So much for lenses holding value...
So much for lenses holding value...
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Simpo Two

Original Poster:

91,486 posts

289 months

Saturday 16th January 2016
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Nikon 17-55mm f2.8.

A great lens, cost new about £1,000.

Shocked to see they're only going for about £350 on eBay.

dogbucket

1,254 posts

225 months

Sunday 17th January 2016
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That is indeed a lens that seems to buck the trend for holding its value. I think several factors go against it, the design is getting on a bit and it was very expensive to start with. Plus pro build DX only glass is a limited market.

If it makes you feel any better I bought a broken one recently for £200 thinking this was a bargain. But it then cost over £300 to get it repaired, so in view of the current values this didn't work out at all.

Still a nicer lens to use compared to the canon 17-55 which I also loved but was let down by the build quality. It is a shame the Nikon softens slightly at the long end compared to the excellent resolution wide open in the rest of the range, but this is generally not noticeable unless you pixel peak test charts.

Best of luck selling it.

Simpo Two

Original Poster:

91,486 posts

289 months

Sunday 17th January 2016
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I got it for weddings but now the investment has been made and it's paid for itself many times, I'm happy to keep it as a general purpose lens.

I looked about when I saw that the D500 came with a 16-80mm lens, but it's only f4 at the long end. And £600 is too much for for holidsy snaps. I'm back to being an amateur!

ukaskew

10,642 posts

245 months

Sunday 17th January 2016
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If there is such a thing as a niche Nikon lens I would think a £1k pro DX lens would be it. Stick to FX glass and you can't go too far wrong, I've bought, used and sold the 80-200mm 2.8 AFS twice and sold it for profit both times, and there is always a buoyant market for the primes.

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

278 months

Monday 18th January 2016
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It was hideously overpriced at the time. even canons 17-55f2.8IS zoom was a lot cheaper let alone the competent 3rd party options.

Coupled with the release of nikon full frame pro bodies who wants to be the pro shooting crop sensor cameras when nikon themselves ignored that market for years? Plus pro crop bodies are kind of limited to things like sports and wildlife now.

Simpo Two

Original Poster:

91,486 posts

289 months

Monday 18th January 2016
quotequote all
It's the DX equivalent of the 24-70mm f2.8. Nothing else fitted the bill.

I don't think DX is the poor relation of FX; it has advantages.

RobDickinson

31,343 posts

278 months

Monday 18th January 2016
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Pro dx has been ignored since the d300..

Everyone had fx bodied now

ExPat2B

2,159 posts

224 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
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It might go up when people get their D500's delivered. Personally I have snapped up a sub 300 pound uk D7100 on ebay as my backup body due to D500 hype =-) my 24-70 f2.8 works amazingly well on it, even if it is just a trifle heavy.

jayemm89

4,421 posts

154 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
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I think everyone always saw crop sensors as a stop-gap, and some still do, hence the caution when buying APS/DX glass.

A lot of lenses are certainly holding their value, I would make a tidy profit if I sold my Zeiss cine lenses, but they're a different kettle of fish

Simpo Two

Original Poster:

91,486 posts

289 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
quotequote all
jayemm89 said:
I think everyone always saw crop sensors as a stop-gap, and some still do, hence the caution when buying APS/DX glass.
I think I'm right in saying that when digital SLRs started, there was no 'full frame' aka 35mm because the cost was prohibitive.

It's interesting to reflect that when '35mm' was invented it was seen as a toy format, and real men used full frame - 10"x8" smile

DX makes your lenses go 50% further (IMHO more important than than the relative wide-angle disdvantage), and the noise advantage that FX had - 'big pixels' - seems to have been effectively extinguished by advances in technology.

I suspect that many people who move to FX do so because 'It's better innit'. Personally I don't wish to have a 300mm f2.8 round my neck all day!

jayemm89

4,421 posts

154 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
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Full frame DSLRs have existed in general circulation since the early 00s - Kodak in fact made quite a few. They had semi-protoype digital cameras from the early 1990s, which I believe were full frame but I am having a hard time confirming the specs.

Simpo Two

Original Poster:

91,486 posts

289 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
quotequote all
jayemm89 said:
Full frame DSLRs have existed in general circulation since the early 00s - Kodak in fact made quite a few.
This one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak_DCS_Pro_14n

Not really 'general circulation' though.

jayemm89

4,421 posts

154 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
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Simpo Two said:
Not really 'general circulation' though.
No, but we were hardly drowned in serious digital cameras of much other description at the time. The Canon 1Ds came out soon after.

Simpo Two

Original Poster:

91,486 posts

289 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
quotequote all
Crop sensor models started the mass uptake of DSLRs - the price had to be <£999 to get sales.

I bought a D70 in 2004 (£999!) and took it to NZ in 2005/6. It was noticeable that whilst DSLRs were starting to take over in the UK, in NZ the cameras I saw were almost all film. So I guess 2006 was the real swing from SLR to DSLR - and they were crop sensor models.

jayemm89

4,421 posts

154 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
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The amateur and prosumer market was certainly swayed by the better-priced crop sensor models.

In the very early days, I believe it was journalists who went to digital first - the speed of processing offered by digital cameras greatly outweighed their many other drawbacks.

Full frame cameras were also of great appeal to people who had been traditionally using medium format. Wedding and portrait photographers, etc.... For those guys the high cost of investment was quickly offset by the much lower running costs.

Simpo Two

Original Poster:

91,486 posts

289 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
quotequote all
jayemm89 said:
In the very early days, I believe it was journalists who went to digital first - the speed of processing offered by digital cameras greatly outweighed their many other drawbacks.
Yes, 4Mp IIRC - but ample for a newspaper.

jayemm89 said:
Full frame cameras were also of great appeal to people who had been traditionally using medium format. Wedding and portrait photographers, etc.... For those guys the high cost of investment was quickly offset by the much lower running costs.
It's true that if your kit makes money you can afford to invest - but early DSLRs had very poor resolution compared to MF film. That said, an entire generation of wedding togs became extinct as the digital revolution took over.

jayemm89

4,421 posts

154 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
quotequote all
Yup, such is progress. I currently own a 35mm movie camera which is now worth all of about 1% it's original purchase price. Works great too.

Simpo Two

Original Poster:

91,486 posts

289 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
quotequote all
I hate to think of the running costs!

jayemm89

4,421 posts

154 months

Tuesday 19th January 2016
quotequote all
Simpo Two said:
I hate to think of the running costs!
Oh it's quite reasonable. About £1 a second!!

missingman

24 posts

123 months

Wednesday 20th January 2016
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My feeling is that FX wins over DX every single time unless weight is a serious issue.

I base this on two schools of thought:

1 - FX 'goes wider'. A sweeping statement but if it's not in the shot, it never will be. You can crop FX but you sure as hell can add stuff that wasn't there. I think the concept that DX gives you a 'free' longer lens couldn't be more wrong.

2 - Value. I concur with the 80-200mm comment above. FX glass holds its value better. I don't currently own a lens that I bought new, I own well chosen lenses that would sell today for the same price that I bought them at. In fact, my Nikon 85mm f1.8 AF-D would sell for more than I paid, as would my 50mm f1.4 AF-S