Wouldn't it be nice if Nikon did this?

[mark_stephan2]

<p>Price drop: <a href="http://www.canonpricewatch.com/blog/2014/08/breaking-news-canon-price-drop-tomorrow-on-26-lenses/">http://www.canonpricewatch.com/blog/2014/08/breaking-news-canon-price-drop-tomorrow-on-26-lenses/</a>. Canon is dropping the price on 26 of their L lenses and TC's permanently. Wished Nikon would follow what the completion is doing.</p>

[Palouse]

<p>http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Store/Camera-Deals.page<br>

Maybe?</p>

[howard_m]

<p>maybe. my initial take is that Canon realizes that they overpriced them to begin with, or they feel like they need to be more aggressive (tacit ack. that they are behind the market) and that as a more diversified company, they can absorb a price decrease w/ less pain than Nikon can. And really, it's just on their L glass which has a price premium anyway.</p>

[robert_stig]

Nikon and canon both need to drop prices on many lenses. Way overpriced. If you look at previous gen lenses the jump

to the new ones are not in proportion to anything. Crappy economy, and I just see greed. But thats just my personal

opinion.

[mark_stephan2]

<p>Nick, thanks for the link. Wished all of the lenses were discounted.</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>Product prices are high on introduction, when the demand is the greatest, and they are gradually decreased to allow less wealthy people to buy them at a later stage of their product life. This is nothing new. </p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>The most extreme example among that list of Canon lenses seems to be the 24-70mm/f4 IS. Initially it was priced to $1500, even more expensive than the 24-105mm/f4 IS and fairly close to the f2.8 24-70mm zoom. Needless to say, people immediately noticed that lens was very poor value for the money: http://www.photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00b06r</p>

<p>So all of a sudden Canon needs to cut 1/3 of its price from $1500 to $1000 to make it competitive. In comparison, Nikon's very decent 24-85mm/f3.5-4.5 AF-S VR is only $600 and is frequently discounted to $500 or even below that. The Canon's lens maybe a bit better optically; if fact, it'd better to superior to be so expensive, but even after the discount, it is still roughly twice as expensive as a similar Nikon lens.</p>

<p>Since the yen has been coming down in the last couple of years, some price reduction is overdue. However, part of the equation is that Canon merely messed up some of their prices initially, and they are merely correcting those or some of those lenses simply wouldn't sell.</p>

<p>Any early adapters of the 24-70mm/f4 IS who were unwise enough to pay the full $1500 could be really frustrated now.</p>

<p><br />Of course, Canon is not alone. Plenty of Nikon lenses such as various f1.4 AF-S lenses (especially the 58mm/f1.4 AF-S), the 80-400mm AF-S VR and 800mm/5.6 AF-S VR have fairly ridiculous initial prices.</p>

[bgelfand]

<p>More important that competing with each other in lenses, both Nikon and Canon must worry about competing with the third party lens makers like Sigma and Tamron and to some extent Tokina.</p>

<p>There are very few people who have a Nikon system (camera bodies, lenses, flashes) who would change to Canon because a lens or two may be a few hundred dollars less expensive and vice versa. That is nothing to what they would lose selling the kit they have and purchasing a new kit. But they can purchase a third party lens to fill their needs for considerably less than the equivalent Nikon or Canon lens and keep their current kit intact.</p>

<p>For people purchasing a DSLR for the first time, the starting kits are close to evenly priced.</p>

<p>The quality of the third party lenses has increased significantly in the past 10 years to the point some are rated nearly as good as or in some cases better than the equivalent Nikon or Canon lens. Of course in some few cases the price of some third party lenses may also exceed the price of the equivalent Nikon or Canon lens, something unheard of several years ago.</p>

<p>The third party competition must be worrying to both Canon and Nikon and for higher range lenses may influence them more than the price of the other manufacturer.</p>

[chriscourt]

<p>I expect this will cause some waves in the (Canon) used lens market!</p>

<p>C</p>