Canon 200-400mm price

<p>So if I can lend it out 2 time a month, for less than a year and half, I can own it for free!<br>

Maybe I could charge half of the price, say $200 (more business), it would take less than three years.</p>

<p>The reason for the incredible price of this lens still remains a mystery. There are some "market" and "target segment" related explanations. But I wonder if Canon will give any technology related explanations like superior metal or glass used etc. Given Shun's comment that a lens of this specification can be only so much better than the Nikon 200-400 version 1, I doubt if there will ever be a technology related explanation that will make sense to justify this pricing. </p>

<p>I see no mystery. I see an engineering marvel. I see a lens that has to cover so many focal lengths and cover it well.... better than anything else on the market in a zoom lens and better than some primes out there. While Shun has his opinions comparing it to the Nikon 200-400, there are many reports out there that it is significantly better. Time will tell when it gets tested thoroughly. There is no argument that it is on the steep part of the curve of diminishing returns. As consumers here on Photo.net we probably all own cameras and other items that are only a little bit better than goods at half the price.... we are the wealthy in the world. I don't see a need for Canon to explain anything... you buy it.... or you don't... (I just thought of the Seinfeld bit with the Soup Nazi...) </p>

I'm guessing that this lens and other recently announced/introduced exotic telephotos from both Nikon and Canon have

been engineered with future high resolution sensors in mind: new optical designs, nano coatings, strict tolerances, next

generation IS/VR systems, and of course some very high quality glass.

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<p>While Shun has his opinions comparing it to the Nikon 200-400, there are many reports out there that it is significantly better.</p>

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<p>Well, Canon originally announced the development of this 200-400mm/f4 in February, 2011: <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/news/2011/02/07/canon200400mm">http://www.dpreview.com/news/2011/02/07/canon200400mm</a>. That was a little over two years ago. However, it still has not been available for sale to date. Canon finally announced the pricing for this new lens two days ago, on May 14, 2013, and that was why Sara Ryan started this thread.</p>

<p>So exactly who are providing those "many reports" that this Canon lens is "significantly better" than the Nikon 200-400mm/f4 AF-S VR, even though you still cannot buy this Canon lens from camera stores? What is the basis for those reports? Have they done any actual, independent comparison of those two lenses that have incompatible lens mounts on the same set of camera bodies? If so, how did they optain the Canon 200-400 test sample since nobody outside of Canon themselves has them so far.</p>

<p>It is not only Canon, IMO a lot of recently introduced Nikon lenses have ridiculous prices. They are all very high compared to Canon equivalents:</p>

<ul>

<li>Nikon 70-200mm/f4 AF-S VR: $1400</li>

<li>Nikon 80-400mm/f4.5-5.6 AF-S VR: $2700</li>

<li>Nikon 800mm/f5.6 AF-S VR: $17900</li>

</ul>

<p>Sara, the mystery to me is why you can't bring yourself to acknowledge that this Canon lens has a built in 1.4 extender which gives it a range to 560mm with the flip of a switch and the Nikon 200-400 you keep comparing it to doesn't. </p>

<p>Right, the pricing of the 200-400 Extender reflects the fact that the MTF of the lens with extender is great at 560mm; essentially same as without the extender. If the value is compared with primes, let's think for the moment that the user already has a 70-200mm, so 200mm is covered. For sports, they might need 400/2.8 and 600/4 on top of that. That's $11k+$12.8k = $23.8k. Now, the 200-400 Extender offers 200/4, 400/4, and 560/5.6 for $12k, which is almost exactly one half of the cost of the two primes. The zoom offers one stop less aperture at 400mm and 560mm (ok the prime is 600mm, so the zoom is a little short of that), so one half of the price (i.e. $11.9k) is justified based on that (one stop means the front element is half the area). Voila, price explained.</p>

<p>I would add that this covers the range of at least three high-end telephoto primes: a 300, a 400, and either a 500 or a 600. All for a much lower price, no lens changes, and much less bulk and weight to carry. It covers 200, as well, but as Ilkka mentioned, most sports pros will have a second body with a 70-200 to cover the short tele duties. If I were a pro Canon sports shooter, I would already have my 400 listed on eee bay.</p>

<p>Don, built in 1.4 extender is great. But the question is, does the technology to build that in cost the price of two Nikon D800 bodies?</p>

<p>Ilkka and Dan, in comparing the Canon 200-400 with the likes of 400/2.8 and 600/4, IMHO we are probably getting ahead of ourselves. Your argument of covering the range of primes could probably be applied for Nikon 200-400 with the external 1.4 TC as well. Of course you will lose 200mm to 280mm but with the inevitable 70-200mm combined with the croppability of outputs from modern sensors, its not an unbridgeable gap. Its worthy of note that the results of the Nikon version with the new TC-20E III is quite good. While using 2x TC on the canon will not give comparable results as it has an already built in 1.4x. The point is that the built in TC has some disadvantages too. </p>

