chuck

<p>I ordered mine from B&H on Oct 7 and got it on Oct 12. It likely depend on when they get a shipment.<br>

BTW, at 500 f/5.6, this lens appear to handily out resolve the 80-400 at 400 f/5.6 at the pixel level. The VR also work clearly better than those on the 70-200. It probably also work better than those on the 80-400, although that might be more subjective. You will love it.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Your grand dad seems to have been an interesting person.</p>

<p>You can get a better idea of the market prices of these items by visiting KEH.com. They will buy your stuff at close to market prices, but more importantly they will let you enter the particulars of the items, tell you what they will pay, without your committing yourself to sell.</p>

<p>You can also visit ebay, search for similar items, and use the watch function to keep track of what the auction for the items cleared at.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>The deal seems to be over. I went to a Best Buy at Rockville, MD. They still have the low price labels on their 16-35 and 80-400 display lenses, but their inventory system no longer show the lenses at the labeled prices, and they refuse to honor those prices.</p>

Hi, thanks. Prefocus is a good idea. The night sky is really too dark for manual focusing as well.

Mary, yes, merging two shots with different exposures for foreground and background sky is great idea. In some recent

attempts at shooting the sky in Yosemite I found exposing properly for the foreground overexposed the sky, and also

cause star trails. Merging two shots would solve the problem,.

<p>When I attempted to take photos of the night sky, the scene is too dark for either phase detection AF or for LV to detect anything. Is there any other clever way to obtain sharp focus, except through focusing by distance scale and a large dose of trial and error?<br>

Nikon AF lenses do not seem to focus to infinity right where the focus scale says infinity.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>It's not available on line. It is in-store purchase only. I believe the deal is only available at those Best Buy stores which normally stock these lenses.</p>

<p>The 16-35 f/4 VR is currently $629.99 at the same Best Buy. That's a 50% discount from the normal list price. Other lenses still have their normal full prices.</p>

<p>Hi, Mary:<br>

That's right. It says AF-S. It also says so in the confirmation email from Best Buy.<br>

Also, although out of stock for sale, the store still had the lens for display, with the price label of $1,489 under it. The display lens is most definitely the new AF-S N version without the aperture ring. </p>

<p>I just went to the Best Buy at Fairfax, VA, and saw the 80-400 now listed in-store for $1,489. It does not appear to be a fluke, because the store is out of stock, and associates checked on their system and transferred the lens at this price from a different store without any sort of price override. <br /> This price is not advertised on the Best Buy website, where the lens still list for full price. It also still list for $2,696 at B&H. <br /> I don't know what the story is and why the lens is so heavily discounted in the Best Buy. Perhaps they intend to make room for the 200-500VR. Perhaps they have advance information that Nikon will discontinue or replace this lens soon, although I tend to doubt that.<br /> If you are looking at this lens, or are considering this lens as an alternative to the 200-500, you may wish to call your local Best Buy and see if the lens is available for this quite remarkable price. It is apparently an in-store price only.<br /> I naturally bought the lens from Best Buy at this 45% discount. I bought the 200-500 partially because 8 0-400 was too expensive at the list price. Now I will have the opportunity to test these two lenses agains t each other in detail.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I use EXIF Viewer for IOS. I notice with the same lens, sometimes the information about which lens is used is there, sometimes it is not. The focal length, aperture, shutter speed, VR, AF information are always there.<br>

Any idea why the lens ID is spotty?</p>

<p>Again, it is much more important to get a lens with the right coverage than the lens with the best optics.<br>

You sacrifice a lot more potential good shots because your lens didn't have the right coverage, then you ever would because your lens had the right coverage, but was optically deficient.<br>

For most purposes, the difference in the optical performance between the Nikon and the Tamron is a matter of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.<br>

You can scrutinize the head of the pin under a microscope and publish the results. But it has very little to do with most picture taking situations.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I am a little surprised you would take the plunge and buy a $1800 lens without a clear idea what coverage the lens offers on the camera you would use. I think the most crucial attribute of the lens is its coverage, maximum aperture and optical performance (within reason) ranks distant second and third.</p>

