What happened to the 300mm?

[Roy]

Not if you go waaaay back in history to the first one, the f/4.5 Nikkor-P. If you like lateral chromatic aberration this is your lens.

Even the ancient f4.5 Nikkor-P has some uses.

 

[ChrisM]

The 500mm prime lens can be added to the 300mm as being absent in all of the mirrorless systems, incl. their road maps.
I guess the Japanese lens designers really dislike uneven numbers nowadays?

I think the 500mm is a bad miss, certainly because mirrorless systems work so well with TC's. The 500mm f4 lens is a relatively affordable and reasonably sized alternative to the 600mm f4, which I will get eventually, but don't really want mainly because of its size. A 500mm f4 with 1.4tc would give me a near ideal 700mm f5.6.

 

[Roy]

The 500mm prime lens can be added to the 300mm as being absent in all of the mirrorless systems, incl. their road maps.
I guess the Japanese lens designers really dislike uneven numbers nowadays?

I think the 500mm is a bad miss, certainly because mirrorless systems work so well with TC's. The 500mm f4 lens is a relatively affordable and reasonably sized alternative to the 600mm f4, which I will get eventually, but don't really want mainly because of its size. A 500mm f4 with 1.4tc would give me a near ideal 700mm f5.6.

The 600mm is big and heavy but much sharper than the 500mm with a TC...

 

[Doug Herr]

Even the ancient f4.5 Nikkor-P has some uses.

As a teenager in 1971 I used a borrowed f/4.5 Nikkor-P for a week-long workshop in the Sierra Nevada resulting in one of my first national photo credits

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This and a few other favorites made with the Nikkor-P resulted in the purchase some months later of a 300mm f/4.5 Nikkor-H which I used for about ten years.

 

[Roy]

As a teenager in 1971 I used a borrowed f/4.5 Nikkor-P for a week-long workshop in the Sierra Nevada resulting in one of my first national photo credits

View attachment 35258
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This and a few other favorites made with the Nikkor-P resulted in the purchase some months later of a 300mm f/4.5 Nikkor-H which I used for about ten years.

With dozens of 300mm lenses Nikon has never made a bad 300mm lens...

 

[Ado Wolf]

I think the 300 PF is a great compact light lens that offers F4. But on it's own it is a bit too short for most wildlife.. and too long for portrait or landscape work. I think most of those selling the 300 PF either upgraded to the 500 PF (now that F glas works flawlessly with Z9) or switched to the more versatile 100-400 S.
Ever since I got my 500 PF, the 300 PF gets much less used (mainly used in low light or very long hikes).
The new 400 + TC ticks many checkboxes.. and the 100-400 or upcoming 800 PF cover the rest (view Wildlife).

For me, the 300 is still the best option for Butterfly / closeup photography and the occasional Landscape work (considering it is much sharper than the 70-200mm @ 200mm).

 

[Roy]

I'm hoping the 200-600mm Z lens will be better value than the 100-400.
Until then i'll struggle along with my ancient 600mm 200-400mm 200-500mm and 300mm f4 and 300mm f2.8 glass on the Z9 with FTZ.
Maybe the new 600 & 800 Z glass will surprise me...