Nikon have lost the plot

markyboy.1967

markyboy.1967

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Mark Molloy
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Where in anyone’s mind do they come up with the prices. They have the new 120-300 lens advertised at £9.5k. Truly insane considering the Sigma 120-300 is around £2.7k- both are f2.8. I used a Sigma 120-300 for many many years and loved it so waited on the Nikon version only to find the £9.5k price, it may come down but to be honest I’m switched off from it now and may end up jumping to another system/manufacturer. Both around the same weight so where does the extra cash come into it?
 
these companies don't realise the large percentage of people buying their gear are not professionals out to make a living from photography. No doubt it costs a lot to produce but not heard of pile it high and sell it cheap selling method.
 
I think these companies realise exactly who is and who isn't buying their gear. Nikon's most profitable sales come from pros. The entry-level/mid-range is where they're losing money. You could argue it's because they're too expensive, but in reality, people just don't buy as many of those cameras these days. Entry-level has been gazumped by smartphones. And mid-range amateurs don't upgrade that often.
 
In some ways I’m not surprised by the price. £9-10k seems to be the norm for these lenses now. Nikon, Canon and Sony are all around the same price for fast telephoto lenses.
 
It is not just Nikon. Canon’s latest cameras and lens prices are outrageous for non pros. If they are only interested in the top end of the market fine, but it is disappointing for the existing mid and low end users.
 
I think you will find that the prices are high because they are not being subsidised by the cheap stuff anymore. You are probably paying closer to the real price for these exotic lenses now.

Regards...
 
What about the £8300 noct 50? Heck, even the new base model FF d780 is £2200. Wonder what their 50 1.2 will cost. I'm guessing the d6 will likely be around £6000. I also think Nikon are making some strange decisions lately.
 
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rob-nikon said:
In some ways I’m not surprised by the price. £9-10k seems to be the norm for these lenses now. Nikon, Canon and Sony are all around the same price for fast telephoto lenses.
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Large fast primes perhaps, not a 120-300.
 
Olympics year ?
 
Yip, I loved how versatile it was and must have had one for 10 years..Sold it and vowed to get another at some point then the Nikon was rumoured so thought I would wait and expected around £5-£6k max. A few friends have moved over to the Sony A9 and A7 etc and keep saying for me to make the jump, this might now push me in that direction.
 
I thought this was always how it has been.

The very best lenses cost as much as a decent car but you can get one in the same focal length for a tiny fraction of the cost.

There must be a market for them, the same as Rolex cant make enough £20,000+++ watches to keep up. There are very long waiting lists.
 
twist said:
Large fast primes perhaps, not a 120-300.
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Before the latest versions of the 400mm f2.8, 500 f4, 600mm f4 lenses they used to be around £5-7k but shot up to £9-11k for the latest versions. Even the 500mm f5.6 is £3.7k. That isn’t that far off the price of the 300mm f2.8 VR2 a few years ago. Apply the price increase percentage of the latest fast lenses from the previous models and this isn’t far off the 120-300 f2.8. What makes it feels weird is there is an older sigma 120-300 that’s a fraction of the price. If you look at the latest sigma 500mm f4 and Nikon’s 500 f4 the sigma is a huge saving at around half the price.

The Nikon 300mm f2.8 VR2 has been waiting an update, I think this will be probably the update of that lens, especially if it’s as good as a prime 300mm is at 300mm. 300mm is useful for sports photographers but with a zoom that could be even more versatile. Potentially the 120-300 f2.8 coupled with a 24-70 f2.8 may mean sports photographers could drop the 70-200 f2.8 all together.

The £9.5k price is also the initial release price so that will start to drop in 6-12 months to probably £7-8k. That feels more like the real price of this lens.
 
I think one problem is accepting that the diminishing returns we get may only be visible when pixel peeping when perhaps many of us view pictures mostly on screens and rarely if ever print big. Even some of the pro crowd long zooms may be aimed at may be taking pictures that will end up in a newspaper/magazine at relatively small size and resolution.

I probably don't know what I'm talking about but my general point is that if people look at their needs rather than bragging rights and extreme pixel peeping requirements maybe we wouldn't spend so much on kit we probably don't need.
 
