Holy-moley, now THAT is expensive

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An email just arrived in my inbox from London Camera Exchange. Now I don't have a mirrorless Nikon and probably never will have (too old to care now), but if I did I think I would have to look under several mattresses for the spare cash for this one:

Nikon Z 400mm

One for the professionals perhaps? And looking at the weight (nearly 3kg) a strong professional too.
 
Definitely one for the pros I think. Looking at the roadmap I think the next 3 lenses for me will be the 24-200, the 24-70 f2.8 and then eventually the 200-600 when it is finally released. Hoping with it being a non 'S' line that it will be a similar sort of price to the current 200-500 and if it equals or betters that for quality then it will be amazing.
 
To be fair it's really quite good value considering it has the TC built in as well. The latest F mount is £12k IIRC and that's without a TC. Also 3kg is quite light for what it is, my 400mm G is 4.6kg.
 
ShinySideUp said:
One for the professionals perhaps? And looking at the weight (nearly 3kg) a strong professional too.
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It's about 4lbs lighter than my 400/2.8 (the 2007 G version bought used). But damn that is expensive! It's almost $5k more than it is in USD ($13,997/£10270)... why is there no currency conversion?
 
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Toggerman said:
To be fair it's really quite good value considering it has the TC built in as well. The latest F mount is £12k IIRC and that's without a TC. Also 3kg is quite light for what it is, my 400mm G is 4.6kg.
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I didn't notice the built-in TC, how does that work then? It says it can be switched in and out but surely the glass is there in the path of the light all the time? Wouldn't the lens be even faster if they hadn't included a TC 1.4. Does this inclusion have to do with the fact that the Z lenses are for mirrorless cameras and there are differences? Forgive my ignorance but while I understand the basics of mirrorless there are probably variations from DSLRs of which I am not aware.
 
ShinySideUp said:
I didn't notice the built-in TC, how does that work then? It says it can be switched in and out but surely the glass is there in the path of the light all the time? Wouldn't the lens be even faster if they hadn't included a TC 1.4. Does this inclusion have to do with the fact that the Z lenses are for mirrorless cameras and there are differences? Forgive my ignorance but while I understand the basics of mirrorless there are probably variations from DSLRs of which I am not aware.
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The actual optics of a 1.4TC are quite small, and from what I understand (which could be massively wrong) the TC elements in when built in are smaller still. The switch moves a group of these elements out of the optical path and into that, quite frankly hideous, bulge on the side. Several other lenses have done this now for SLRs. I think the idea is just ease and speed of use rather than anything else. Realistically there's very few real differences between mirrorless lenses and SLR ones, just the technology is getting newer and the focus is shifting (excuse the pun :ROFLMAO:)

I for one am quite often messing about with a TC whilst at the side of a pitch/track, and it is really annoying when you want to change it around but can't because it's just started raining.
 
sk66 said:
It's about 4lbs lighter than my 400/2.8 (the 2007 G version bought used). But damn that is expensive! It's almost $5k more than it is in USD ($13,997/£10270)... why is there no currency conversion?
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US retail prices are always quoted excluding sales taxes, which are charged at different rates across the USA, but LCE's UK retail price includes 20% UK VAT (which the VAT-registered professional target market for this lens could offset).

If you take the VAT off the UK price, then it's £11,249, which is less than £1000 above the US list price at today's rates.

Our UK market is much smaller than the US so we won't see the same economies of scale, especially on a specialist item like this (and even more so since Brexit made it harder and more expensive for Nikon UK to access distribution centres operated by Nikon Europe inside the EU). That's before we start considering the wider corporate tax environment and other costs of operating in the UK versus the USA.

Finally, most companies will build in some wiggle room to their SRP to cushion against future exchange rate fluctuations. Changing SRPs every six months rapidly becomes tedious for everyone otherwise.
 
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Musicman said:
US retail prices are always quoted excluding sales taxes, which are charged at different rates across the USA, but LCE's UK retail price includes 20% UK VAT (which the VAT-registered professional target market for this lens could offset).

If you take the VAT off the UK price, then it's £11,249, which is less than £1000 above the US list price at today's rates.

Our UK market is much smaller than the US so we won't see the same economies of scale, especially on a specialist item like this (and even more so since Brexit made it harder and more expensive for Nikon UK to access distribution centres operated by Nikon Europe inside the EU). That's before we start considering the wider corporate tax environment and other costs of operating in the UK versus the USA.

