Anybody want a Nikon 300mm f/2 ???

StewartR

StewartR

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Stewart
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Yes, you read that correctly.

300mm f/2

I've seen some impressive lenses but this just about takes the biscuit.

See if you can guess the price before you go to look at it on the Aperture Photographic web site.
 
Hell yes, I`ll just go and empty the biscuit tin of my change...............:eek::eek::eek:

Look at the bleeding size of it,.......phnaaar.
 
Before I go take a peek, I'd guess it's going to be the same sort of double, then double again that you pay going from a 300 f4 to a 2.8.


which would be about .... no it can't be...... surely......???
 
I've got a few hundred going spare well 4 to be precise.
Close enough?

had a look just a wee bit short then.
 
Holy schmoly....... gotta love good glass. :D
 
FranchiseJuan said:
Off topic here, but has anybody noticed that there have been quite a number of 200 F1.8 (EOS)s poping up for sale recently? (Or is that me... Must not buy one.)
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If you really feel the urge (and you know you do), then you can always hire one when you need it rather then buy... ;)

But anyway, if there are lots of 200/1.8s coming onto the market (and I must say I hadn't noticed a sudden glut) it's probably caused by professionals upgrading to the new 200mm f/2 L IS.
 
Wow! That's quite an impressive lens. It's going to have the same diameter front element as a 600mm F/4 which is absolutely enormous. Shame there isn't a modern equivalent with AF and IS, that would be incredible for sports.
 
nice, do you think that will fit on my £20 jessops tripod?? the price wasnt as bad as i was expecting to be truthful, but wouldnt be fun to lug around
 
xolotl said:
Wow! That's quite an impressive lens. It's going to have the same diameter front element as a 600mm F/4 which is absolutely enormous. Shame there isn't a modern equivalent with AF and IS, that would be incredible for sports.
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Makes you wonder how photographers ever managed before autofocus and image stabilisation, doesn`t it?


:suspect:
 
by learning good technique and not relying on technology.;)
 
xolotl said:
By getting far less keepers than they do today?
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No, by getting the shot right in the first place..........;)

Oops sorry Fletch, simple minds think alike and all that.............:lol:
 
lol

so stewart how much is the weekly rent on it?
 
Good technique as you've pointed out is essential for good pictures and there is certainly no substitute for it but AF helps massively in certain types of photography such as sports.

It's all well and good saying get the shot right in the first place but I challenge anyone to manually track a car moving at 300 km/h or have such in depth knowledge of the sport that you can prefocus on the area that every incident will take place.

Certainly it's possible to get good sports pictures without AF but having it makes it a lot easier and increases your chances of getting the perfect shot.
 
xolotl said:
Good technique as you've pointed out is essential for good pictures and there is certainly no substitute for it but AF helps massively in certain types of photography such as sports.

It's all well and good saying get the shot right in the first place but I challenge anyone to manually track a car moving at 300 km/h or have such in depth knowledge of the sport that you can prefocus on the area that every incident will take place.

Certainly it's possible to get good sports pictures without AF but having it makes it a lot easier and increases your chances of getting the perfect shot.
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very good point, but i was refering more to image stabilisation.
 
You know something, I read with alarm some peoples shutter counts on here, how can you shoot 1000 pics in a day doing wildlife,some have confessed to this.If the shot is not there, don`t take it. It`s like going out with an Uzi to kill a cat, a single shot rifle would be better.

I know that some of the wedding togs,equestrian guys and the like can rattle that many shots off easily, that is thier line of work, no arguments with that at all.

But standing around spraying shots off of landscape, wildlife and the like seems crazy, would you do it if you paid for film to be developed? No, you`d get the shot right as much as you could in the first instance.

Digital photography is not as cheap as people think.Weigh up how much you have spent on comps,hard drives, memory cards and camera equipment.........:thumbs:
 
fletch5 said:
by learning good technique and not relying on technology.;)
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I only changed from a manual 35mm slr at christmas. Just a needle between 2 bars to get exposure right and a plain focus screen to work with some of my old lenses so mark one eyeball focus system.

i have loads of cf cards but still go out and take 1 or 2 shots at a time rather than rattle them off.

