Nikon just kicked off one of their biggest lens sales of the year! Some of the discounts look really appealing – others, not so much. I’ll break it down lens-by-lens with my recommendations below.
I should mention in advance that not all of these sales are completely new; a few of them have been going on for at least a month, but I’ve gathered them all here for convenience. Most of the following sales will end on September 17th. If you decide to buy one of these lenses, you can support our work at Photography Life through the links to B&H below.
- Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S $200 off (was $2500, now $2300): I consider this one of the best lenses on the market from any company, period. I wish Nikon had gone with the full $300 discount that they did for some of the other f/2.8 zooms, though. A $200 sale is still solid, just nothing head-turning.
- Nikon Z 14-30mm f/4 S $200 off (was $1350, now $1150): A really nice discount on a great wide-angle Z lens. Considering that this lens was already pretty inexpensive, this is one of the best deals of Nikon’s sales this month. I’d strongly consider the 14-30mm f/4 if you’re on a budget. At half the price of the 14-24mm f/2.8, it has about 90% of the performance.
- Nikon Z 17-28mm f/2.8 $200 off (was $1200, now $1000): Also a great deal. This lens matches the Nikon Z 14-30mm f/4 S in performance, with a wider maximum aperture but a narrower zoom range. I can’t help but wish we got closer to Tamron pricing on a Tamron-designed lens, but it’s still really good in price-vs-performance.
- Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S $300 off (was $2400, now $2100): This is as much as Nikon is ever discounts their 24-70mm f/2.8 lenses, and of course, this is an outstanding lens. I expect to see a similar sale around Black Friday in a few months, but otherwise, now’s the time to get it.
- Nikon Z 28-75mm f/2.8 $300 off (was $1200, now $900): In terms of percentage, this sale is Nikon’s biggest discount of September. This Tamron-designed lens is a really solid performer, and the $300 discount is tied for the biggest sale we’ve ever seen on it.
- Nikon Z 35mm f/1.8 S $150 off (was $850, now $700): A surprising $150 discount instead of $100. This lens is probably feeling some pressure from all of Nikon’s other midrange primes, but it still stands as one of the best that Nikon’s ever made. The new $700 price is an excellent deal.
- Nikon Z 50mm f/1.2 S $200 off (was $2100, now $1900): It’s Nikon’s biggest, brightest 50mm lens, and it’s never gone for more than $200 off. That said, you’re still paying a lot (both in price and in size) for f/1.2, considering that the 50mm f/1.8 S lens below is already such a sky-high performer.
- Nikon Z 50mm f/1.8 S $100 off (was $630, now $530): Nikon hasn’t put as many of their prime lenses on sale this time, but at least the 50mm f/1.8 S gets its usual $100 discount. It’s still one of the sharpest Nikon Z lenses we’ve ever tested, and by percentage, the $100 sale isn’t bad for a $630 lens.
- Nikon Z MC 50mm f/2.8 Macro $50 off (was $650, now $600): Just $50 off isn’t enough for me to recommend this sale, unless you were about to buy the lens anyway.
- Nikon Z 70-180mm f/2.8 $150 off (was $1250, now $1100): I’m pretty sure this is the first time that we’ve seen Nikon’s relatively new 70-180mm f/2.8 go on sale. And while $150 off isn’t bad in terms of percentage, it’s the weakest discount among Nikon’s Tamron-designed budget trio of f/2.8 zooms. I expect it to see steeper discounts in the future.
- Nikon Z 70-200mm f/2.8 S $300 off (was $2700, now $2400): It’s one of the best zoom lenses we’ve ever tested, and the $300 discount is as high of a sale as you’ll ever see. That said, as with the Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S, I expect the same discount to show up for Black Friday. So, you’ll probably have another bite at the apple in a few months.
- Nikon Z 85mm f/1.2 S $200 off (was $2800, now $2600): A first-time sale! (I think.) It would have been nice to see such an expensive lens get a $250 or $300 discount, but considering that the 85mm f/1.2 is only about seven months old, I didn’t expect a discount at all.
- Nikon Z 85mm f/1.8 S $100 off (was $800, now $700): It’s one of the best choices for a portrait lens on the Z system, especially for the price. It gets Nikon’s usual $100-off discount, which is solid but nothing surprising.
- Nikon Z 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 S $200 off (was $2700, now $2500): This lens is usually neck-and-neck with the Z 70-200mm f/2.8 S in price. However, with $200 off rather than $300 off, that’s no longer the case. It’s still a great lens, and $200 is $200, but this sale should have been a bit higher.
- Nikon Z MC 105mm f/2.8 S Macro: $100 off (was $1050, now $950): One of Nikon’s best lenses ever, and one of just a handful of lenses that we’ve rated as a perfect 5.0/5.0. I’ll take any discount on it, and $100 off isn’t bad. But $150 off would have made more sense for a $1050 lens.
- Nikon Z 400mm f/4.5 S $250 off (was $3250, now $3000): This is the most expensive lens that Nikon has put on sale this time around. It would have been nice to see a $300 sale like we did for some of the others, but at $250 off, it’s still a great buy.
And if you live in some countries in Europe, there is a general 10% off deal on lots of Nikon gear, both F-mount and Z-mount, which you can find here.
A lot of Nikon’s lenses didn’t go on sale this time, especially their wider primes, even though we’ve seen most of them go on sale in the past. Nikon is probably saving those deals for their holiday sales in a few months. None of the supertelephoto exotics went on sale, either, but that’s nothing new – I don’t expect they will any time soon.
All told, the four best discounts this month are on the Nikon Z 14-30mm f/4 S, Nikon Z 17-28mm f/2.8, Nikon Z 28-75mm f/2.8, and Nikon Z 35mm f/1.8. I’d also give an honorable mention to the $300 sales on the 24-70mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm f/2.8, although those lenses are more expensive in the first place, and the $300 discount is not unheard of.
The worst sale this time is $50 off the Z MC 50mm f/2.8, and I’m not thrilled with the $150-off sale on the Z 70-180mm f/2.8 either. It’s not that those are bad lenses, just that the sale prices should have been at least $50 cheaper in both cases. In fact, I expect that future sales on the 70-180mm f/2.8 will be more than $150 off, and the newness of the lens is the only reason we aren’t seeing steeper discounts yet.
I hope this helped put the September discounts into perspective! Of course, the real “best sale” is always on the lens you were about to buy anyway… and, by the same token, the worst sale is always on the lens you just bought at full price :)
That’s a nice rainbow shot. The Crop on front page is best though 😁
Thanks, RJ! That was one of the most remarkable sunsets I’ve ever seen :)
Almost all of F-mount lenses, that remain on the market, are also on sale right now. Some have quite significant discounts looking at the retail prices of the post-pandemic times. Pity, you have not mentioned that at all – not everybody reading your portal have completely abandoned DSLRs.
Like a lot of sites, PL has become more about clicks than useful information which is not to say they don’t strive to inform; it’s just that new gear gets more clicks.
Hi Pat, in this case, none of Nikon’s F-mount gear is part of this US-based sale. That said, I’m always open to suggestions. Are there any areas that you would like us to cover in our articles, which we haven’t spent enough time on so far?
If you want us to write more Nikon DSLR content, that’s something I’d like to do – I know a lot of our readers shoot with DSLRs. I struggle with specific article ideas because we’ve written so extensively about Nikon DSLRs in the past and covered all the main topics. But if there’s anything we missed, you or anyone else reading this should let me know. I’ll give it consideration and write it if possible.
I didn’t know what Marcin was referring to about F mount lenses either. From my point of view, ALL F mount lenses are on sale relative to the newer mirrorless versions.
Since I don’t come here that often, maybe you’ve already addressed some of these:
I can’t speak for everyone, but include more articles that don’t mention gear or that include a mixture of gear (MILC, DSLR, SLR, etc.) I think you know someone who could write an article or two about large format! ;-)
How about articles that discuss the differences between the formats WITHOUT keeping score? Maybe talk about how to mitigate the advantages of one format over another. Have guest articles by people using DSLRs, film cameras of various types. Guest articles of various kinds of photography, again with a balance of MILC, DSLR, and film.
Another well known site includes reviews of older gear; there are a lot of gaps in your reviews.
Thanks for the ideas! We can probably squeeze in some reviews of older equipment, and more film stuff if people aren’t bored by it – I love that sort of thing myself, but I recognize that it’s not quite cutting-edge :)
Right now, mirrorless pays the bills. And people don’t wind up on those articles randomly; based on the numbers, it’s clear that lots of readers visit Photography Life specifically for our mirrorless lens reviews and comparisons.
Most of the remaining content you see on Photography Life is what I post out of love – it costs much more than it will ever generate in revenue. But I simply can’t bring myself to stop writing those articles or stop requesting them from other writers.
I wouldn’t say PL is more about clicks, which is something I would have said even before joining PL as a writer. It’s one of the few websites in fact that attempts to avoid clickbait and fluff.
That being said, it’s true that gear is popular, but that is what people want these days on average, I think.
I’ve come here occassionally over the past several years and have seen a change in direction. Perhaps “clicks” isn’t the motivation, but it has trended toward the same kind of content as other sites like that. Having said that, I do appreciate the articles dealing with actual photography vs. gear.
Just a philosophical remark, but if you truly do appreciate ‘actual photography’, make sure to go out and comment and engage on those articles. Just speaking as a writer and Youtuber as well, content on the art of photography rather than gear simply gets much less engagement. Even 1 additional comment can help so don’t forget to support what you find valuable.
Excellent point and I always feel bad about the lack of comments on those articles. Honestly, the name of the site is “Photography Life”, but the majority of articles aren’t about my photography life. Even those that look promising don’t apply to me. I don’t specialize in any one genre so I think you guys have me covered for bird photography articles :-) Maybe it’s a result of the current group of writers, but the majority of the ‘actual photography’ articles are about wildlife and birds, more specifically. How about cultures, travel photography, architecture, et al.? And these don’t have to be about a tour of someplace most of us will never see, they could be about hometowns or city cultures and explorations.
I will definitely try to engage more, but I usually get downvotes (see my original comment). Maybe I’m just too opinionated. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pat wrote “Maybe I’m just too opinionated.”
He he 😃 If you were too opinionated, Pat, then you wouldn’t have started your sentence with “Maybe” !
Like you, many of my comments get downvoted, even some of those where all I’ve written is the title and URL of another Photography Life article.
Voting buttons are especially useful to narcissists, who are comically unaware of the simple fact that, in reality, the main purpose of the buttons is to serve as placebo buttons — giving the pusher an illusion of control over their victim(s):
QUOTE
A placebo button is a push-button or other control that appears to have functionality but has no physical effect when pressed. Such buttons can appear to work, by lighting up or otherwise reacting, which rewards the user by giving them an illusion of control.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/…ebo_button
Hi Pete, PL didn’t used to have thumbs up and thumbs down votes until a new comment format was adopted a few years back. Personally, I don’t think they belong here and I’d like to see them gone. We are not supposed to be voting on eachother’s comments in that anonymous way. Replies were always good enough for people to agree or disagree, but even better, enhance another person’s comment. In my opinion this blog is not a debate society, but a place where people can feel safe telling their photography stories.
I am sorry to say it, but I do think that this website has become more about clicks. PL has changed. For every real photography story, we have to endure dozens of gear articles, and even worse, then we have to endure gear comparison articles. All this may satisfy the gearheads, but the rest of us just sigh and pass over them. Do we really need to know if the top left side of the upper right hand corner of one lens is sharper than the same spot on another? Does anybody buy lenses that way? Gearheads, please don’t jump on me. I am just expressing one point of view.
That is an interesting comment, Elaine. However, there are some important points you have to remember. There is always has got to be some aspect of self-sustainability in endeavours such as this. It is analogous to some photographers complaining that their cameras now have video. What they don’t realize is that without video, those cameras would be even more expensive or not exist at all.
Similarly, without gear articles (that a lot of people love, including myself), the “real photography” stories (as you’ve defined them) simply wouldn’t exist. So I think it would be nice if you had a bit more grace and less disdain towards them.
Well Jason, I’ve been a member at PL since 2014, far longer than you have. I know well the kind of content we had then versus the kind of content we have now. This website existed just fine with more content essays and fewer gear articles. In fact the readership we had then who commented was far greater and more varied than what we have now. I used to enjoy gear articles when there was a reasonable number of them. So please don’t condescend to me or lecture me about what I said. Frankly, you just don’t have the PL ‘cred’ to do so.
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever gotten was, in short, you’re frustrated because you care. You clearly care about Photography Life, Elaine. So does Jason. And I care about it – it hurts me to see comments lamenting that we’ve changed – even more so when I agree with those comments.
Jason is absolutely right that if you want us to do more “real photography” articles, please click on the ones we already write and comment on them. (This is a general comment, not directed at you as I know you do comment on those articles.) As things are, creativity-related articles get a tiny fraction of the views, comments, and revenue of our gear-related posts. I spend an average of $300 on those articles and earn back about $20 in ad revenue on them. No wonder so few photography websites post inspirational content any more. It’s a labor of love to post them and not something I will ever stop – but the gear articles on new mirrorless equipment essentially subsidize them. The photography and blogging worlds have changed dramatically since 2014, and what was profitable then would force us to shut down in a few months today.
I like a lot of the suggestions in this thread. We haven’t given Nikon DSLRs enough love over the past few years because I’ve been stretched impossibly thin. But with our lens testing studio firing on all cylinders right now, I can at least test some of those older AF-D and maybe even manual focus Nikon lenses that we never properly reviewed – along with all the Sony and Canon lenses that we never tested at all. Since I’ll mostly be shooting landscapes when I test those lenses, our readers will also see a return of our landscape-related articles so that we’re not only focusing on wildlife photography.
I hope that’s not TMI. I try to be transparent about these things. I’m always open to questions on why we made certain decisions and what’s next for Photography Life. Right now, I’m excited for the site’s future, but that doesn’t mean it will look like the past.
The question I then have, Spencer, is did Nasim start this website for love, or for income? I am not naive. I know it has to pay. But beware. You have seen what happens to websites that are overwhelmingly about gear. Gear comes and goes. Who remembers half the gear you write about? Don’t get me wrong, I like gear articles too. I would have been lost without the D810 and D850 settings articles. I like reading abut which are the best tripods or printers. But you have let the horse escape from the paddock with all these freaking lens reviews. Some are good and necessary. But every lens that comes on the market by every brand? That is an impossible task, and I don’t wonder that you are overwhelmed. Please just remember that Nasim and you attracted your millions of readers by having excellent content. You would be wise not to forget that.
Landscape is definitely under-represented. A lot of bird articles…
Hi Elaine,
I started reading Nasim’s articles in 2009 on his previous website The Mansurovs.
I retrieved the following article from the Wayback Machine:
QUOTE
Mansurovs Has Become Photography Life!
by Bob Vishneski
September 28, 2012
A Different Beginning
Initially, Mansurovs.com was started as a small blog, where Nasim and Lola Mansurov shared their personal and commercial photography, recipes and occasional photography articles. They had no idea that it would grow to become one of the top photography websites, with over 1.5 million visitors a month. Although all recipes and most other personal articles were moved/deleted over time to keep the site relevant to photography, the name of the site and the domain were preserved.
…
“Raison D’être”
… Our mission is to:
“Build a photography site that provides readers of all abilities with high quality product reviews, news, buying advice, tips and techniques, and other value-added, entertaining material that enriches their photography hobby or career”
web.archive.org/web/2…raphy-life
Hi Pete, I think I found PL when I wanted to learn about aperture or ISO (or both), in my early days as a serious photographer. Googling those subjects brought me to PL. I was instantly hooked and PL became my only photography website for the mountains of information that I wanted to become familiar with. I suspect this was as early as 2011, when I got my D300s – my first camera that contained non-auto settings that I needed to learn all about. My first DSLR was the D70, which was fully auto, but even then I had curiosity about how things worked. So I too have been here through most of PL’s life.
Business 101:
Pander to what your clients (can be persuaded to) want; not what they actually need.
Getting that the wrong way round will almost certainly result in failure for most vendors of products, services, or information.
100%
Well, Pat. I certainly did not downvote you, but I believe if you kept your comments on the articles you liked about what you liked about them, you might not get any downvotes.
Yes, Pat, as Jason suggests: never give feedback; give only on-topic platitudes thereby saving people from the tedium of logging in to their account just to downvote us and put us in our proper place on the naughty step.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/…parenting)
I shall stick to using satire, but I’m sorely tempted to start deploying an amped up version of it, which I call satire by stealth. Basically, it involves praising the commentators who are abjectly wrong; and pointing out each and every tiny flaw in the cogent arguments that are used against them. I didn’t come up with this idea by myself, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve observed it in the comments on Photography Life since the introduction of the voting buttons.
Actually, you guys are very cordial. For some reason, though, you have a VERY loyal readership that will not tolerate anything they perceive as criticism, negative OR positive.
I’m not seeing any rebates or specific markdowns for F gear, other than a general discount in Europe right now. Is that what you’re referring to?
Yes. I thought it was not region-specific.
Hi Marcin, I was confused by your comment because I scoured B&H and don’t see any sales on Nikon F-mount lenses. If there were any, I would have added them.
But I think Alex figured out the answer, you’re in Europe? Those promotions are separate from this September Bild Expo sale that B&H is running, with different prices and products on sale. That said, I just added a link to that promotion in this article for completeness.
Ah, sorry, my bad. I thought that was one of those global sale actions. Yes, the Nikon is running a general 10% sale on F-mount lenses in Europe at the moment. So that is clear now.
No worries – I’ll try to keep a closer eye on deals in Europe and elsewhere, certainly not all of our audience is US based!