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..

Look here:

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=2962

To change your avatar

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=2451

Oh, and can anyone tell me how to get a pic in my profile? I don't seem to have that option with "Edit Profile" is selected???

I have the Nikkor lens listed above. I will not lock on to anything, the motor will run the focus to both ends of the spectrum until you release the button. The AF Switch is set to M/A and not to M. The Focus Mode Selector on the front of the camera body is set to S, (I have tried in C as well). I have read some other threads on the net that state the retainer clip for the front glass may be loose, mine is tight. I have also seen that they have stated that one of the 6 screws may be loose, mine are tight. Just curious if anyone may have a fix or may have had this issue?

I chose (did research and wasn't bound by equipment) Nikon because of much better support for work with off camera flash (CLS and better sync speeds).

I'm still heavily in DX. If Pantax had 1/250+ snyc speeds back then, I might have considered.

I love msmoto's Nikon F with its patina of use and love. Very nostalgic and romantic!

My last film camera was a Nikon F100 that I still have and I had several lenses for it that carried over into my first digital body- a D200. The F100 remains the best 35mm film camera I have ever used. What impressed me at the time was the seamless transfer to the D200, with almost all the controls being instantly familiar. I cannot comment on Canons as I have never used one but several colleagues of mine have them and they seem to produce very good results. They like them.

It might be worth remembering that before about 1990 or so, I don't think Canon really featured on the professional scene at all (mostly being used by keen amateurs) and therefore many photographers from the 60s, 70s and 80s grew up with Nikon as THE professional 35mm. camera and continued to use them after that. They had a reputation of being literally bullet proof- Don McCullin's Nikon F stopping a bullet in Vietnam that would have otherwise killed him as I remember.

My favourite camera is in my camera cupboard, unused for a couple of years now, my beautiful Horseman 5X4 monorail. I aim to shoot some B&W on it in the spring. I regret no longer having my stunning Nikkor lenses for it though!

Other than being heavily invested in Nikon-compatible equipment, my reason for sticking with Nikon is that I find the ergonomics better than the Canon-equivalent cameras, particularly at the semi-pro and pro end. Button and dial placement is much more comfortable to me on Nikon cameras.

Safyre.......don't worry about what "some people" think about K.R.; the guy's sharp as a tack on a lot of stuff; I just think he's "all wet" about "never needs no stinkin tripod"! Lotta people around who are just jealous of Ken; (how many guys you know who can make a great living with just a website ?) (answer: not many!)

Now;
Way back in "the day" I had a very nice Canon F-1; I loved that camera! I had a bunch of focusing screens for it, a REALLY cool flexible right angle "or straight through gadget that replaced the penta prism.......(wish I could use that thing on my D SLR); also had some VERY nice Canon FD lenses; then BAM! Canon went digital.....just like that ! "but what am I gonna do with all this "glass" that cost me a bundle ?" Canon: "Not our problem.....use 'em for door stops"!

I guess they figured if they came out with a new lens mount, everyone would just "run out" and buy all new glass ! I gotta tell you....that kinda pissed me off; (and please forgive my "course" language) So.......even before I went digital, I "upgraded" to a Nikon F-5; as far as I'm concerned, the thing has the finest view finder of any 35mm camera I have EVER looked through; I even bought a 300mm/ f:4 MF for it, an 80-200 / 2.8 , and about 4 more; guess what.........Nikon "went digital too"........and all that glass still works ! How's that ? Say you can't "get by" without auto focus ? Poor you! For some stuff, I prefer MF. (And I REALLY appreciate that Nikon didn't leave all of it's thousands of customers sitting with a pile of useless "glass" that they spent a fortune on !)

(I don't tell tell anyone who asks all of that; I just say "I prefer Nikon")

Charley

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...

Please move to this thread and do a forum search before starting new thread.

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=19151

To clarify, I did do some research on various dslr. However, with the different functions each camera offers, I'm having a hard time making a selection. I need some recommendation/advice. How exactly are more expensive bodies better other than size? I refer to this link for comparison.

http://snapsort.com/compare

I have to admit I'm having a little trouble taking your post seriously because it sounds like you already know how the various choices will differ from each other. However, I will address your question about putting your resources into lenses.

