The Nikon Black Friday flyer deals have been leaked. These deals start November 23rd.
The big news is the return of the body+grip values for the D500, D750, and D810:
- D500 + grip: US$1799; add a 16-80mm f/2.8-4: US$2399
- D750 + grip: US$1499; add a 24-120mm f/4: US$1999
- D810 + grip: US$2799; add a 24-120mm f/4: US$3299
Yeah, a bit odd.
The D500 price is a return to last year's sale price, basically. It was a great value then, and it's a great value now. Indeed, given how good that camera is, it's by far the best bargain in Nikon's lineup at those prices. You might even be able to do what I did last year and get your dealer to buy back the grip if you're not going to use it. Even getting US$100 back for the grip means you're getting a D500 body at US$1699. What product at that price point delivers the bang for the buck the D500 does? Adding the lens if you need it nets you a few extra dollars of savings, and it's a very good lens.
But look at that D750. With the kit lens you're still under US$2000. That's a move by Nikon to get some full frame dollars back from Sony, and it's also a hint that the D750 is nearing end of life, and pricing the 24-120mm at an effective US$500 would seem to indicate to me that the lens may be nearing end of life, too. Either that or an awful lot of them have been piling up in warehouses.
The D810 price, given the D750 price, is the other odd bit. It's not much of a discount, especially considering the price of a new D850 and how much more it brings to the plate. At the D810 pricing, my guess is that there aren't a lot left and it won't be lingering around in the lineup for too long.
While we're on bodies, let's go through the rest of the DSLR line:
- D3400 — US$399 for body and AF-P kit lens, or an extra US$100 adds the 70-300mm AF-P DX non-VR, a travel bag, and some online courses. That's a pretty phenomenal price for that camera and those lenses, though you really want the VR version of the telephoto. The image quality, focus speed, and other performance is actually really quite good, and the body is as small and light as it gets in Nikon world. Too bad Nikon spent so much time crippling it and not building out a line of DX primes.
- D5600 — US$649 for body only, add US$100 for the AF-P kit lens. Not particularly a bargain. This camera is a tweener that sells mostly on a couple of features added to the D3400 specs. And the price differential isn't worth it, as the image quality is basically the same.
- D7200 — US$799 body only and US$999 for a dual lens kit (18-55 and 70-300mm AF-P non-VR), a bag, and some online classes. Nikon seems to want to move this baby. It's the other "everything you need" box for this Christmas from Nikon. Of course, Nikon doesn't tell you that they've never updated the firmware of the D7200 to be totally compatible with the 70-300mm AF-P; it has this little time-out problem.
- D7500 — US$1549 for the body with the 18-140mm lens. Pricing doesn't excite me. The D7500 is ripe for additional discounting in the not-too-distant future is my guess.
- D850 and D5 — no discounts
We did get two lenses added to the instant rebates:
- 50mm f/1.8G gets a US$40 discount to US$179. I'm very meh about this. None of Nikon's normal lenses excite me. None of them really live up to levels of the other primes Nikon has done recently, and all of them need a remake. Don't be tempted.
- 70-200mm f/2.8E gets a US$200 discount to US$2599. Absolutely great lens. Best 70-200mm made by anyone as far as I can tell. So those times when it gets a little discount like that are the times you want to wait for to snap up your copy.
These discounts are subject to change and as I write this have no end date. It's possible that NikonUSA will just leave this program in place through Christmas, it's possible that they'll tweak it or add to it. Nikon's currently in a world where they have to "make their numbers." So it's all going to depend upon how many people buy versus how many people NikonUSA expected to buy.
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