<p>"But the question is, does the technology to build that in cost the price of two Nikon D800 bodies?"</p>

<p>With all due respect, that is actually <em>not</em> the question. There's little real-world relationship between what it costs a manufacturer to conceive, research, design, build, market and distribute a product and what the market will bear as an asking price.</p>

<p>The successful company does a good job at price sensitivity analysis, determining how to maximize total revenue (<em>wholesale</em> price times number of units sold). They then factor development costs in with the cost to manufacture the forecasted number of units to be sold, and attempt to sustain the company on the profits that are realized in the margin between costs and revenues.<br>

<rant><br /> Sadly, there is an ever-increasing number of whiners about who can't afford some thing they want, and complain about what's fair (price, profit, salary, compensation, etc., etc.). The slide down the slippery slope of socialism is well underway.</p>

<p>I have an idea! Let's force Canon (and everyone else) to sell all their products at the prices we want to pay! Who cares if it drives them into bankruptcy and eventually destroys the economy?<br /> </rant></p>

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<p><rant>$adly%**^#&...</rant></p>

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<p>The intent of my original post was to understand the excessive pricing of this new lens. I just wanted to know if there are any technological reasons that would justify the considerable extra dollars, in terms of added value to the buyer. Many posters have already given the high-level pricing explanation and I have acknowledged that in one of my posts as well. Your pricing explanation went a little deeper but its essentially common knowledge. I do appreciate the time though. My post was an honest attempt to understand something I didn't know from the more knowledgeable. An emotionally ideological <rant> is not really what I am looking for here.</p>

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<p> If I were a pro Canon sports shooter, I would already have my 400 listed on eee bay.</p>

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<p>Unless you need f/2.8, in which case you would keep your 400...<br>

Although a high-quality 200-400 zoom has its merits for sports photography (sailing from water, curling and similar relatively slow-paced sports come to mind, as is wildlife photography) zooming is simply not realistic in a fast paced shooting environment, period. It is very difficult to follow action with a fixed-focal-length lens as it is, and zooming and/or flipping a TC would make it nearly impossible. For field sports (football, soccer, etc.) where a 400 is de rigueur, 400 it is most of the time and there is no need for anything longer or shorter (plus a second body with some mid-range zoom for the few % of close action shots) and f/2.8 matters more than anything else for subject isolation, esp. at distance.<br>

Regardless of the high ISO performance, for many uses f/4 or f/5.6 simply won't cut it. There is a reason there is a 200/2 lens: arena sports. Field sports are the reason for 400/2.8...</p>

 

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<p>Sadly, there is an ever-increasing number of whiners about who can't afford some thing they want, and complain about what's fair (price, profit, salary, compensation, etc., etc.). The slide down the slippery slope of socialism is well underway</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Oh please. Consumers complaining about price is not socialism. (Insert eye-roll here.) Nobody is trying to force Canon to do anything here. What we are doing is expressing capitalism with a capital C. WE are the consumers. WE decide what we buy. This is a nominal democracy. WE have the RIGHT to express our opinions without someone who does not understand the term shouting SOCIALIST! Note to conservatives: Stop whining that everyone who expresses an opinion with which you disagree are communists, socialists or Lib'rals. </p>

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<p>The slide down the slippery slope of socialism is well underway.</p>

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<p>Drivel - and clueless, utterly off-topic drivel, at that.</p>

<p>Complaining about prices (and not buying the product, which should theoretically result in price reductions) is pretty much the <em>definition</em> of free market capitalism - voting with your wallet.</p>

<p>And I speak as a socialist - it's not the dirty word you seem to think it is...</p>

 

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<p>I have an idea!</p>

 

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<p>The available evidence suggests that you have absolutely <em>no </em>idea.</p>

<p>There is no high ground for either Nikon or Canon on prices, as should be clear from a comparison of their lines.</p>

<p>This one (the 200-400) had been rumored, along with hints as to pricing, and I went ahead and bought a new, but now-outdated, EF 100-400mm from which I am getting great utility for a good deal less money.</p>

<div></div>

<p>In fact, the lens makes good marks in the image department, and has a wide selection of viewing angles.</p>

<p>I'd sum it up in just two words: <em>Marks</em> and <em>Angles</em>. (How's that for your post-war Communist conspiracy?)</p>

