donaldejose said:
studio460: for your sake I hope the new D turns out to be "no big deal" or long delayed so you don't regret your recent purchase of the D3s.

I don't think anyone really regrets the purchases...if he uses it and he obviously will before the D4 comes out then it is worth it in my opinion. For this thread I say get the lens. Especially since there really hasn't been much info on a release date for the D4...you could be waiting a lot longer then you think. While the whole time you could have been using your awesome lens...they work on any body ;)

studio460: for your sake I hope the new D turns out to be "no big deal" or long delayed so you don't regret your recent purchase of the D3s.

studio460 said:
I could be dead wrong, but in light of recent events, I don't think we'll be seeing a D4 until Q1 2012 at the earliest (but, now that I've just purchased a D3s, of course, it will be announced in only six months).

You could well be correct with regards to the D4 release timescale, but now that you've gone and got a 3s, I reacon a week! :@)

I could be dead wrong, but in light of recent events, I don't think we'll be seeing a D4 until Q1 2012 at the earliest (but, now that I've just purchased a D3s, of course, it will be announced in only six months).

donaldejose said: But if the D4 does give us a cleaner higher ISO up two f stops from the D3s then we can set the ISO to 12,800 or higher (whatever still yields a clean image) and drop our f stop from 2.8 to 4 or 5.6 and still do what we had done with the f 2.8 lens. This can allow us to use "normal" lenses and not have to pay huge amounts for special 2.8 lens. I think that would be a great benefit for sports photographers and drastically reduce the cost necessary to freeze sports figures.

The NEED for the 2.8 could disappear for sports photographers. My point is that the need (as opposed to desire) for the "big" lens may no longer exist.

Personally I NEED a 400mm f1.4, so a 400/2.8 VR2 on a D4 would give me that. I NEED BOTH. As Nikodoby and others say, high ISO ability is great, but will never substitute fast glass.

Well, until we know exactly what the D4 offers and exactly why it is supposed to be "revolutionary" in some respects we cannot really make a judgment between the camera body and the glass.

BUT some people have a digital investment rule of thumb which goes somewhat like "always pick the lens over the body" because a Nikon lens will be usable for many generations of bodies to come (the glass won't wear out or become obsolete and the DOF isolation of subject it offers won't change) while a body, no matter how good today, will be replaced with something better in 3 or 4 years. Using that rule of thumb, the best "investment" would be the lens because it will be usable and function just the same 10 or 20 years from now while the body will have been replaced with a few new generations of better and better digital imaging.

BUT ALSO, I suspect once you have the lens and then the D4 body comes out, you will find you really want the D4 body also due to some feature it offers which you lust for. Yet, since the lens will change less over a period of 10 or 20 years, it would be the better long term investment.

Yes I'd say go for the glass because your camera now is one of the best on the market. If you had a D700 like me or were DX I might suggest you upgrade the body depending on your work demands. The D3s is a lot of camera and many people use it for sports and other gigs.

Oh, yeah, there was a question originally that started this topic. Go for the glass. I agree with SuperShooter.

The only person who can answer this is you Major Floppit. Are you willing to wait a year or more for the D4? If you do get a D4 the D5 will replace it in about two years and then the D6 will replace that and then D7 will replace that and so on and so forth. However, I'm still using lenses from the 1970s on my Nikon! So your question doesn't seem like a difficult one to figure out especially since the 300 is real and the D4 isn't.

casperwb said:
I think this guy is yanking our chain

Nope i'm not!! Sorry... I have some good friends at various camera stores so i can pick up various items that come in (even when demand is high) fairly easily.

Thanks NikoDoby for monitoring (despite how interesting the conversation had become), basically what i'm asking is which (D4 or 300mm 2.8) will be a better investment if i have equal need(want) of both.

+1 Niko
I have d3s and some 2.8 lenses, and despite of having times around 1/1000 in most situations I decide to go for the 2.8 not because of the amount of light it gaves me but because it allows me to isolate subjects.

Extreme high ISO will never replace the DOF, brighter viewfinder, and quicker AF of fast glass but you guys are getting off-topic. Please use the following thread to continue the debate:

http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=545

warprints: I spoke of need; not want. Sure the fast f2.8 lens will always be in demand by someone but that someone may not be Major Floppis or me. I just finished a season of photographing high school basketball in dimly lit gyms. Using a D7000 because it has the cleanest high ISO image at ISO 3,000 to ISO 6,400 and using a shutter speed from one 320th to one 400th of a second to stop the basketball, I often needed a f2.8 lens. But if the D4 does give us a cleaner higher ISO up two f stops from the D3s then we can set the ISO to 12,800 or higher (whatever still yields a clean image) and drop our f stop from 2.8 to 4 or 5.6 and still do what we had done with the f 2.8 lens. This can allow us to use "normal" lenses and not have to pay huge amounts for special 2.8 lens. I think that would be a great benefit for sports photographers and drastically reduce the cost necessary to freeze sports figures.