Sure, in many cases the more expensive bodies are better in various ways.

What the advice to focus on lenses means is that, unless you have the budget to pick anything you want out of the catalog and buy it right now, spending more on lenses (which usually means buying larger-aperture and better-corrected lenses) will have a greater impact on the quality of the pictures you take.

Of course, some professional lenses and camera bodies can be quite bulky or heavy, so that would be a reason other than cost to buy a lower-end product, depending on what you're doing. If this is an issue, I usually recommend that people consider whether an excellent prime lens or two might not be a better choice than a very inexpensive, mediocre quality zoom lens.

Ok, so I am new to photography. I'm looking to invest in a long term durable dslr camera. I heard d7000 is the best in the market right now, but rumors says the d7100 is bound to release. Cost can be a bit daunting, but I don't mind spending a few extra bucks if you give me a good reason to select one over the other. Many would argue spend little money on the body & more money on the lenses. I don't really understand this notion because if that were the case, why do they make some cameras more expensive than others? After all, they all have similar functions & take similar shots, etc.

What are the essentials in a camera? If you could explain Low noise at high ISO, Wide dynamic range, High true resolution,Many focus points,Large sensor, built in flash, etc that'll be great.

msmoto said:
And, another

If it is not reading in the computer also I would maybe think about the card being faulty. I would try another and if the new one works fine send the bad one back to Sandisk for a replacement.

This happened with an offbrand card I had...I couldn't even recover anything from it because nothing would even recognize the card. I lost the pics...I sent the card back and got a replacement, but I haven't use that brand card again. Bought a Sandisk card and haven't had a problem since.

The easy answer to both of these is to reformat the card and try again. The harder answer is if you want to try and recover any of the data from the card before reformatting. SanDisk used to bundle a product called Rescue Pro. You can still download a demo version for free to see if you can recover before buying a license.

Honestly, some sort of data recovery software should be in every photog's bag. It's just as important as a sensor cleaner :-)

The reason I'm digging this thread up is that we should probably put together a sticky trouble shooting thread and put all of the first answers in there:

Did you reset your camera? Did you pull the battery? Try a different lens? Is the cap off? Etc... Anyone else think this is a good idea?

So... whatever happened to XQD cards?

Only the D4 has XQD cards still and there are no other manufacturers making it. Is it safe to say it's a dud?

Even the Sony Alpha 99 doesn't have a XQD slot.

And, another

diamondz said:
I just purchased a Nikon d5100 from Besy buy and along with it a new 16gb sandisck sdhc card. when I turned it on today..it said that there was no sd card installed..when in fact it was there... i had taken some photos and some videos..just trying to get the feel of the new camera..but i cant get any of them to pull up. I have been reading about this issue and my firmware is already up to date. Has anyone had this issue with up top date firmware? I will get e new card and try it..any reccomendations. The card is also not readable in my laptop either..it could be the card..but i could preview my pictures in the camera at one time..now it insists that there is no card installed.

stillriver said:
We bought a Nikon D5100 for a trip to Tanzania this past month. For the first several days, everything worked fine. My husband downloaded and cleared the 32G SD Card onto a MacAir computer each night. He was taking mostly still shots. On the day that we saw a leopard and a couple of Cheetahs, he switched to shoot video. The camera went blank after a minute and the hourglass displayed stating "can't read card data". He turned it off and on again but had the same issue. When we got back to the lodge, he inserted the data card into the computer and it didn't even register that the device was inserted! There was no icon on the desktop noting that the SD card was inserted. So--has anyone else had this problem? The camera is 3 weeks old. We are hoping against all odds that there may still be a way to capture the data on the card. BTW, we had another data data card we used for rest of trip with no problem but we never used video again. We're not sure if it was a card problem or switching to video or a lemon camera problem? Thanks for your help! Glad to have found this Forum.