Old habits die hard I guess.
 
fracster said:
Digital photography is not as cheap as people think.Weigh up how much you have spent on comps,hard drives, memory cards and camera equipment.........:thumbs:
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well, most people have a comp anyway, so bit unfair to include it in the costs. i did spend a couple of hundred upgrading to get it to work faster with the file size though.

it is quite a bit cheaper to be fair, although initial outlay is more, i would assume you are looking at quite a bit of money to develop 100,000 photos(the average shutter life expected by manufacturers i think).

memory cards can be reused as well, so £20 for 500 odd photos at a time dont sound too bad to me
 
fracster said:
I know that some of the wedding togs,equestrian guys and the like can rattle that many shots off easily, that is thier line of work, no arguments with that at all.

But standing around spraying shots off of landscape, wildlife and the like seems crazy, would you do it if you paid for film to be developed? No, you`d get the shot right as much as you could in the first instance.
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Whilst I think you have a valid point and it is certainly true of landscape, I don't see why you see wildlife as being a "1 shot" experience. Pictures of birds in flight, animal behaviour, etc are very like sports. It can be fast moving, changable and the hit rate quite low.

Agree for animal portraits but not necessarily for other stuff.

I used to budget for 10 rolls of film a day for a trip to Africa (2500 frames over a week). My last trip I brought back 3500 digital images - so not a great uplift.

Some of the top wildlife photographers like Art Wolfe take huge numbers of pictures - he's up to over a million!

It's interesting to look at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year portfolios and see what has changed. Digital has certainly raised the bar for behaviour shots
 
StewartR said:
Yes, you read that correctly.

300mm f/2

I've seen some impressive lenses but this just about takes the biscuit.

See if you can guess the price before you go to look at it on the Aperture Photographic web site.
Click to expand...

Saw that a while ago and it was about the same time as I started doing the lottery again :lol:

I have an old 300mm f2.8 MF Nikon which weighs 6kg :eek: wonder what the f 2 version weighs in at :thinking:
 
grumpybadger said:
It's interesting to look at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year portfolios and see what has changed. Digital has certainly raised the bar for behaviour shots
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Mmm. And even more so for underwater shots.

But we're getting OT here guys. (Hey, I can say that! I started the thread!) Did anybody get eveb close to the price of that lens? I know I wouldn't have. I suspect there must be a fair dollop of "collector value" built into it.

@Fletch - Somehow I don't think there would be much of a market to hire something like this. And I can't afford it anyway. But my starting point for hire charges is that a week's hire costs around 5% of the price of the lens, so that would be ... Well, you can work it out yourself. Lots.

Incidentally, the same shop has a near-mint Canon FD 800mm f/5.6 with a FD-to-EF adaptor for a bit under £2000. That"s seriously tempting. Anybody think there would be a hire market for that at, say £100ish per week?
 
i dont think you would hire it out much to be fair. the size and weight would put you firmly in, i need an 800 to shoot his one thing. im assuming most of your business will be normal togs doing something new or trying new lenses, how well do your big primes hire??
 
fletch5 said:
how well do your big primes hire??
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Does "big" mean long or heavy?

* The Canon and Nikon 300/2.8 both seem fairly popular, especially the Canon.
* The Canon 300/4 is popular, but the Nikon equivalent just isn't, for reasons which I don't understand.
* The Canon 400/5.6 is very popular - I bought two more of them last week but we're still out of stock.
* The Canon 500/4 is a bit patchy, but it's picking up now after a very slow start.
* My biggest disappointment is the Canon 200/1.8. I absolutely love this lens but it seems my enthusiasm is not shared by our customers.

I think you're probably right about the 800/5.6. If I were to get it, it would be the heart over-ruling the head - which is why I got the 200/1.8 as well, and in retrospect I'm not sure that was the right idea. (Memo to heart: Shut up and let head make the decisions.)
 
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