<p>@ Keith Reeder:<br>

Thanks for the cheap shot. Since you're a socialist, you should just stand at Canon's front door and demand that they give you a copy of this lens.<br>

No, socialism isn't a dirty word ... just a failing / failed economic system. Sooner or later, you run out of other people's money.</p>

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<p>The slide down the slippery slope of socialism is well underway.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Can someone who posts that legitimately complain about "cheap shots"? I wonder.</p>

<p>We can all see how swell post-national capitalism is doing nowadays in human terms. World-wide recession (except for, ironically, Communist China and a few blocks on Wall Street). As with the "cheap shot" comment, people who live in glass houses..., etc.</p>

 

<p>I feel this way about all of the super telephoto lenses that Canon makes. It prohibits many talented photographers from reaching their full potential. When Canon came out with their L Series II lenses (400-600), the prices almost doubled. Go figure. Used, older equipment is almost impossible to find because no one wants to buy the new stuff.</p>

<p>Glad I skipped to the end of the queue -- I got to miss all the socialist/capitalist rants.</p>

<p>I'm afraid I'm with those folks who look at the price and immediately look for alternatives. Hell, I don't even spend that much money on a used car (and I don't buy new anymore -- got over that needless drain on resources years ago). I can buy a five-year-old car that sold for $40k+ when new for less than the price of this lens.</p>

<p>Yes, I agree that the cost of Nikon's latest 200-400 plus a D600 would be a more attractive alternative, at least from a price point of view. BTW, the latest Nikkor 200-400 is reported to be even sharper than the old manual focus 200-400mm f/4 ED, which I find hard to believe because that old MF zoom is incredibly sharp. But even the new Nikkor is more expensive than I'm prepared to spend. Now it is very true that if I were a working pro and needed such a lens for my work, then that's a different matter entirely. But I'm not, so this comes under the category of "discretionary spending" for me. </p>

<p>Me, I already own several Nikkor primes and zooms -- all MF. And I often use an adapter on my EOS DSLR that allows me to mount one of my Nikkors to the camera. So, I could possibly go this route. And buy the Nikkor 200-400mm f/4 ED push-pull zoom that Nikon built back in the 80s -- if I really just had to have a zoom with that focal range. I used to own one -- it was big and heavy, but man, was it a beautiful lens. Plus, it was the sharpest zoom I'd ever owned back then. I sold it probably 20 years ago, during a time of too much gear and not enough money, and I still regret doing so. Hey, AF is nice, but I still use my MF lenses a lot, so I would be able to make good use of it.</p>

<p>But you know what I've learned about my own use of zoom lens? With wide-to-tele zooms, I tend to use them mostly at the wide end, and with tele zooms I tend to use them mostly at the long end. So with a 200-400, chances are I'd spend most of my time with the lens at 400mm. And with that the case, there's suddenly a lot of other options, aren't there? Like the Canon FD 400mm f/4.5 IF, which can be converted to an EOS mount easily enough, and which, since it focuses well past infinity, can be used with an FD-EOS adapter without the glass element, and still focus out to about 30 meters. I owned one, which was stolen last October, and used it mostly with my EOS DSLR. It was a very sharp lens, and I miss it. You can find the FD 400/4.5 IF on eBay for under $500 on a pretty frequent basis. The Nikkor 400mm f/3.5 EDIF can be found used for under $2000 and adapted to EOS. The Tamron 400mm f/4 LDIF -- a great lens -- can be found for less than $1000. This would be my personal choice. It's sharp as a tack, and you can buy an EOS Adaptall mount for it. I've found that focusing with internal focus lenses is so quick that I don't really miss having AF that much.</p>

<p>So, bottom line -- I'll sit idly by and watch others spend exorbitant sums, or go deeply into debt, just so they can have the latest and greatest. Hopefully for them -- and for Canon -- it will be worth it. But me, I'll continue to do as I've always done when I run into situations where I need an item but can't afford the latest and greatest, and I'll seek out workable alternatives. And I'll be perfectly content doing so.</p>

 

<p>When I paid $5100 for my Nikon 200-400mm/f4 AF-S VR back in 2006, I thought it was really expensive and considered that for a long time. After all, back then, you could get a 300mm/f4, from Canon or Nikon, for about $1000 (and somewhere around $1300 today), and 300mm is in the middle of the 200-400mm zoom range. So I was paying some 5 times the cost for the ability to zoom another 100mm in either direction. I am well aware that a 400mm/f4 lens requires a much larger front element than a 300mm/f4 so that it would cost a lot more, but still, 5 times the cost.</p>

<p>It turns out that the 200-400mm/f4 is among my favorite lenses.</p>

Any idea why Canon didn't bring out a 200 to 560 f4 lens instead?