<p>The 24mm end of 24-70 will always be a true 24mm, regardless of which camera you put it on. It will also always cast the same sized image. But depending on the camera, the sensor will either take the most advantage of size of the image the 24-70 would cast, or it won't. With D7100, it won't. It will take the center 67% or so of the image the lens cast. At 24mm, the lens would still cast an image which would cover a very wide field of view. But the D7100 will only use the center ~67% of it. So while the lens would still be very wide, what the D7100 can see through it won't be very wide, just moderately wide.</p>

<p> </p>

Both F100 and F4 have interchangible focusing screens. I believe for the F4 there are split prism focusing screens to

make manual focus fairly quick and certain. I don't think there are split prism screens designed for the F100, but those for

the F4 or F5 can be modified to fit.

With split prism focusing screen, MF is a lot easier and surer than people who have only tried it on a DSLR might think, particularly with a real MF era lens that has the right drag and no slop in the manual focus ring.

I need to make color adjustments to Nikon d810's raw files to get better daylight colors. The raw file looks too muddy for direct sunlight

images. Is there a way to save the adjustment as a profile in light room, so I don't have to do it manually for every shot?

Also, is there a way to display the color component histograms individually, instead of all stacked on top of each other?

Thanks?

<p>I really don't think people would stop buying Nikon's 600mm f/4 if it were the same size, optically just as good, cost just as much, but had no ED, super ED, fluoride, or Nano crystal.<br /> <br /> The reason why those things are there is because a 600mm f/4 can't be just as big and just as good without them.<br>

<br /> Admittedly, not every one of these features, like the Nanocrystal coating, would make a visible difference to every photographer's style of photography. But if it does make a little difference in some applications, and someone paste the image of the difference side by side, I bet 80% of those to whose photographic style it would make difference would want it too. But the key here the feature does indeed make a physical difference under certain circumstances. It's not all hot air.<br>

<br /> Is there some slight marketing effect in putting these acronyms in gold lettering on a lens? Probably, but I think the pricier the lens, the less the effect of the gold lettering. The person who effective pays $150 for a kit lens for the first time might be impressed by the esoteric "ED" in gold letters just behind the narrow ungrippable plastic focus ring, but ultimately the vast majority of the people who pay $12K for a lens, or just $2K for a lens, judges their purchases by the image they produce, not the gold lettering.<br /> </p>

<p> </p>

<p>The magnitude of the actual difference that super ED and fluoride elements would make likely increases with aperture. So while a f/5.6 lens may be passable without them, a f/2.8 or f/4 lens would likely need them much more to remain competitive.<br>

If it was pure marketing slogan, Nikon could have shouted those slogans with the 200-500 as well, without making the lens physically any different.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I don’t get how the 200-500 it’s so reasonably priced compared to Nikons other new lenses.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This really isn't the first time Nikon has released Nikon branded telephoto zoom lenses that are clearly aimed to be price competitive with Sigma and Tamron. Look at the 70-300 lenses Nikon released from about 2000 to 2006, prior to the current VR version.<br /><br /><br>

Making a accessible super-telephoto zoom is also a pretty good marketing move in itself. This lens is position at a point where it is accessible to any semi-serious amateur, and it appears to be quite good enough for respectable professional work. So it probably would entice many semi-serious amateur birders or other wildlife shooters to either move to Nikon, or stay with Nikon.</p>

<p>The three points in favor of 500f/4P are:<br /> 1. It's f/4. <br /> 2. AF indicator still works if you put a 2X teleconverter (with appropriate modification) on it.<br /> 3. It is already fully depreciated. If you take good care of it, you can probably sell it for as much as you paid for it should you decide to shift the funds to a fancier lens in the future.<br>

<br /> But functionality wise, I agree 200-500 is overall a superior, as well as cheaper, contender, especially considering the VR and the ability to frame the image with zoom. But if you pay new prices, which would likely be the only option for at some time, expect to lose 30%-40% when you resell it.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Hmm, not at this scale. I asked about out of focus high lights because Canon's diffractive optic lenses have a reputation of rendering out of focus highlights very harshly, with sharp edges on the outside and concentric rings on the inside.<br>

I don't see it in your images. Maybe it's not an unavoidable result of using diffraction rings, and Nikon's implementation is better.</p>