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...

oops, that was a typo on my part. I meant to say "connected to this competition" My point was that its possible that their license goes beyond just printing things about the competition. But as others have said, its par for the course.

What "... connected to this publication" ?

I dont think its underhanded, however, this legal terminology gives them more right than people have been saying:

" ... in any of their publications, their websites and/or in any promotional material connected to this competition." can easily be read as: ANY of their publications, and of their websites not connected to this competition and ANY promotional material connected to this competition. In other words, it would certainly be forseeable for them to use the material in a publication that has nothing to do with the competition as long as its THEIR publication, and not a third party publication.

My point is the "... connected to this publication" does not have to tie to all three of the parts of that clause, just the last part about the promotional material.

all that being said, I still dont feel there is anything underhanded or dishonest about this. You know that you are granting a non-exclusive license, retaining copyright, in the hopes of being published (or maybe just winning money).

And i completely aggree with heartyfisher about the types of material in a contest. sure its a marketting reason, but there is nothing wrong with contests being about marketting, and there is no reason costest have to be "arty". (your point about homelessness and christmas)

lol! You have done it now ! in 10 years when you are the president it will come back to bite you ! ;-)

seriously though I dont understand what you see as being "dishonest". you seem to say that there is some misrepresentation happening but its not clear to me what it is. I don't understand the relevance of the "homeless" statement (and related paragraph) to the competition.

Its not unlimited license, its only licensed for reproduction related to the promotion of the competition, and you still retain copyright.

yes, i understand that the pictures should be used in connection with the comp, its just they get an unlimited license for any picture sent that bothers me, i feel that it should be our decision as to whether we grant permission for use or not in any situation.

and i just dont like the underhanded nature of it .... i mean seriously, its 100% about grabbing pictures imo, and 0% about art. the comp just seems like a ruse to me.

it struck me how there was nothing about christmas time, nothing about the homeless problem around london, things id normally expect, and the 3 categories are just the stuff they use in their marketing. ya know, its OK if they want to do that, but they shouldnt fake it as a competition, i feel like they are being very deceptive, and i cant stand deception, it annoys me.

so, anyways, even though ive had second thoughts, as far as i know the story is gonna run in the newspaper this week, hahaha, im nervous tbh, i have a feeling like im gonna get in trouble over this. have to wait and see. ill let you know what happens ....

What the original poster's quoted language establishes is that an entrant can't come back later and say "Hey, I don't want you using my photo anymore" and force the University to destroy, for example, printed flyers or whatever. It's perfectly reasonable to expect that if you enter a contest your images might be used to promote the contest.

There are actually many "competitions" that take your pictures.. so you are right to be careful. but this one seems ok.
1) you retain copy right
2) they can only you your picture only for stuff related to the competitions.
3) They cannot sell/on sell the pictures.

eg: of a bad one
"
Ownership of proposals and reproduction rights

The designers transfer all copyright and other intellectual or industrial property rights relating to his or her proposal. These rights will then become the exclusive property of the Organizers which will be able to use, publish or dispose of them as it sees fit, without geographical limitation or any other restriction, via all forms of printed (publications, posters, promotional material, etc.), digital (websites, multimedia presentations, etc.) and/or audiovisual media.
"

I do not see a problem here, the sentence ends in "connected to this competition" .

If SOAS would not be allowed to use the images in their publications, they would not even be able to plublish the winning pics...

And if your pic would win and bget published : even better...
It also says that copyright remains with you, so not only you can stil sell the images, without their permission, but also they will have to add your name to them when publishing....always .

This , to me, sounds one of the better regulations on a competition, many others would stipulate that you would loose the copyright to the work..

@Tao - not every competition is the same, most of the times You only have this kind of closure when Your photo wins.

as for the main topic, I think that it is a cheap way of gathering snaps and therefore I rarely send any of my snaps to competitions - as I don't have time to read all of the fine print before sharing photos.

as for using next snap... well, some snaps are unique. I like to sketch with my camera, though I'm not using is as machine gun and don't fire 2-3-4 same snaps in a row.

This is common, but he's right in that they've found a cheap way to build their image library. While you may not win any prizes, don't be surprised if you see one of your images in next year's school brochure. Consider it a cool addition to your portfolio. If you're really concerned about this, then it's likely because you're already getting paid significant money for your images. If that's the case, why enter a contest?

A shoe store in my town did something similar. They offered gift certificates of $250, $500, and $750 for options when they wanted to rename their store. Every woman in town came to them with dozens of names. Had they gone to a major ad agency to do this, it would have cost them upwards of $5,000. But when you consider the markup in shoes, it only cost them about $750. Smart business if you ask me.