Finally, most companies will build in some wiggle room to their SRP to cushion against future exchange rate fluctuations. Changing SRPs every six months rapidly becomes tedious for everyone otherwise.
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I do not think the economies of scale come into it. the sales figures for such lenses are tiny and the sizes of the production batches is equally small.
I doubt there are many retailers anywhere in the world, who would hold them in stock for casual sales. extremely wealthy amateurs are as likely to buy such a lens with rather less thought than a Professional. But as a tool of the trade if you need it, it just becomes a justifiable overhead,. and will be amortized just like the rest of the kit.
After tax relief, the annual cost over seven years would become at least manageable for a specialist user. But it still represents a lot of income generation.. before it shows a profit.
 
Expensive yes but they are works of art. There's a lot of things going on under that casing.

I would love to own Canon's offering of this lens but I can't see it happening in this lifetime.
 
I recall some years ago going to an RPS lecture given by a well known wildlife photographer ( cant remember who ) but he had on display a photo he had taken in Africa of a big cat ,you could almost count the hairs on its coat, the photo was about 6ft*4ft taken with a Canon big white ( one of the cheap ones 600mm or so).
He said that the royalties from the photo paid for the lens many times over so £12K for a lens may not be expensive if it pays for itself
 
troutfisher said:
I recall some years ago going to an RPS lecture given by a well known wildlife photographer ( cant remember who ) but he had on display a photo he had taken in Africa of a big cat ,you could almost count the hairs on its coat, the photo was about 6ft*4ft taken with a Canon big white ( one of the cheap ones 600mm or so).
He said that the royalties from the photo paid for the lens many times over so £12K for a lens may not be expensive if it pays for itself
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However picture sales are nothing like they once were. the combined forces of Digital photography and social media have decimated the returns. What was once a rarity is now a commodity.
 
ShinySideUp said:
I didn't notice the built-in TC, how does that work then? It says it can be switched in and out but surely the glass is there in the path of the light all the time? Wouldn't the lens be even faster if they hadn't included a TC 1.4. Does this inclusion have to do with the fact that the Z lenses are for mirrorless cameras and there are differences? Forgive my ignorance but while I understand the basics of mirrorless there are probably variations from DSLRs of which I am not aware.
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Canon have had a 200-400 with a built in TC for a while now. It has a lump on the side where the TC optics sit when not in use.

Photo: Canon
1642689855185.png
 
I do wonder about the advantages of a 1.4x teleconverter. Making a 400mm lens into a 560mm lens seems so trivial unless all the photographer's images are taken at the extreme end. With modern cameras and their huge pixel counts and capacity for enlargement, I would have thought that the addition of a 1.4x would be neither here nor there. A 2x would be more of a a deal but 1.4x? Meh.
 
Dale. said:
Expensive yes but they are works of art. There's a lot of things going on under that casing.

I would love to own Canon's offering of this lens but I can't see it happening in this lifetime.
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There are occasional good pre owned deals. I picked up the canon version mk 2 at a massive discount to new.
 
Put this lens on the Z9, flick the switch to operate the t/C (now f4) and then instigate crop mode within the camera (now becomes 21mp) and voila, a better zoom.
 
One thing about lenses of that price, is it desensitises us to the price of cheaper ones.

I want a longer lens for my Nikon Z5. I currently have a 24-70 f4. I started afresh, so don't have any DSLR lenses to adapt. The new z long lenses, including this one are more money than I can stomach.

I'm getting drawn more and more to the 70-200 f2.8.

The price is considerably more than I would have considered for a lens 6 months ago, before I got my z5, but I've almost convinced myself now that it is a bargain!
 
Nebulous said:
One thing about lenses of that price, is it desensitises us to the price of cheaper ones.

I want a longer lens for my Nikon Z5. I currently have a 24-70 f4. I started afresh, so don't have any DSLR lenses to adapt. The new z long lenses, including this one are more money than I can stomach.

I'm getting drawn more and more to the 70-200 f2.8.

The price is considerably more than I would have considered for a lens 6 months ago, before I got my z5, but I've almost convinced myself now that it is a bargain!
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A few years ago I paid well over £2000 for a Nikon 80-400mm (although you can pick them up for under a grand now) so the just over two grand required for the Z 70-200 f2.8 probably isn't that bad. I bet I haven't helped, have I? :)
 
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