Are the Nikon DX lenses born losers ?

[ronald_smith2]

Madhu has a GREAT point about the future of lenses in general. Both Nikon and Canon are slowly adding more lenses, but it just seems the DX and EF-S optics are not as numerous as they should be given that they both plan on using the APS-C sensor for the foreseeable future, or that's what they say.....

 

I am just a little more than skeptical about their intentions.

 

If we can get FF DSLR bodies for under $1500 that has all the features we need, I just don't see how either maker would want to keep two set of camera and lens lines in production. I clearly remember back in 1986 when Canon unveiled the EOS cameras, they did try to maintain the FD lenses but it didn't take long to dump those.

 

Nikon and Canon have a rich history of film and lenses associated with it, and many pros still own older Nikkors since Nikon was kind enough NOT to monkey with the erstwhile F mount. It would seem that Nikon would be more faithful to that demographic and newer FX cameras will surely follow and FF lenses will not be part of history - I feel DX optics will be obsolete within a few years.

 

Maybe I'm wrong, we'll see. I have to applaud Olympus, they look a simpler approach by NOT getting tied to that old film way of thinking and abandoning the 3:2 aspect ratio (which I loathe) and using a more practical 4:3 standard.

 

The bottom line is that photographers have a great selection of digital options on our plates, maybe too many.

[hash]

I don't see the problem - DX bodies and equivalent lenses will always be cheaper than FX. They are not going anywhere, since there will always be a market for a cheaper alternative of comparable quality.

 

People will want to upgrade to FX as their photography (or NAS) progresses for sure. But there will be many more beginners or those who have outgrown their P&S who will be looking to buy used DX lenses, so they will not have to be thrown away. Just sell what you don't use and buy what you need. Of course you won't get what you paid for them, but then you have used them for a while.

 

Nothing lasts for ever anyway!

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

"The way the price decline and competition in any electronics technology is happening, the days are not far away when Nikon or Canon would bring out the sub $1000 FX DSLR camera."

 

You clearly do not understand the economics of sensors. They are not the same as micro processors where a die shrink increases yields per wafer and lowers costs. Sensors are a fixed dimension. The real magic is reducing photo site defects across the wafer so that you can get more FX chips per wafer.

[ronald_moravec1]

I would not buy a pro level DX lens today. I don`t see a problem with $300 consumer DX glass. I use my 18/70 and 55/200 happily as ther is no investment in them. Other than that, I have been buying primes. Again no investment if you shop carefully.

 

If you are worried, get the 14/24 24/70 70/ 200 all 2.8 and you will be ready for anything.

 

So your choice is to spend $10,000 or $800 and risk it being obsolete in 8 years. Spend $800 on a 18/70 or rumored 16/85 plus the 70/300. FX will be expensive for some time.

[Andrew in Austin]

The FX or 24 by 36mm sensor is more likely to occupy a niche that replaces medium format film rather than become a new standard for popular photography.

 

Horses for courses. While the FF or FX lenses vignette less and are noticeably sharper towards the edges of the smaller APS-C frame when shooting wide open , with regards to FF zooms they do present what amounts to handful on smallish DX bodies.

 

DX bodies are so small that the FF zoom that I do have with its 77mm filter diameter blocks the AF assist light on my smallish D50 and D80 bodies.

 

My guess is that the APS-C sized sensor will be around longer than you think for the sub-$1000 DSLR market.

 

Provided that one is satisfied shooting with the APS-C format, DX lenses aren't born losers, nor temporary.

 

My travel kit is usually a DX camera and two DX lenses, one of which is a 30mm prime. The Kit fits into a small over the shoulder satchel.

 

At that point, I'm one of millions of family vacationers. I'm satisfied with that. Plus, there is less to schlepp through airport security.

 

Such is life when photography becomes an avocation. Plus, I usually print small, 5x7 with the occasional 8x10.

[lex_jenkins]

Large format fans would say that *all* miniature format lenses, including those for the 35mm paradigm, are born losers.

 

It's a matter of perspective. Photographers raised within the limited context of the 35mm format tend to see the entire world in terms of how everything else compares with 35mm. Folks who were exposed early on to medium and large format tend to regard 35mm as, at worst, a necessary evil and at best a reasonable compromise between image quality and handy size. But not the be-all, end-all format by which all others are judged.