Almost every photo competition in the world has the same language. I challenge you to find one that doesn't.

Overreacting? - Yes. Scam? - nope - they are just doing the appropriate contracts and releases. The images are not worth a penny - until you win. Then it is worth 900gbp or whatever the prize is. Think of it this way - Photographers or the Models they shoot, do not own their images, the publication that paid them does. Nothing different here. You provide the work, you win, they give you something, and you get published or your image seen.

Rarely do many take an image that will be used for Stock or something that will generate an income on it's own to make any difference. And with digital, all you have to do is use the next frame in the set and you are fine - it is another unique image you can use freely.

safyre said:
chances of [the] images being distributed is extremely low

This. also, marketing thinger

Mike,

I haven't submitted many things to competitions, but I do know that this verbage is very common to photo contests. Even large publications like National Geographic have this exact wording for their contests. In my opinion, your University is the one that's hosting the competition, is offering the prize money; and since they are not forcing people to enter, they can create the guidelines as they please.

And being a recent student, I will say that the thought of gaining publicity and prize money definitely outweighs any sort of cost associated with having my work freely distributed. In fact, if I were a student, I'd be pretty estatic that the university would be using my work, even if I wasn't getting paid. When you are a student and starting out, the most important thing is getting your name out there, not worrying about how much you are getting paid.

I will provide another example, did you know that if you upload a photo to Facebook, they can use your images for their promotional material without compensating you for it? It's part of their Terms of Service, and although many people are aware of it; it doesn't stop them from uploading images because they understand FB is a powerful marketing tool, and is free of charge as well. Not to mention the chances of their images being distributed is extremely low. This is such how the industry is today; very much based on quid pro quo.

So to answer your question, it is not a big deal in my opinion. This is pretty standard procedure and since your university is hosting and offering the money, they are free to set the rules as they like; and they are not out of the ordinary (just ask National Geographic).

hello !

at my university they are holding a photo comp with the following small print (seems to be common in competitions)

"Copyright in all images submitted for this competition remains with the respective entrants. However, in consideration of their providing the Competition, each entrant grants a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual license to SOAS, University of London to feature any or all of the submitted images in any of their publications, their websites and/or in any promotional material connected to this competition."

the three categories for the competition are also exactly the same as the kind of pictures the university uses for its website/brochures etc (pics of the uni, pics of london, and pics of foreign countries where the uni has links). it seems really rather obvious imo ...

so i feel really certain that this 'competition' is nothing other than a cheap way (prize money totals 900 gbp) to gain the copyright to hundreds of images, which will surely be worth much more. we are thinking of running a story about it in the university newspaper, to warn students not to submit, until this clause is removed from the small print.

am i overreacting ? do you think we will get in trouble if we accuse the university of trying to scam copyright info from students' images in the newspaper ? i know that what they are doing is technically legal, but i feel its really dishonest ... i dont wanna get in trouble

advice pleeeeease

donaldejose said:
Hence, if you are in low light and want to keep the full face reasonably sharp grab your D400 DX body because that allows you to do at f2.8 what you will need f4 to do if you are using your D4 body? Is this true?

No. The D4 must be light years ahead in IQ /ISO performance than any DX body - don't ever expect DX to catch up FX unless there are 5 years or so between models. So it would be more logical to up the ISO 1 stop on the D4 and still shoot at f2.8.

Slight error here. I am not trying to find what is "right." I was simply experimenting to find the minimum f-stop that would tend to keep that rear eye in focus when using classic portrait lenses in the 100mm range at a classic head and shoulders portrait distance. The rule of thumb seems to be f4 will do it on an FX body and f2.8 will do it on a DX body.

We could say DX gives you a one stop DOF advantage in low light when shooting portraits and trying to keep the full face in reasonable focus. This is not generally commented upon as an advantage to shooting DX. It may be a factor when the new D400 and D72000 come out if they have high ISO equivalent to the new FX bodies. Using f1.8 in DX(and equivalent lenses) will give you about the same DOF as f2.8 in FX and shooting at f2.8 in low light will give you about the same DOF as using f4 on an FX body. Hence, if you are in low light and want to keep the full face reasonably sharp grab your D400 DX body because that allows you to do at f2.8 what you will need f4 to do if you are using your D4 body? Is this true? Conversely, if you are working in f2.8 available light and want to blur the background more grab the FX body and shoot at f2.8 in FX rather than in DX because it will give you shallower DOF in the same light? Just have the model turn her head more directly to you to keep both eyes sharp (or do a profile where you won't see that rear eye or just let it blur).