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Nikon sell a telephoto lens for the pile it high, sell it cheap market tho - at around £500 for a 70-300. This is a pro lens marketed at pro market and they are selling it at a price that they either think it will sell at or make the best return for them.
realspeed said:
these companies don't realise the large percentage of people buying their gear are not professionals out to make a living from photography. No doubt it costs a lot to produce but not heard of pile it high and sell it cheap selling method.
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You're not just paying for the physical lens, you're paying for the development as well. When you look at a breakdown of a lens, they are quite complex things, not mass produced like cars etc. They also have to be robust (well the pro level ones anyway), you would hope it's going too last a long time and not going to need many trip to the repair shop in it's life span.
 
Stu Meech said:
Nikon sell a telephoto lens for the pile it high, sell it cheap market tho - at around £500 for a 70-300. This is a pro lens marketed at pro market and they are selling it at a price that they either think it will sell at or make the best return for them.
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+1 there is definitely a difference between the 70-300 variable aperture lens and a 300mm f2.8. The 300mm f2.8 is an awesome lens that provides its own ‘look’ with very fast AF.
 
I suspect that the Nikon version will probably be closer to the specs marked on the barrel of the lens. Having to manufacture and polish elements for a true 300mm f/2.8 has to be more expensive.
 
Pretty sure they looked at the smaller market and decided to pass on a larger proportion of the R&D cost than they used to, knowing they'll only sell a relative few.
 
Nostromo said:
You're not just paying for the physical lens, you're paying for the development as well. When you look at a breakdown of a lens, they are quite complex things, not mass produced like cars etc. They also have to be robust (well the pro level ones anyway), you would hope it's going too last a long time and not going to need many trip to the repair shop in it's life span.
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Ouch! I really don't think there's anything too special about lenses. This is long and boring so don't read it...

Firstly I have never been involved with lenses... I have seen it done on line and it looks the same as the stuff I've been involved in, batch production and assembly of various complex things. How it sometimes works - It may not be possible to fully automate assembly and instead the parts may come as individual parts and components (lumps of plastic and metal etc) and sub assemblies (components already partly assembled, circuit boards already populated and with cables connected etc) which will then be made into kits and assembled (probably in stages) in production with a mixture of semi automated and manual assembly (maybe some things will be placed in jigs to allow easy line up and assembly, some things will just be picked up and put together by hand.) It's possible that several different products may be in production at once but this usually isn't an issue as each product will come in boxes/bins with some sort of batch number or bar code or something which when entered into the system will call up assembly and test data and instructions or maybe these things will appear on screen at the workstation as the kit arrives. If the production isn't very high tech or if it's a new low volume product or if there hasn't been time to plumb it all into the system it may just come as a box of bits and a set of paper diagrams and instructions showing the operator what to do and in what sequence. However it happens it's usually a very logical process and not difficult to understand. There probably wont be a car assembly style conveyor production system with product moving down the line and people bolting stuff on, instead there'll probably be people sat or stood at individual or small group benches or workstations passing stuff to the next stage in boxes on trolleys.

There will be some high cost items like glass and finishing the glass blanks that arrive may take time and they'll need to be quality checked and there'll be many cheaper ones like screws and spacers and dumb components and even some sub assemblies such as circuit boards and the like can be dirt cheap. I'd imagine that with lenses the cost is in the pre production things that happen (designing it, sourcing all the bits and pieces and producing pre production units and testing them etc) the glass and the relatively small volume semi automated production techniques and runs that may not give the maker a lot of time to get the costs back but I don't think that they're a special case or more complex than cars, cars have a lot of complex things in them too and it's not like they're just stamped out of sheet steel by a big machine. They have a hard life with possible exposure to the elements and lots of mechanical challenges too. How long would a lens last if you parked it in your drive for a few years... On TV when we see what goes on on the assembly line in a car factory it might look easy but a lot of work will have been done at suppliers most probably including the sort of assembly techniques we'll see in a lens factory.

Another thing is the cost leaving the factory and the price stuff sells for. Some manufactured things leave the factory at unbelievably low cost (I kid you not) but I expect lens makers will have a good mark up on at least some of their lenses and for at least some of the time. Like when they're new lenses and they're charging new to market prices. Alternatively some car makers make precious little per car even on a new to the market car... I could put some numbers on this but might not be believed :D

Sorry to go on :D
 
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I suspect there is a similarity between high-end lens production and the analogue aircraft instrument production process that I was part of at the beginning of my working life. In the latter, like Alan says above, there are lots of simple things like screws, and metal cases, and connecting wires/tubes, that can be produced and used in bulk, but certain components (in my line, barometric capsules made of copper and containing a vacuum) that were initially produced in a scheduled batch from which only a proportion pass quality control first time and maybe a few more after fix. In lenses, I suspect the glass elements are produced to such fine criteria that of a batch of say 20, only maybe 5 make it to final delivery, but each failed one has a definite production cost that has to be borne by the passed ones instead now.
So I can see some justification for the pricing. Definitely needs a cost-benefit analysis justification to buy though, even for a pro.
 
