Sunday 8 May 2011

Nikon D700 Prices !

What the hell!

Nikon D700
 (the full frame camera in the body like the D300) is now fetching prices of £1900!!! (new)
Lets see what amazon gives us here





ooh ouch saying £1850 just now.

This is over 200-300 pounds more than what it was when it first came out!!!

People are now selling their Nikon D700
s for the same price as they bought them 3 years ago!  how mental is that!

What the reason

2 things
The exchange rate with japan sucks
and
the earthquake crisis in japan has screwed up the supply, now very few shops are getting any D700 bodies and as demand is still around the same they are now putting up the prices.

So makes you have to think.

If you buy a quality dslr (not an amateur or even prosumer)  you could have potentially used it for 3 years and sell it for say £100 less than what you bought it for.   Kinda makes the idea of renting equipment a bit of a waste of time.

I have a wedding coming up this friday and I was going to be renting the Nikon D700
 for the day, but for me to pick it up on the Friday morning, I would have to return it at 5pm that day otherwise I would have it for the weekend as the shop would be closed and I would in turn get charged for 2 days.  
1 day rental is around £90 from Calumet (along with having to stump up the £1900 deposit)  and for two days it was going to be around £170, (tiny discount).  Now if you are shooting a wedding for a mate and you have given mates rates of £500 (not including album design or supply) then that is a big whack out of any profit you may have been made. In the end after travel, taxes, parking, food, and insurance, you are looking at a Mates rate wedding getting you only about £200, for 10 hours shooting(and travel) and 20 hours editing (and delivery).  Thats back go minimum wage.

Now you know why photographers cost £1000+ per shoot. And remember the photos are the one thing you can really keep from your wedding, flowers, dresses, cakes, lighting, bands, hotels, honeymoon etc all disappear and photos are the keepers.

So the question is what do you do
do you buy a second hand D700 which is almost the same price as what it was when it first came out
or do you buy a new nikon D700 which will cost you around 300more than what it was when it first came out and then try and sell it once the upgrade nikon D800 comes out later this year (December 2011 abouts) 

Me?

Well I have opted for buying a second hand Nikon D700
. I have managed to get one for £1500 and then postage from a camera company in London. Chesick camera company  http://chiswickcameras.co.uk/
and Fingers crossed it gets here on Tuesday so I have a chance to test it out before the wedding on Friday.

I have no idea how many "actuations" it has, but I really don't care. My Nikon D300 has shot over 80,000 shots and is going strong. That roughly works out to  100 photos every single day I have owned it.   Which of course I have not done that but some days I have shot 1000, and a wedding could easily be 2000 photos in a single day (depending on number of guests and size of event) 


At the wedding I will still be taking my older camera as back up  the Fuji s5pro, as although the ISO is shockingly low compared to the Nikon D700  its dynamic range is still amazing and trumps all but the NIkon D3x


So my advice,  if you see an amazing camera for a good price buy it, as it may in the end cost you almost nothing for using it a number of years!  save the money, Dont rent unless you have to.










Link to Getting There with Photography: By Dom Bower


















7 comments:

  1. That is so silly Dom. When I bought my SB700 from a small local camera shop about 6 weeks ago, they had a used D700 body which they were selling for £1000.00 which I was tempted to buy but as I only bought my D300s last August I decided that if I was going to spend another grand it would be better spent on glass. Think I may pop in there tomorrow to see if thy still have it and to try and do a bit of bargining. wish me luck.

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  2. By the way Dom for camera and lens rental Camerarent looks quite good, not sure how they compare to the place you use but they do weekend deals plus they deliver and collect.

    http://www.camerent.co.uk/camera_hire/

    Also for used gear MPB look good they are doing a D700 for £1329.00 at the moment

    http://www.mpbphotographic.co.uk/used-equipment/used-digital-slr-cameras/used-nikon-digital-slr-cameras/nikon-d700-1/

    I nearly bought a 70-200mm 2.8 from them with them taking my old D50 as px, but whilst we were sorting out a px price for my D50 via email someone else bought the lens :(

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  3. Also check this website www.lensesforhire.co.uk
    I have rented the 70-200 last year from them. Cheep, no deposit required ,everything ok. It cost me around 60£ and they don't count the day you get it thru the post and the day you post it back. I got the lens on thursday and send it back on a monday. Brilliant!!

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  4. Russ, If you can get it for 1000 i say go for it!!!

    thanks for the links will go check them

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  5. Before you buy the camera, check the shutter count Dom. After 150000 photos the shutter is no longer reliable. But yes you can fix it if the shutter breaks.

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  6. 150,000… I have had my d300 and used it super hard for 4 years now and it is only at 80,000 and no issues, the D700 i got I just checked, only done 10,000.
    its a baby!

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  7. Hey Dom,

    Great News on getting a D700. It is a fantastic camera, and it really sounds like you picked a bargain! I managed to get mine late last year, for 1600ish new. So glad i did. I know the tragedy in Japan is affecting prices, but i didn't expect them to rise this much!

    I did have my eye on the Nikon 105mm macro VR, that one has gone from £500 to over £900 on amazon in the the last 6 weeks! It's crazy!

    Who knows how bad it could get...

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