Has anyone purchased the gray market 300mm f4?

I traded in my 18-300mm (DX) lens when I upgraded from a D5100 to an FX body.. And Adorama insisted I give serious thought to purchasing the gray market version with 3 year Mack warranty. I ended up taking their advice but am still within the 30 day return window.

I am not worried about resale value.. As I plan to keep this lens around for a long time. Are there any other downfalls I'm missing?

I'd be grateful for some input..

adamz said:
msmoto - I would love to see the 80-400vr replacement, but though I'm half Your age I may not live to that particular moment :)

Ha...I don't have the patience to wait around for the next best thing. Maybe change my mind if they do actually ever update any of these long awaited lens updates, but so far I have only seen new lenses and no updates really.

msmoto - I would love to see the 80-400vr replacement, but though I'm half Your age I may not live to that particular moment :)

At present I would be reluctant to purchase any VR lens as the VRIII technology is here, I cannot imagine Nikon not putting this into the next generation lenses. And, with the competition out there, this may occur fairly quickly, possibly within twelve months for the majority of the VRI lenses, such as the 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6.

I find that the longer end fixed lenses and the 200-400mm zoom can have a longer than normal wait period. I do think that the 300/F4 should be more common though, I waited I think about 4 months for a 400mm after I ordered it.

I have always used my local camera store, Adorama, B&H, and only amazon if they had a sale that nobody else could beat.

I cannot speak about American dealers, as I'm not in the states, sorry no recommendations.

Thanks for the timely reply! Would you recommend a site other than Adorama or BW Photo? Their prices seemed much more competitive than Amazon. If Adorama is the best price I can get (not interested in 'gray market' item), I'll just pay the difference from trade-in.

Usually shipping times for the lens is a week or two, you'll just need to place and order and wait. A number of big retailers have them in stock, so I doubt production has stopped.

Has anyone else thought of purchasing this lens, lately?

I traded in my Nikkor 18-300mm to Adorama and was hoping to purchase a Nikkor 300mm f/4 as a replacement. But Adorama and BW photo have been sold out of the lens for at least a week, if not longer.

Is this a sign that Nikon has depleted their stock and we may see a VR version soon? I don't know if I should wait for news in the near future. Or jump on the AF-S version of the Nikkor 300mm f/4 when Nikon supply more stock to these companies...

SquamishPhoto said:
neither tilt nor swing produce enough of an effect on their own to render full sized objects completely in focus.

I don't know what the setup is in what you're mentioning, but for a classic "tabletop" style product shot, it definitely does work, absolutely. I don't have the stuff here anymore to test this, but my setup was an 8° maximum-tilt adapter and that 150mm SK, and that worked perfectly. Or what do you mean?

Also, I haven't really encountered any lens (also expensive ones) without substantial focus breathing, and would be interested to find out about such a lens. It wouldn't be mentioned everywhere if there weren't any lenses that were free(er) of it.

In this day and age it is mainly focus stacking. Yes macro does suffer to a smaller extent but not much more than any of the trinity (I have shot hordes of macro)... Other than in cinematography where this really irked still photographers in the past was copy work. While photoshop and digital formats have eliminated the need to do most of the work in camera if a photographer had to shoot paintings as well as wall sculptures in a limited space he/she would have had to move the camera (given it had a prime on it) to maintain the same dimensionality....

Ironically back to cinematography Dslr makers should be aware that if they are marketing their video as such and are trying to compete with the big boys, they would be smart to develop lenses that breathed less specifically for video...

Spoken like someone who's never used a camera with tilt movements. Owning both a Nikon PC-E and an Nikon adaptor for my Hassy gear, I can assure you that neither tilt nor swing produce enough of an effect on their own to render full sized objects completely in focus. In fact, one of the single greatest aspects of a lens movements is how much more effective and easy it actually makes focus stacking.

spraynpray said:
Funny how people with larger disposable incomes say 'get' when they mean 'pay a lot of money for'! :-)

Huh? We're talking a couple hundred bucks. Check out Schneider Kreuznach 150mm f/4 MC on ebay. Since, if you're using a tilt adaptor (between 40 and couple of hundred bucks), you lose all the electronic coupling anyways and are in manual focus and all that, so all you need is one of those old lenses.