The NEED for the 2.8 could disappear for sports photographers. Sure, they can still use it if they want and it may still be necessary to stop motion for certain high speed sports if you will be needing shutter speeds shorter than one 500th of a second.

My point is that the need (as opposed to desire) for the "big" lens may no longer exist. A D4 may be able to freeze action at f4 and one 400th of a second because it may be able to use a high grainless ISO which is two stops higher than the highest grainless ISO of the D3.

We will just have to wait to see how it actually performs when it is released and people get a chance to work with it.

Major Floppis said:
Hey there,

I just came into a bit of money and was wondering what you guys all thought - i've already got a D3S and all the new 1.4 primes. I'm basically wondering if you guys all think it's worth the wait until the end of summer to get a D4 or if should invest in some more nice glass.

I think this guy is yanking our chain

Whoa!! Hold on donaldejose. Back in the day, when Tri-X was a fast film, and I was pushing it to 800 or 1600, I thought life was good with 1.4 and 1.8 lenses. But there was grain, and a lot of it. Now, with digital, we can easily go beyond 800 or 1600, and we still whine for our large aperature lenses. So what if the D4 can go up into the stratosphere on ISO? There still will not be enough light/sensitivity for what I'll want to do next. (Just like 15 years ago, it was argued that 1MB of RAM and a 100MB hard drive would be all one could ever use.) No, large aperature and higher ISOs will always be in demand by someone.

The D4 sensor is supposed to give you an extra two f stops at equal clarity to the D3s. If that is true you may not need f2.8 lenses. Two more f stops takes f2.8 down to f5.6. Suddenly a "normal" f4.5-5.6 lens should be able to do the same job in low light as an f2.8 does now. That alone can be a tremendous advantage, especially with sports photography. The huge cost for those f2.8 lenses may be obsoleted with the D4 body. How wonderful.

The D4 autofocus module is supposed to be "revolutionary" fast. If that it true it also can be a tremendous advantage for sports photography.

So put your money into the bank or into a stock index fund and at least wait for the official announcement about the D4. Even if you now have a D3s and are happy with it, the odds are you will be far better off putting your money into a D4 which effectively increases the f stop of all your existing lenses two f stops rather than in putting that same money into just one f2.8 lens.

We will know no more this week...maybe...possibly

Thanks, Niko. I would assume that Nikon has contingency plans, or at least may still have enough functional managerial and technical resources to re-stage manufacturing of FX bodies in another plant. They could be back online sooner than we might think, yes? At least that's a possibility. Although I really wanted to wait for a new FX body, I have no idea what's going to happen to current FX-body supply, or how long new product launches may be delayed now, so I bit the bullet and will be picking up a D3s refurb this week (sorry, off-topic).

All Nikon FX cameras are made in Sendai but Nikon has several plants in the effected area that make other products. Notion Vtec is only making parts that Nikon's Thailand and China factories need to keep making cameras and lenses at those plants. There's nothing specific yet, just rumors Nikon's pro body production "might" be moving elsewhere.

Despite early reports that the Sendai plant would be operational within a few days after the earthquake and tsunami, that has yet to happen. Nikon "probably" has a back-up contingency plan to move production in case of heavy plant damage after a natural disaster. Fears of radiation contamination might also force a change of plans too.

So yeah, 300mm f2.8 now instead of a D4 in summer.

adamz said:
studio - don't remember where I found that info, but anyway I wouldn't expect new camera (at least in store availability) earlier than by the end of this year. There might be some product announcements during the summer.

Thanks! So you did hear something specific to FX-body production moving out of Sendai, from a source unrelated to the Notion Vtec F-mount story in Malaysia?

studio - don't remember where I found that info, but anyway I wouldn't expect new camera (at least in store availability) earlier than by the end of this year. There might be some product announcements during the summer.

adamz said:
. . . especially that nikon is moving the production of FX bodies out of Japan.

Where did you hear that, Adam? I didn't see any mention specific to FX body production in the recently reported NR blog. Are you just inferring that conclusion from the Bloomberg story? OP: 300mm f/2.8 FTW!

In your position, I would spend the money on lenses. Given the current situation in Japan, who knows when the D4 will be announced, much less readily available, while you could get the 300/2.8 right away (in theory anyway, although in practice it might be difficult to find, and may also take a long time in getting in stock).

Screw it, get the 400mm f/2.8 VR. :)

Who said the D4 is coming this summer? A rumor is still just a rumor is it not? Me, I'm personally torn between getting a D5xs or a new set of Maruman Majesty golf clubs.