Using DX lenses on FX body (for Nikon)

[Bennymiata]

I agree with you Mongo.
I'd wait a month or three for things to settle down before I bought a hot new item like the D800.

The prices will come down rapidly after a few months of it being on sale, after all the "must have now" guys have had their fill, and then you can go and look and feel it over too, as well as read a number of honest test reports on it.

[I @ M]

I agree with you Mongo.
I'd wait a month or three for things to settle down before I bought a hot new item like the D800.

The prices will come down rapidly after a few months of it being on sale, after all the "must have now" guys have had their fill, and then you can go and look and feel it over too, as well as read a number of honest test reports on it.

Somehow I get the feeling that neither an over abundance of supply or "rapidly" dropping prices will occur with this body especially if the history of the D700 is anything to go by. It has historically kept high retail prices and been in demand all of its 4 year life span.

Sure there are plenty of reasons that people may want to wait a while after the introduction of a new model, possible QC issues, favourable reviews and general ownership experiences related by early takers but many of the "must have guys" are doing a smart thing in my opinion.
They will be out getting the images with the camera and those who make money from those images will scarcely feel the extra thinness in their wallet if both the camera and themselves perform to expectations.

[mongo]

George and Andrew, some reasonable points made by both of you. Mongo is leaning George's way generally for many of his stated reasons. However, Mongo is not holding off for price reduction reasons nor does he think that the D800 will necessarily be reduced in price (at least not for some time). Mongo simply does not wish to be caught up in the hype and even less in the absurd notion of reaching an "agreement" with retailers which is really no "agreement" at all. At least not while the fundamentals of delivery time and price are not present in the so called "agreement".

[rodw]

I am one of those who have put a deposit on a D800 at what I think is a hot price thqat I doubt will be repeated. I put my Fx lens kit together before the Tsunami hit last year. The week the tsunami hit I could have bought a D700 for about $2200 and was very tempted to do so because I knew stock would be hard to get. Sure enough, the price went up to $2700 and used ones were getting better than new prices. I think you will find that there is a lot of pent up demand for this camera and there will be a new videographer segment lining up to buy the D800. I would also expect that Nikon will be hurting after the Japanese tsunami and the Thailand floods and will have no desire to offer discounted prices until the D800 has a competitor in its market niche. This all leads me to believe that in the face of limited supply, the camera will mostly be on back order so the retailers won't have much incentive to cut their margins on this product compared with one in their inventory that they have laid out their own money for!

I may be off the mark, but my prediction will be that prices will rise closer to Nikon Australia's RRP of $3800 or so over the next 12 months for Aussie warrantied stock. After a 12 month tsunami induced wait, I have put an order in for one at this stage before the product is available. Time will tell.

[I @ M]

I may be off the mark, but my prediction will be that prices will rise closer to Nikon Australia's RRP of $3800 or so over the next 12 months for Aussie warrantied stock.

I think that the street price for Aussie warranted stock has been set even before the camera hits said streets. ECS have had that price up for 4 days now.

[fillum]

Mongo, at 18mm the 18-200 barely clears the corners of a DX sensor - with a screw-on filter attached you get significant vignetting. Of course the effectiveness at 18mm depends really on what crop format you want. For example shorter + wider (ie more panoramic) or taller + narrower (ie more square) crops from the FX sensor might work for you.

Mongo is encouraged to try the 18-200 on FX based on what you have said

Actually mongo, the point I was trying to make was that for general shooting you probably won't get much more width than the DX frame - my comments about the crop probably just confused the issue.

Just to back up a bit...

In the past I've had some hard vignetting @18mm in the corners of a DX sensor when using screw-on filters. (I can't double-check at the moment as my 18-200 is overseas). This leads me to assume that the image circle at 18mm only just covers the corners of the DX frame. Although this assumption seems reasonable to me, I could be completely wrong.

But let's say for the moment that my assumption is correct. Although you can get some extra width (without vignetting) by cropping the top and bottom of the frame, you still won't get close to FX width. I've knocked up a quick diagram - note the pale blue line as a possible wider crop and the loss of image at the top and bottom of the frame.


FX_cover.JPG


Hope this helps...(and hope it makes sense )



Cheers.

[mongo]

many thanks Fillum for going to this trouble. It seems the best way is to just put an 18-200 on an FX camera and see what one can achieve. Mongo was hoping there would be enough AP members out there with this combination and could try it in just minutes. No luck so far but again thanks for your assistance - much appreciated .