where there’s smoke there’s forum fire
Please forgive me if this is a dupe, I am brand new to forum, graduated from NE School Photography back in early 70's and have been using NIKON camera and lenses since 1969.
So,why is there such a large shortage of Nikon Lenses? I know earthquake hit hard, but other companies don't seem to have such a severe shortage of lenses, almost every lense is out of stock. Appreciate any responses, thank you
It's time for Nikon's annual stocktake in Japan. Maybe it's related to that.
Nikon is not a large company. They have always been bad about having tons of things in stock. Hopefully they can increase their production capacity and I am really hoping the D400 has been churning out ever since they got operations back up in Thailand.
Plus they suffered more due to the Earthquake/Tsunami and Flooding where as Canon's line was not disrupted by the flooding (Though their printers were).
There's many reasons why this is so. For many of the less frequently bought lenses, they are made in smaller batches. A store will get what they have on order and that's it. If you want one, you might have to put in an order, and then wait until the store gets it.
Sometimes, a lens gets really popular and a lot of people start to get it. As it gets harder to find, people talk about how hard it is to get one, and that drives the people who were thinking about it to move more quickly, further driving up the demand.
Sometimes it depends on where you look- the larger stores get the most stock, but they may also have a proportionately larger demand. For instance, many of my local dealers have a shortage on the 35/1.8, but when I wanted one last week, it didn't take me long to find someone who did have it (I had to pay more though).
And of course, sometimes lenses are about to be discontinued. This doesn't seem to happen all that often though.
Here are some thoughts on lens shortage: 1) Nikon is coming up on year-end inventory and most manufacturers don't want a lot of inventory on hand; usually for tax purposes. 2) The unanticipated and overwhelming demand for the new cameras - D800 and D4 - are probably having an effect for those that want to upgrade to FX lenses from DX lenses. 3) The world economic situation has many companies cautious about production and inventory and most are treading conservatively. 4) Natural disasters in Japan, Thailand, etc. have caused some disruptions in the supply chain. FWIW
http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=5100
answered there.
Simple observation by me and many others is that everyone is saying March 25ish for everything to be back in stock including the D4 and D800 being released. Looks like Nikon is re-stocking everything at the same time.
This topic has been closed to new replies.
