200/2 discontinued

Just passing on something that Petapixel picked up on:

According to Nikon Japan, the 200/2 VR2 is discontinued (also on the old products list). Apparently other regions haven't picked up on this yet.

I'm still using the mk1 version (a bit more internal flare and worse VR, very similar optical design). The 200/2's MTF isn't all that exceptional, but as others have noted it's pretty capable in practice. Also good exercise.

Patent watchers have noticed Nikon patent a new version, so that may or may not happen. They may reasonably have decided that the 70-200FL is so good wide open that the 200/2 has much less benefit than it did compared with the older zooms. I'll be interested to know whether a replacement is F or Z mount.

I wouldn't be surprised if Nikon produce a few more telephoto lenses (such as the rumoured 600mm f/5.6) in F mount, since typically there's not so much benefit to putting anything at the back of the lens anyway for a telephoto design - no harm in picking up dSLR customers as well, especially since there are more of us. By the time Nikon's lens team aren't saturated filling in the gaps for Z mount, I admit, the dSLR market may have shrunk. I'm not holding my breath for a Nikkor update to the 14-24 with the field curvature fixed (I think I've heard the Sigma has a similar problem, sadly). The 200/2 is a borderline case in focal length - but it's also the outlier in that all of the other big primes are newer.

I've never tried a 120-300 Nikkor. I've handled the Sigma (I was considering it instead of the 70-200FL), and found it somewhat harder to hand-hold than my 200/2. I mostly use one to lose the background and because it's got less LoCA than shorter fast lenses - but a suitably designed 135mm or 85mm (Canon) might have similar benefits.

I can a future in long exotics in F mount, since they do seemingly adapt very nicely and for now at least DSLRs still mostly win for AF and action.

Of course, the tables can turn, but for now something like a 400mm f/2.8(not that there's really need to update it now) there's no real compromise designing it for the F mount rather than the Z mount and you can tap into both pools of customers.

At the same time, I was reading a thread from 2003 earlier today where someone was debating the purchase of an N90 vs. an N8008 and Shun basically said "Buy the N90 because it works with AF-S and I think AF-S is coming to every lens in the near future" with some argument about how correct that was. We see who was right in that discussion :)

At the same time, I was reading a thread from 2003 earlier today where someone was debating the purchase of an N90 vs. an N8008 and Shun basically said "Buy the N90 because it works with AF-S and I think AF-S is coming to every lens in the near future" with some argument about how correct that was. We see who was right in that discussion :)

AF-P?

The 120-300 is ridiculously overpriced and I can't believe this lens would not be discontinued rather soon after release. The 300/2.0 ai-s comes to mind. The zoom is heavier and much longer than the 200/2 in terms of physical length (also longer than the 300/2.8). The 200/2 is one of the top-performing lenses on lensscore's 200 megapixel sensor. Also, it has a special look to the images. Since Nikon don't have the technology for a competent action mirrorless body, and because many sports photographers prefer the optical viewfinder, I imagine Nikon will continue to put out new F mount telephotos, including 200/2 FL and 300/2.8 FL at much more reasonable prices than the zoom. Also I think they will produce more PF supertelephoto primes due to the success of the 500 PF, again for F mount.

The zoom is in stock in a store in my country, for 11499€. I suspect the store has to discount it to 8000€ or 7000€ before anyone will buy it.

The 120-300 is ridiculously overpriced and I can't believe this lens would not be discontinued rather soon after release.

The 120-300 FL is expensive, but pretty much in line with all other FL super teles.

Before the 120-300 FL was officially announced, I had a chance to talk to a Nikon rep. At the time he wasn't sure about the price yet. My guess was US$10,000 since the 180-400mm/f4 with TC is $12,400, which is in turn in the same ballpark as Canon's 200-400mm/f4 with TC at $11,000. The Nikon rep thought my estimate was too high, and that lens turns out to be $9500. Incidentally, the 120-300 is the cheapest, and shortest, among Nikon's FL super teles. The only F-mount FL lens that is cheaper is the 70-200mm/f2.8.

I think the D6 and D780 have to be very close to the end of the Nikon F-mount SLRs. It is more than obvious that for still photography, their improvements over their respective predecessors (D5, D750) is fairly limited after 4, 5 years. Maybe Nikon will put the D6's Multi-CAM 37000 AF module into a successor for the D850, but overall DSLRs have reached a plateau. Likewise, I wouldn't expect too many more new F-mount lenses. A lot of people claim that they want a 600mm/f5.6 PF, but it is easy to say that without seeing an actual lens. The 500mm/f5.6 PF is popular because it is very handholdable, but to keep the size down, a 600mm needs to be max f6.3. The Sigma, Tamron, and Sony zooms that reach 600mm are all max f6.3 at 600mm, while Nikon's patent for the 600mm PF is f5.6.

At the same time, I was reading a thread from 2003 earlier today where someone was debating the purchase of an N90 vs. an N8008 and Shun basically said "Buy the N90 because it works with AF-S and I think AF-S is coming to every lens in the near future" with some argument about how correct that was. We see who was right in that discussion :)

Ben, I had totally forgotten about that comment from 2003. But one thing I remember very well is that I went to Africa for the first time in August 1997. On that trip I took an F4, N8008, and FE2 to Kenya. A fellow traveler had a brand new 300mm/f2.8 AF-I lens. (The F5 and 300mm/f2.8 AF-S were already out the year before, but his dealer talked him into getting the AF-I the store had remaining in stock.) One day I was using my N8008 and he let me tried his lens, and for a brief moment I was puzzled when AF didn't work, and then I switched to the F4. That is why I am well aware of the limitation from the N8008/F801 generation.

One thing I have learned over the decades is that most people don't like changes. Back in the 1990's Nikon users referred to AF lenses from that era as plastic junk. A decade later people claimed that only film was "real photography," and digital wasn't. Today people resist mirrorless. Meanwhile, technology pushes forward.

Well you already have one and I can't afford it so discontinuation of the lens is irrelevant.

BeBu, I hate to point it out, but there are more people in the world than the two of us. :-) Also, I must point out I have the old version (because the mk2 was listed at £5000 when the mk1 was available for £3000 and I figured they were close enough that I should grab one while they were still available); Ilkka will assure me that the mk2 is superior. But I'm more interested in the discontinuation because it might be an indicator of a successor.

I do find the 200/2 hand-holdable. I can hand hold a 400mm, but I've got to admit not for very long. The 200/2 does well on sharpness charts, but it's worth pointing out that it's not that good at f/2. Well, it's very good at f/2, but not chart-topping. I'm way more interested in the fact that it's almost apochromatic (more so than any other way I've got of losing a background), but it certainly wasn't designed for a 45MP sensor, and I'll be curious to see what Nikon could produce with a more modern design. Or maybe they're just selling so few of them that they've decided they have stock for the foreseeable future.

Unless Nikon get their finger out with more DX mirrorless bodies, I wouldn't be all that surprised to see another DX iteration in the D3x00/D5x00 range, since there's low hanging fruit by upgrading the AF. Also Canon currently have bragging rights with the 32MP sensor. Nikon have a lot of 18-xxx zooms to get rid of, and they're not all AF-P. I can't imagine the camera market is going to enjoy everyone being locked at home because of COVID-19, but we're a way from Nikon having a full mirrorless line-up; I realise everyone would like to focus on bodies with a bigger profit margin, but there has to be an entry point into a product line, and the Z50 is on the high end for that.

The D850 felt like a "the best we can do" camera in a way that the D810 didn't; my impression is that there are fewer things which the D5 can do and the D850 can't than was true of the D4 and D810, although I can't back that impression up very well. It may have helped that it wasn't rushed to hit the launch of the 5D4 (although the A7R3, maybe). I don't get the same from the Z7 - apart from anything else the buffer size suggests it could have been "more premium". Nikon have just released a D850 firmware update, but sadly not containing anything exciting. I wouldn't be surprised to see the D6 AF module and the A7R4 sensor (or something equally high-res aimed at a Z7 refresh) in a D850 successor - there may need to be more than that for me to be in any hurry to acquire it, but then there was with the D810 and D850. I agree with Shun that another D7x0 after the D780 seems unlikely unless Nikon about-face on mirrorless for some reason. I wouldn't have been pushing so hard for user interface tweaks if I thought we could just wait for Nikon to iterate and get there on their own.

I wouldn't like to be a Nikon product manager in the current climate. It might require more than a shift to mirrorless to make an impact - the industry needs something like the move to AF or digital, although eye AF has been interesting. The problem is that mirrorless helps the manufacturers more than it helps the customers, so they've been scrambling to justify the change in product line to the people paying the salaries.

The main issue with the discontinuation for existing owners of the 200/2 is that spare parts for repair may become eventually unavailable, so via that, Nikon's decision to discontinue the lens affects the value of our lenses at such a time when repair may be needed. Of course, it's possible that there are plenty of parts, but in some older AF-S lenses, replacement motors have run out. Since the lens has mechanical manual focus, I believe it will continue to work as a manual focus lens, though, even if the lens motor fails (unlike for fly-by-wire lenses where the motor is needed also for manual focus). I could use it for flowers if that happens:

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However, for sports and concerts, I need the autofocus to work.

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and concerts, I need the autofocus to work

Anyone know how such a 'fast' lens would work with focus peaking in either the D850 or Z6/7 even if the AF motor goes?

I partly ask as I've got a 500mm f4 and 600mm f4 with dead AF-S motors....:(...:)...?

I can imagine sport is going to be very tricky unless by prefocus on a fence/track/jump etc where shallow DoF could be a keeper killer.

Anyone know how such a 'fast' lens would work with focus peaking in either the D850 or Z6/7 even if the AF motor goes?

 

I partly ask as I've got a 500mm f4 and 600mm f4 with dead AF-S motors....:(...:)...?

I'll give it a go on the D850 later. I've just tweaked a muscle in my back, so I want to give it a bit before I heft the 200/2 around. I want to say the focus peaking (on the D850) just looks at the live view pixels and does a trivial high pass filter on them - it can't be reading the full frame at the rate of LCD refresh (although I guess it could read different scan lines on different frames...) so I'm not sure I trust it with accurate focus on very fine detail unless you zoom in. Do the bodies with PDoS (i.e. Z series and D780) use the phase detect sensors to do anything better?

I can imagine sport is going to be very tricky unless by prefocus on a fence/track/jump etc where shallow DoF could be a keeper killer.

That's the advantage of the long glass - you get deep depth of field but you still get to lose the background (if it's far enough away).

Okay. 200/2 works fine with focus peaking on a D850. No particular reason to believe it wouldn't, but that's not stopped me being wrong before, so I like to check.

Well, fine except:

• I've been on lock down for too long and trying to hold a 200/2 + D850 a foot in front of my face so I can see the rear screen and still turn the focus ring with a finger... is uncomfortable. I should exercise my biceps more.
  
• The minimum focus distance on the 200/2 is about the diameter of my study, so not tripping over a bin while testing this wasn't easy.
  

But from the camera's perspective, all good. :-)

the advantage of the long glass - you get deep depth of field

At 30ft and wide open you get less than a 1ft DoF....:p

The main issue with the discontinuation for existing owners of the 200/2 is that spare parts for repair may become eventually unavailable, so via that, Nikon's decision to discontinue the lens affects the value of our lenses at such a time when repair may be needed. Of course, it's possible that there are plenty of parts, but in some older AF-S lenses, replacement motors have run out. Since the lens has mechanical manual focus, I believe it will continue to work as a manual focus lens, though, even if the lens motor fails (unlike for fly-by-wire lenses where the motor is needed also for manual focus). I could use it for flowers if that happens:

 

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However, for sports and concerts, I need the autofocus to work.

 

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FYI,

These guys Midwest Camera Repair have said that they have the ability to rebuild silent wave motors for Nikon lenses and other brands when parts aren't available. Makes me a bit more comfortable investing in modern lenses vs the old AF-D type.

the advantage of long glass - you get deep depth of field

At 30ft and wide open you get less than a 1ft DoF....:p

I had a feeling I might need to justify that one.

If the reason you're using a long lens is to lose the background - which I appreciate may not be the reason a lot of people use one, but is at least partly true of me in tiddlywinks - then you get more depth of field from a longer lens at the same background losing ability compared with a shorter lens. Put another way, a smallish depth of field (by which I mean one in which the magnification at the front of the depth of field isn't very different from the magnification at the back) scales with relative aperture for the same subject framing, but the blurriness of a sufficiently distant background scales with absolute aperture (because it's magnified more by the longer lens).

So (trusting your DoF calculation), yes, I may get 1' DoF at 30' from a 200/2 at f/2, but I'd get about the same DoF from a 50mm lens at f/2 at 7.5' - but the background of the 200mm lens will be way more blurred than the 50mm's version. Alternatively, I could get the same blur in a background at moderate distance behind the focal plane by shooting the 200/2 at f/4 compared with a 50mm at f/2 (or for an infinitely distant background at f/1), but the 200mm would have deeper depth of field. Since tiddlywinks often happens in random university rooms with backgrounds full of stacked chairs and tables (at best), I like hiding the background as much as possible - a position I'd change slightly if an STF lens (probably not the Laowa) became available, because those chairs often have chromed legs that reflect point light sources, so sometimes the blurry backgrounds have very large circles drawn on them. But I digress.

My 200/2 was bought as a replacement for my 135 f/2 DC, a lens designed to make the background not be distracting. Same reason I often use my 70-200 wide open, and one motivation (before I got a 70-200) for owning the 150mm Sigma macro. It probably applies more to the 200mm focal length than others: the effect would be even stronger with a 400mm f/2.8, but at some point the lack of perspective with your subjects (all appearing the same size in the frame) and needing to get far enough away (the rooms aren't infinitely large) become an issue - and the background isn't infinitely far from the subject, typically. This is a reason I don't really consider a 120-300 f/2.8 to be a substitute for a 200/2, though - and certainly not a 200-400 f/4. That said, some day I hope I may be able to report back on the "400mm f/2.8 for tiddlywinks" question - I'm prepared to try it, especially if anyone would like to donate an FL to me.

If you're using a 200/2 for reach because you can't get closer, that's another matter. But it's not that much reach - for me, wildlifing lenses with enough aperture to shoot in bad light really start at 400mm, or possibly 300mm if you like environmental shots or are getting close to something on safari.