I struggle with lens and camera prices these days, and not just from Nikon. the 120-300mm f2.8 is another example of the crazy prices of modern day camera gear.

Nikon have surprised me though, I thought after their announcement of heavy losses and lack of sales I'd have thought they would try to get customers back on side and try to get some of the market share back. But with the price of this lens and the D780 it doesn't seem like they're taking this approach.
 
I reckon hobbyist photographers have become accustomed to low camera/ lens prices driven by high demand as digital matured. Now demand is dropping as ordinary people cease to need cameras that aren't in phones camera/lens prices are rising. It's basic economics. Get used to it.
 
markyboy.1967 said:
Yip, I loved how versatile it was and must have had one for 10 years..Sold it and vowed to get another at some point then the Nikon was rumoured so thought I would wait and expected around £5-£6k max. A few friends have moved over to the Sony A9 and A7 etc and keep saying for me to make the jump, this might now push me in that direction.
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Be very careful what you do - the cost of changing all your other lenses and bodies (I have 4 and I suspect you have more than one and possibly a similar amount to me - the cost of changing this lot will easily surpass that of the lens you want. And although the sensors in these Sony's is incredible - their handling is quite different to what you are used to. And these mirrorless systems don't half let in the sensor dirt.

-hy not look at the new 180mm -400mm and get a 70 to 200 F2.8 - hold you will probably have one already.
 
snerkler said:
I struggle with lens and camera prices these days, and not just from Nikon. the 120-300mm f2.8 is another example of the crazy prices of modern day camera gear.

Nikon have surprised me though, I thought after their announcement of heavy losses and lack of sales I'd have thought they would try to get customers back on side and try to get some of the market share back. But with the price of this lens and the D780 it doesn't seem like they're taking this approach.
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Give it a year and there D780's will not cost that. Indeed D850's can be secured grey new for c £1800....
 
SFTPhotography said:
Give it a year and there D780's will not cost that. Indeed D850's can be secured grey new for c £1800....
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I think it will take less than a year, if the uptake isnt there, just like the z6.

Nikon_Z_6_Camera_Body_graph.png


VS Sony A7iii in same time frame... I bought this camera at launch for £1700 incl a free 3yr extended warranty via Sony UK worth nearly £100, best UK price now £1750.

Sony_Alpha_A7_III_Camera_Body_graph.png
 
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Z6 new discounted by £700 in 1 year.
A7iii new, appreciated by at least £50 over the same period.
 
Modern cameras and lenses are generally much cheaper than their predecessors. A Nikon F with f1.4 50mm in 1969 would have set you back more than £4,000 (adjusted for inflation). Something like the 120-300mm f2.8 would have been completely impossible but if it had been possible there would have been a market for it at £550 (the equivalent of £10,000 today). Older people like me have to resort to inflation calculators to see how photography prices have dropped. When you take the vastly greater abilities of modern cameras and lenses the prices haven't so much dropped as plummeted!
 
Nikon are in serious doo doo.

Option A is to hike prices too make more profit.

They probably should have discussed other options!
 
SFTPhotography said:
What about the Z7 - the one with the sensor you’d actually want...
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... not the sensor I want, as I have an A9 but just for you...

3400 then, 2300 now.

Nikon_Z_7_Camera_Body_graph.png


2600 then, 2500 now (and its been replaced by the mkIV).

Sony_Alpha_A7R_Mark_III_Camera_Body_graph.png
 
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SFTPhotography said:
Looks like if you can make do with one card slot - remember that thread - that the Z7 is a comparative bargain that undercuts it's competitor. If you shoot Nikon you are best not being of the first to buy...
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Which competitor, a bargain, really?
 
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I have been saving ages for a body, been looking at lenses to go with that body, the lens was dearer than the body. Decided against buying anything now, after all it is only a hobby.
 
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