How to kick your loyal customers in the unmentionables.

The table below shows the new and current used prices for Nikon’s ‘serious’ bodies. I don’t use the word ‘pro’ as I am clueless what that means. Maybe it means paying full retail for something that is soon worthless?

We all know that depreciation with digital bodies is rapid, but imagine you bought a Nikon D3x in January, 2012 and are now selling it to get the yet higher definition of the D800, after deciding that’s something you cannot live without. Well, your $8,000 ‘investment’ just crashed to $2,800. That’s worse than Apple stock recently.

Maybe Nikon has some deep reason to financially emasculate buyers of its costlier hardware, because they must have known when introducing the D800 that the prices of the D700 and D3/D3x would crash. Quite why they had to price the D800 at a bargain basement $3,000 when at $4,000 they would have sold everyone they can make beats me, but they sure did a number on owners of the earlier bodies. Same for the D600. They could sell that body all day long for $3,000, like the D700 before it, and it would still be cheaper than the competitor from Canon with a like pixel count.

I take a more benign view of the situation as I’m not a ‘pro’, as defined above. As long as Nikon wants to cannibalize its top end offerings and trash resale values, I’m a happy camper. I can pick up a D2x for 14 cents on the dollar with a remaining life of 175,000 clicks. Or a D3x, with a whopping pixel count full frame sensor for 35 cents on the dollar with 275,000 clicks remaining. Works for me. Can I tell the difference from the D800 in an 80″ print? Nope. And I get a nice integrated hand grip free.

Discontinued March, 2012, just 9 months ago and already down to 35 cents on the dollar and falling.

Whether my technique is up to that big sensor, well that’s another question entirely.