 

IMO, it might be time to regard "FX" as the new intermediate format.

[mlynch]

I still enjoy film photography with F100, F4s and FM3a bodies. I enjoy my D200 as it fits some of my photographic interests best.

 

My strategy so far is to opt for reasonably good performing low cost DX zoom lenses only where I have a focal length need (infrequently at the wide end) and use my FF primes and zooms. When Nikon offers an FX body around the current cost of Canon's 5D, I'll sell the D200 along with the DX zoom(s) and purchase the FX body.

 

I don't anticipate that Nikon or Canon will ever offer a FF line to the exclusion of APS-C sensor cameras and that FF cameras will always command a premium.

 

I think Canon and Nikon have found a way to make great money by offering both types of sensor/body combinations. In the meantime my hobby money is directed to exploring better tripod/head and flash solutions until a sub $2500 FX body is offered by Nikon.

[RaymondC]

I don't believe the saying, what happens if DX is so good .. we won't want anything more.

 

Humans will always want better even if we don't need it.

Nikon will always want to sell more stuff to us even if we don't need it.

 

Because we have a even more complete line up of FF lenses (old and new), there was never a real way that DX could catch up. At the end of the day people were using DX and FF lenses on their DX dSLR bodies. So its easy peazy to just swap a futuristic body and use FF because people were already using those.

 

If we wanted a complete line up of DX lenses, we would need a 2.8 WA, 2.8 tele, DX primes, DX macro, DC, PC.

 

But even if that happens because DX dSLRs works with FF lenses there is always going to be that cloud over us. Because FF works with DX dSLRs people will continue to still have FF lenses, adopting a future FF body is easy - swap a body and you are back in.

[stephen_bay]

"What is the real benefit in buying a DX lens knowing fully well that these lenses are going

to be obsolete and that they would soon die out once the DX or small sensor camera

becomes obsolete."

 

I think you are looking at this the wrong way. Lenses aren't investments and the benefits

you would get from buying a DX lens is several/many years worth of pictures taken with

that lens. As others have mentioned, I don't think crop cameras are going to go away

anytime soon.

[RaymondC]

I don't believe that DX is necessarily lighter and cheaper.

 

Compare the F5 body to the D2 series.

Compare D200 to Canon 5D, Canon is lighter and FF.

Look at prices of the 12-24 and 18-200, expensive.

 

Even the kit lenses, they are the same if not more than the kit lenses of the film kit lenses. ie., 18-55, 18-70, 18-135.

 

Ie., there is the 28-80, 28-200 at around 200g to around 300g that is light. The 18-200 DX is 560g. Well you may say its has AFS VR. Well if one adds the VR function to the 18-55 DX it doesn't weight that much more.

 

If person is looking at a new camera and they budget $2000. Because with FF you don't need to double up on lenses and pay >$2000 for a 12-24, 18-200 travel lens and a proper mid lens 17-55 and maybe a fisheye. Why not put the >$2000 together on your $2000 budget of your camera that becomes >$4000, that's almost a D3, if not now, wait sometime ....

 

Adjustment is that with FF it may still cost a bit less because one does not need to get the 14-24, 24-70, 70-200. Because FF is much more lenses one can get cheaper lenses ie., one can get a used 20-35 or 17-5 and a 28-70 or a 35-70 and the 80-200 or 70-200. If one already has these from the film era, you wouldn't even need to pay more.

[RaymondC]

While its not an investment. Eg. I wouldn't buy a car as an investment.

 

I see it as ... why buy DX temporarily when in the future FF become more affordable and lenses won't work properly.

 

If one can play the waiting game, do without it for a couple of years and then get the affordable FF down the road. While one may still want a newew FF bodies as they come out .. as human do .. and as companies do want to sell us new stuff, at least we don't have to spend money on DX and FF lenses to accomplish the same job.

[stephen_bay]

"why buy DX temporarily when in the future FF become more affordable and lenses won't

work properly"

 

If you only have a crop camera, then there is really no full frame substitute for lenses like

the 12-24 or the 18-200. So if you want to take the picture today, then you need to get

the lens.

 

However, I think a viable option is to buy the dx lens now, use it for several years, and

then sell it once you move to full frame. BTW, I bought a 12-24mm lens, used it for

several years and then sold it for almost the same price I paid for it new.

 

Of course all this boils down to the person's budget and desire.

[tonybeach]

For Ray:

 

"I don't believe that DX is necessarily lighter and cheaper."

 

> Comparing exactly the same cameras with lenses that cover the same FOV as I did, the differences are measurable. You want to compare a 5D with a D200, but the 5D is slightly larger and the feature set is different (the weight difference comes down to build quality and possibly internal components).

 

"Look at prices of the 12-24 and 18-200, expensive."

 

> Really? How much for a 17-35/2.8? Could you even buy a 35FF 28-300 lens, and how much would it cost and weigh if you could?

 

"If one can play the waiting game..."

 

> You go ahead and wait, I would rather take pictures. I am not a vacation snapper or an event photographer, so (ironically in the context of this thread) I do not even use DX lenses with my DX cameras; but a 17-55 mounted on a D300 would make a great event camera/lens combo, and an 18-200 mounted on a D40 or D40x would make a great vacation camera/lens combo -- in fact, I bet for those purposes those lenses mounted on those cameras will be unbeatable for quite a long time in terms of image quality, weight, and price.

[Jim_Tardio]

<i>At the D300 / D3 launch in Tokyo last August, Nikon presented a "roadmap" that includes the DX format for several years to come.</i>

<p>

Of course they did. They're standing there with a brand new DX format body to sell.

<p>

DX lenses aren't significantly lighter or smaller. The last attraction of the DX format is that you get more reach from your mid & long teles. I love that my 58/1.4 is essentially an 85/1.4...but I hate that my 20/2.8 is a 30mm.

<p>

Give us a few "key" prime lenses in the DX format and you'll have more of us sticking with it down the road.

<p>

I wouldn't call them "born losers". It's more of an incomplete concept at the moment.

[bruce_margolis]

"If one can play the waiting game, do without it for a couple of years and then get the affordable FF down the road."

 

Ray, you really want to play this 'waiting game' and pass up all photography simply because you THINK -- or I guess it really is a HOPE -- that this affordable FF you want will eventually show up?

 

Me, I an quite content photographing for today. I think your entire premise is faulty but even if it turns out to be correct, I will deal with it when it becomes reality, not simply existing as someone's fantasy.

[stephen_bay]

"DX lenses aren't significantly lighter or smaller."

 

I didn't think so either. But when I moved from dx to full frame I needed to get a new and

bigger camera bag for a three lens travel kit.

[Jim_Tardio]

Did you switch to lenses comparable in focal length & speed, Stephen?

[hash]

>> DX lenses aren't significantly lighter or smaller.

 

They can be for "equivalent" focal lengths.

Compare a 200/2.8 with a 300/2.8, which it emulates on the DX format.

[photo5]

Clearly people who look down their nose at the DX lens format haven't ever used the Nikon 18-70mm DX zoom. I've had two different examples since 2005, and both are steller performers that equal many Nikon primes. I have recently tested the 18-70mm against a number of different Nikon 50mm lenses and the 18-70mm is at the top, tied with the Nikon 50mm f2.0 AI prime. I've never used the Nikon 12-24mm DX zoom, I bought the Tokina instead and saved $500.00. But I've read enough from users of the 12-24mm DX zoom to know that it too is a steller performer as good as the Nikon 18-35mm AF-D zoom it emulates.

 

This whole debate on whether the DX format is now dead, or somehow inferior to the FX format is simply not necessary. It should be obvious to all why Nikon took so long to release a full frame digital SLR, the costs were simply too great, and there simply was no sensor out there that Nikon could get their hands on that was good enough. DX format will last as long as FX format because there are users who simply prefer it. Nature shooters, sports shooters, you could even argue that news shooters prefer it as well. All for its ability to give a lens an extra added boost in telephoto capability because of the 1.5x crop factor. I'd like to be able to shoot wider than my Tokina 12-24mm lens allows me to, but frankly, 95% of the time, it's wide enough for my needs.

[stephen_bay]

I went from 12-24dx f/4 to 17-40 f/4, 24-85afs f/3.5-4.5 or 18-75afs to 24-105 f/4, and

a tele (same). The wide zoom itself was only slightly bigger than the dx equivalent but lens

hood was considerably larger. You might argue whether the midrange zooms are

comparable, but the 24-105 f/4 is much bigger than the other two.