DutchNikon said:
>>Well, it does matter in still photography if you want to do focus stacking. It actually sucks quite a bit<<

It does not matter if you move the camera for focussing ( on a focussing rail), which is common practice in macro ( micro) photography ..

In serious product photography, focus stacking is just a rather work-intensive fiddling workaround for not using a tilt setup. And, as mentioned above, the latter can be quite accessible.

DutchNikon said:
>>Well, it does matter in still photography if you want to do focus stacking. It actually sucks quite a bit<<

It does not matter if you move the camera for focussing ( on a focussing rail), which is common practice in macro ( micro) photography ..

But even that is not perfect, I see some movement as I move focus through deep objects.

>>Well, it does matter in still photography if you want to do focus stacking. It actually sucks quite a bit<<

It does not matter if you move the camera for focussing ( on a focussing rail), which is common practice in macro ( micro) photography ..

spraynpray said:
What is his point - why is it 'an issue'? Focus stacking couldn't work if it didn't compensate for the image size changing with focus.

It seems any muppet can - and does - make videos and put them up on YouTube.

It's certainly something to consider in photography.

On the 105mm macro Nikkor if I miss focus using autofocus and end up needing to autofocus again and the subject moves, there's significant focus breathing. It'd be more useful if I just move the lens in and out.

@ golf007sd Thanks for the video... it is entertaining. I really think the guy was just pointing out a phenomenon he thought was useful. He does mention it may be important in focus stacking but how much image size change is there in a fine tune of focus in macro and does this affect the focus stacking programs in post?

chris_weinert said:
Well, it does matter in still photography if you want to do focus stacking. It actually sucks quite a bit.

Maybe it sucks for the software designer, but it doesn't affect the end use of the software as the software is designed to compensate (re-size and realign) for the change in size and position of the images with change of focus.

chris_weinert said:
one should just get a descent medium format lens (i.e. Schneider Kreuznach) and a tilt adapter, done.

Funny how people with larger disposable incomes say 'get' when they mean 'pay a lot of money for'! :-)

Ironheart said:
In this situation, on a big screen, the breathing would be very noticeable, perhaps distracting or even nauseating. It really doesn't matter much for still photography.

Well, it does matter in still photography if you want to do focus stacking. It actually sucks quite a bit. Then again, if you want to do product or still life photography, focus stacking is just a rather poor workaround for not using a tilt setup. Instead of worrying about focus breathing, one should just get a descent medium format lens (i.e. Schneider Kreuznach) and a tilt adapter, done.

The term focus breathing comes from cinematography. A common technique in movies is to shift focus from actor to actor as they speak. In this situation, on a big screen, the breathing would be very noticeable, perhaps distracting or even nauseating. It really doesn't matter much for still photography.

One of the things you pay for in a cine lens is minimal breathing. The others are smooth aperture control, and the ability to gear up a follow focus rig.

My understanding of this video is that it was intended to show people that all lenses "suffer" from "focus breathing," rather than trying to scare people.

OMG - I think I'm going to send all my Nikkor lenses back to Nikon. Obviously they are all defective. They can give me my lenses back when they engineer a fix. LOL.

What is his point - why is it 'an issue'? Focus stacking couldn't work if it didn't compensate for the image size changing with focus.

It seems any muppet can - and does - make videos and put them up on YouTube.

I think this guy may need psychiatric help for his OCD...LOL. What he is talking about is IMO simply an optical phenomenon. It is well know by any photographer of any merit that when one focuses the camera the image size changes. This occurs on 11" x 14" format and everything else.

Most of the time, the issue is noticed in studio work where a specific set is arranged and the camera is then placed. As one places the camera, the image is viewed and one moves the camera in and out while focusing to compensate.

It is interesting the term "focus breathing"...wonder who thought of that? Fascinating topic...

Can across this video and wanted it to be on our forum should someone seek some info on Focus Breathing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz8lbCrLBEs

Cheers