance Armstrong, you don’t know where the kid is going next. Just try getting an in-focus shot without AF.

Nikon D3x Noise / Sample Shots / Review

Imaging Resources has some great test shots with the Nikon D3x here.

Lots of difference shutter / aperture combo’s, include standard color charts, etc, gray background this time instead of blue.

ISO 3200 on the D3x in these shots (for example) still looks like a “only when required’ setup and I’m sure it’s meant to be- who’s shooting a high-res camera meant for the studio at 3200? Even the landscape guys don’t need to go that high (I’m thinking).

3200 seems like ~800 on the d2x and something closer to 6400 on the D3 (I rarely shoot that high, I’m likely wrong on this guess)?

Nikon D3x Noise / Sample Shots / Review

iZyz has some still-life studio shots of a doll at all of the Nikon D3x’s ISO speeds.

No noise reduction claimed, no post.

Impressions- without NR, you won’t want to go above 200 iso if you don’t have to. Expose to the right. 3200 iso is only if you can’t get the shop any other way- but you’d be silly to use the D3x at 3200- that’s what the D3’s for.

If you’re looking for a 200mm VR f/2, B&H has them in stock now.

I mention this for 2 reasons:

1) It’s a hard lens to find in stock because they only make them in batches a few times a year. Nikon does this with all their high-end glass.

2) If you like this site and want to throw a couple of bucks my way to encourage me to continue, you can click a B&H ad on this site (like at the top of the main page) and then complete the order. This way, they know if came from my site and I get a couple of bucks thrown back to me.

They also have the PC-E lenses in stock.

Why do I like B&H? If they say it’s in stock, it’s in stock. If they say it’s $XX, it’s $XX. There isn’t any funny business.

Btw- Remember that thrill you had as a kid when you got to go to ToysRUs or some similar toy store? If you’re ever in Manhattan, go to their store- you’ll get that same feeling if you’re into cameras or video or lighting, etc- they’ve got it all in stock for you to take a look at and play with.

I’m sensing the need for a page specifically dedicated to VR lenses and whether or not their manual says to turn the VR off when mounted on a tripod.

Bob wrote me to ask if the much-loved Nikkor 80-400mm wanted its VR turned off while on a tripod. Ya know what I told him? RTFM! That was the lesson that Brad was trying to teach us yesterday.

Thankfully, Brad did read the f’ing manual (and told me, because I was too lazy to do it for him):

The 80-400 manual says, and I quote exactly:

“When the lens is mounted on a tripod, set the vibration reduction switch to OFF. Set the vibration reduction switch to ON, when using a monopod or if the lens is mounted on a tripod without the head being locked in place.”

Thanks Brad!

As I explained to Brad, and the actual reason that I put up anything on this topic is because the differences between having it on while on the tripod and turning it off were so pronounced!

Brad says that I got it wrong- that most people have probably got it wrong- even you! I reprint his message in its entirety (bolding is mine):

Matt,

Your entry entitled “On Tripod? VR OFF! Comparison Shots is over-simplified to the point of being extremely misleading.

In short, whether or not you should turn off the VR function when mounted on a tripod varies with the lens. And, it also varies with how sturdy your tripod is and whether or not the head is tightened down. One thing that contributes to the confusion is how poorly it is expressed in the manuals (and, I have found a few typos in the VR sections of the  manuals, which compounds the problems).

Here’s the situation with the VR lenses I currently own and have tested (and when mounted  on a firm tripod with head tightened down):

1. 105 mm VR Micro: Turn VR off when on tripod (as stated in manual)

2. 200 mm f2 VR: Turn VR off when on tripod (as stated in manual – albeit in a  confusing fashion)

3. 300 mm f2.8 VR: Turn VR off when on tripod (as stated in manual)

4. 200-400 mm f4 VR: A-Ok to leave VR on when on tripod (as stated in manual) BUT ensure VR is in “Normal” mode (not active mode)

5. 600 mm f4 VR: Recommended to leave VR on when on tripod (as stated in manual) BUT  ensure VR is in “Tripod” mode – unless you are panning (as in following a bird) with a firm gimbal head (like a Wimberley).

Because of the poor performance of the 70-200 f2.8 VR on the full frame cameras, I have  recently jettisoned this lens and manual and can’t (without downloading the PDF manual) easily confirm what the manual says about this lens. But from my experience with it is that when firmly mounted on tripod you get better performance with the VR OFF.

I don’t expect (or care) if you post this info, but it would probably help a LOT of people if you amend the current info to include the point that the VR ON vs. VR OFF issue varies with the lens (and if people carefully read their manuals there would be no controversy!).

Yours in tack sharp images…

Brad
_
Brad Hill
Natural Art Images
www.naturalart.ca

A D90 user films some porsches racing and yes, there appears to be some jello. Guess you’ll have to be very careful how you film things if you want to avoid the delicious fruity gel:
Jello:

No Jello- static shot: