Nikon Sale - some new lowest ever prices

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Drew said:
Must be your copy of the Viltrox lens that is soft, my copy is sharp. Been using it for Milky Way astrophotgraphy.
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Could very well be the case. I just wasn’t interested in dealing with returning the soft copy, testing a new one and potentially returning it when I have an acceptable, although MF, substitute.
 
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Whiskeyman said:
So, are you implying that increased demand would cause prices to go down?

I'm thinking that demand is actually down, or that supply has overcorrected from the recent past and is very high. When I last visited the nearest B&M camera store, their inventory was higher than I've seen it for a very long time. Across all brands, for both cameras and lenses.
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In my experience, things like tariffs, real or threatened, cause major market distortions. They alter the behavior of both consumers and producers in ways that seem paradoxical.

It will be interesting to look back at this in 6 months to see what’s really happening.
 
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Captain Spaulding said:
In my experience, things like tariffs, real or threatened, cause major market distortions. They alter the behavior of both consumers and producers in ways that seem paradoxical.

It will be interesting to look back at this in 6 months to see what’s really happening.
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What these often bring about are, in my views, less of a paradox, and more of a good old-fashioned unexpected reaction.

This, of course, being a view heavily influenced by my own tendencies. :whistle:
 
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I just bought the 600mm PF in Dec when it was marked down $800 and now it's $1000 off. It's a fantastic lens. No scientific test from me but I'm convinced the AF is faster than my 400 f4.5 so it yields more shots in focus during fast action. I've been impressed with my copy and surprised by when it captures things in perfect focus. Not all the time, but seems like significantly more than my 400.
 
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ajrmd said:
The 600 PF is super though I’m intrigued to learn why the 186 isn’t in consideration? I’ve owned the 400 f/4.5 twice and have sold it each time. The MFD and CA ruined an otherwise good lens. Shoot a backlit scene once and you’ll hate this lens.
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That's strange I've never noticed any CA in any of my 400mm f4.5 shots. Granted I have software corrections on but I'm not sure why those would ever not be on....
 
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Andy Baumgardner said:
That's strange I've never noticed any CA in any of my 400mm f4.5 shots. Granted I have software corrections on but I'm not sure why those would ever not be on....
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The fringing was terrible in any backlighting or objects against the sky - think branches. Very strong purple and simply awful with the 1.4x TC making it unusable. I had posted images in another thread and will see if I can find them. It may have been the copy though I've seen reviews where they note awful fringing with TC's.
 
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ajrmd said:
The fringing was terrible in any backlighting or objects against the sky - think branches. Very strong purple and simply awful with the 1.4x TC making it unusable. I had posted images in another thread and will see if I can find them. It may have been the copy though I've seen reviews where they note awful fringing with TC's.
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Couldn't be more opposite to my experience with backlighting and the 400/4.5. This is with the 1.4TC, too.
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ajrmd said:
The fringing was terrible in any backlighting or objects against the sky - think branches. Very strong purple and simply awful with the 1.4x TC making it unusable. I had posted images in another thread and will see if I can find them. It may have been the copy though I've seen reviews where they note awful fringing with TC's.
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Same experience, made the return after 10 days 😉
 
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Dave Stargazer said:
Hi Greg - I included the link for BH right below my call to use it - here it is:
https://bhpho.to/461XgHx

Just click on that link, then shop and drop whatever you want into your cart and buy it - Steve should get the "finder's fee"

But you can find all of Steve's affliate links etc. on the Donations page - it's Menu link at the top of this (and every) page.

My understanding of the way BH's affliate program (and Amazon's) work is that if you start shopping using an affliate link, whatever you buy [during that visit] gets credited to the affliate - even if you shop around for hrs. I hope that the affliate credit sticks when I add something to a wish list - it should, but it's impossible to know the internals of their system (which could change at any time anyway).

Cheers!
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Thanks, I did not notice that at first!
 
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Mark_Laidlaw said:
Couldn't be more opposite to my experience with backlighting and the 400/4.5. This is with the 1.4TC, too.
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Your image is not typical of those which leads to CA. On the 400, I commonly encountered it in situations of branches against the sky or contrasty light. The CA doesn't occur with my 180-600. Also, the copy of the 400 f/4.5 I purchased and returned suffered from distortion towards the edges. It was not de-centered, but the distortion was troubling. Perhaps it was a Nikon QC thing and it could have been particular to the copy I purchased?
 
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Also remember, Nikon FY ends 31 March and they want to clear the shelves before that date. Sorry if already mwentioned above.
 
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Nikon doesn't have any bad telephoto lenses.. they're all excellent. The 400 f4.5 that I've used was very sharp and contrasty, and I don't recall any problematic flare or fringing in the images I shot. It was excellent...I only traded up to the 600pf as I needed more reach .
Coming from the Sony camp, I much prefer the offerings that Nikon has in the tele lineup which is the main reason I switched to Nikon. We have the Z 70-200 2.8, 100-400, Z 180-600, 400 f4.5, 600pf, 800pf , 400 2.8 TC, 600 f4 TC and 1.4 + 2.0TCs . All these lenses are superb, best in class . What more could one ask for? Just an opinion

Mark_Laidlaw said:
Couldn't be more opposite to my experience with backlighting and the 400/4.5. This is with the 1.4TC, too.
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Lee R said:
Maybe the PF lenses are not selling as well as they’d like. We’ve likely got a point where the majority moving to mirrorless have and already bought the lenses intended. My guess is the high priced primes sales have seriously slowed.

High price lenses like the PF are in a weird spot as the buyers of the “best” will probably go for the TC primes while the “good enough” crowd buy the 180-600 and stop there. The PF line is still really expensive for most camera buyers and the difference between the 180-600 and 600/400 is not night and day for a quality difference for normal people comparing. The average person looking at images from either probably can’t tell them apart.

I wonder just how big the pool of potential buyers for PF is given Nikons market share and the TC buyers who won’t bother with them and the 180-600 crowd who can’t becuase it’s a huge financial strain or won’t because they are just happy enough with that lens and can’t justify the price/performance difference.
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I wish. I would love to have bought the 180-600. But at my age and fitness level the added weight vs the 600 PF was a real negative. The difference in image quality was more than acceptable to me. The difference between getting the shot and missing the shot was THE factor in my buying the 600 PF. While I still do miss shots I'm very able to carry it around and hand hold with reasonably good results.

And to add insult to injury, I bought mine around labor day last year when it was on sale for $4300. Less than 6 months later it's $500 less. Ouch! If I were still considering the 600 PF today I'd be all over that sale price now.
 
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JohnC88 said:
I wish. I would love to have bought the 180-600. But at my age and fitness level the added weight vs the 600 PF was a real negative. The difference in image quality was more than acceptable to me. The difference between getting the shot and missing the shot was THE factor in my buying the 600 PF. While I still do miss shots I'm very able to carry it around and hand hold with reasonably good results.

And to add insult to injury, I bought mine around labor day last year when it was on sale for $4300. Less than 6 months later it's $500 less. Ouch! If I were still considering the 600 PF today I'd be all over that sale price now.
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I'm all kinds of back and forth between the two. The VR and AF improvements are nice as well as weather sealing and internal zoom over the Sigma 150-600C, but the optical performance kind of disappointed me. I could have been really lucky with the 150-600C and got a really good one at the long end but it's sort of a great optical lens without all the other nice things the 180-600 brings, it's also noisy by a lot in comparison which is really bad in a quiet woodland trying to take photo's of things that spook easily. AF-C is quite noisy on it and you can hear the aperture closing down at smaller f stops very easily, none of that is the case with the 180-600.

I'm 46 so weight on any of these is not a factor yet plus I'm built like a Sasquatch so everything feels light to me so I've got some time before that's a factor.

The question is the optical boost worth double the price and the loss of versatility.

The sale prices also have me eyeing the 28-400 to replace my 24-200 which I do use very often for travel with the 14-30 and 26 2.8/40 F2. That's my go to with the Zf or Z8 when I head to the airport. The 28-400 seems like it would really add to that instead of the 24-200.
 
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Not only is Nikon offering discounts on nearly every FX body and several lenses, they just dropped a 24-month 0% interest deal on top of that. That's free money. I've utilized several of the 0% Bread Pay offers. I set them up on auto-pay and have had zero issues.
 
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A few minutes ago I posted a new thread about the 24-month 0% interest deal that Nikon announced this morning, ON TOP of the current sale. I've used the 0% Bread Pay option several times and have had zero issues.
 
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