Whoops! Bad Man, Bad Man

 

(Images not to scale)

So I got it a bit wrong in the previous post. The Ricoh GR (28mm-e ƒ/2.8 lens, APS-C sensor) at $596.95 comes with the GV-1 external viewfinder, normally a $229 extra. The Nikon Coolpix A (28mm-e ƒ/2.8 lens, APS-C sensor) at $499.95 seemed cheaper, but when you added the matching Nikon DF-Cp1 external finder to your cart, the price of the viewfinder magically dropped from $396.95 to $96.95....making the total for the camera and the viewfinder...$596.90, or within one nickel of the Ricoh's price.

So the Coolpix A and the Ricoh GR were still neck-and-neck on Cyber Monday, the only difference being that you could order the Nikon without the viewfinder if you wanted to...and a SanDisk 32GB card thrown in with the Ricoh means it was still a slightly better deal.

Thanks to Manish Bansal, Schmuell, and Yonatan Katznelson for pointing that out.

Too late now though, as the Coolpix A is back to its regular $1,099.95 price as of midnight. I guess I already said that I think it costs too much at that price. Same as it ever was. If you wanted one, I hope you snagged it on Cyber Monday.

[UPDATE: As of this writing, Amazon still has 20 Coolpix A's at $500. They're not allowing me to link it directly—what, too good a deal?—so to see it, go to Amazon.com and search "NikonCoolpix A." They want $300 for the viewfinder, however.

Thanks to Paddy C for this. —MJ]

And one I forgot to mention...hard to believe that it was only three years ago that we proclaimed the Sony NEX-7 to be the "Most Desirable Camera on the Planet." Currently, you can buy the NEX-7's (and NEX-6's) successor, the A6000, for a mere $448. That's $200 off, and a really, really nice price for a whole lot of camera. And you can get it in both black and silver. No idea how long that price is going to last.

(As always with Sony, watch it with the lenses...make sure the lenses you want exist, and that you can afford them. I invested in a Zeiss 24mm for my NEX-6, but it's waaay overpriced. The lenses for this camera are an utter hodgepodge, as if Sony just completely gave up. You can build a good lens kit for it, but it can be far from a simple task. [My other lens for the NEX-6 is the quirky but optically beautiful (IMHO) Sigma 60mm DN.] I think one of the reasons people liked the NEX-7 so much is that we assumed Sony was going to do the reasonable thing and provide a lens line for the NEX series; now we know better. It had no such plans. There wasn't even a meeting.)

Mike
(Thanks to Manish, Schmuell, and Yonatan)

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

John Robison: "A finder for a supposed price of $396.95! How can Nikon, or any camera maker keep a straight face? Please don't tell me that a few lenses fixed in a metal tube has to cost this much. What! Did they make only 10 of them?

"I'm sorry, is this Nikon bashing? No, not a bit of it. It seems like every camera maker, desperate with profits for cameras razor thin, have decided to make it up in accessories."

Mike replies: And what else is new? One of the big headaches for cameramakers in the 1980s was that people started buying point-and-shoots instead of SLRs, and thus stopped needing to buy all the SLR accessories. It was as if McDonald's had to stop selling fries and fountain drinks (everything else McDonald's sells is basically at cost, but the profit margin on fries and fountain drinks is huge). Previously, if you bought an SLR, you might buy not only extra lenses, but a flash, a case, a bag, even a strap—all high markup items.

A viewfinder is a lens, basically, without the moving parts. I checked the going prices for Zeiss ZI viewfinders at B&H—they really are beautiful to look through, by the way—$375, $419, $435, and $419 for the 21mm, 25mm, 15mm, and 18mm lenses respectively. The Leica 21mm finder goes for $759. Fortunately, if you just need an optical viewfinder, Voigtländer makes a lineup of them. There are a couple of outliers—a zoom viewfinder and one for a 12mm lens are pretty pricey—but mostly the prices range from $169 to $229. Check swap meets, too—hotshoe OVFs are the kind of thing that tend to collect in photo enthusiasts' closets.

Comments

[-et-]

FWIW, for my NEX-6 I have the Sigma 30mm f:2.8 (which completely turned around my previously poor opinion of Sigma), the Sony 50mm f:1.8 stabilized lens, and the Sony 16mm f:2.8 lens with the 0.75 UWA converter. I know that some people criticize the latter lens, but I have been quite satisfied with it.

With no intention to make you cry - I also have the Zeiss 24mm f:1.8, but only because I was able to get it used in LN condition for $450. Otherwise, since my photography is strictly recreational I would not have been willing to spend the money necessary to get the Zeiss new.

Ironically, I find that I use the Sigma 30mm more than the Zeiss on the NEX-6, because it is smaller and lighter and delivers images that I find satisfying. (As an engineer I have always liked the saying, "Better is the enemy of Good Enough", and the Sigma is significantly more than just good enough, IMO.)

- Tom -

[Torsten Bronger]

About the NEX lenses ... I think this complaint used to be valid but it is not anymore. There's always room for improvement but the current lens lineup is hardly an excuse for sub-optimal pictures or an emptied purse.

[Bryan Willman]

The above illustrates one of the great strengths of Leica-M, Canon-Eos, Nikon-F variants:

Lots and lots of lenses. Already made. In various price ranges and qualities.

Fuji has history that suggests they can eventually match that, or match it well enough.

Some others have some proving to do....

[Steve Smith]

Are these just optical viewfinders? They seem like crazy prices.

[Tom Swoboda]

I've never trusted Sony to follow through on anything which is why I won't recommend their cameras when people ask me what to buy. I did slip up once and bought a NEX-7 but came to my senses and returned it a few days later.

[Sarge]

If the GR's reduced price lasts for the remainder of the year and into the next, would that mean its successor is about to be released? Even at the reduced GR price, I still don't feel compelled to upgrade. I'm still happy with my GRD IV, which has a faster and lens and image stabilization, as back-up to my aging GXR-M. Both are still sufficient for my needs.

Unfortunately, I've exhausted my camera gear budget for the year just before Black Friday. I spent it on lenses, support gear, and filters which are much more likely to improve my capabilities than a new camera.

I had difficulty accessing the BH site over the weekend till now. Hopefully, a significant portion of the traffic went via Mike's links.

[Andrew C E]

it's strange that B&H has put the price back up for the Coolpix A. My local brick and mortar camera store, Kerrisdale Cameras, stocks it regularly at $599 CDN now. I went in to buy a Ricoh GR a while a go and walked out with a Coolpix A when I saw that the GR was now $200 more than the A.

[Paddy C]

I really wanted a Coolpix A when they came out but was not going to pay the price. I gave up waiting for a reasonable (IMO) drop and have moved on — no room in the budget to get one yesterday.

Note that it is still available at that price from Amazon.

The lenses for this camera are an utter hodgepodge, as if Sony just completely gave up.

That's a great way to put it. Perfect really. No plan was ever evident and then they all got distracted by the FE mount. Incredible value for the A6000. But, alas, still no budget room for me.

[BH]

You can check to see if Voigtlander makes a viewfinder with frame lines for the focal length you need. I paid about $200 for a 21/25mm viewfinder, and it was the new metal version, not the plastic. Build quality is very nice.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

I use a Voightlander 28mm, originally purchased for use with a Leica, on my GR. It seems to work well enough when I feel I need such a finder. (BTW, I absolutely loathe external finders of all types.)

[Stan B.]

One can get 28mm viewfinders on eBay for under $25- hardly beautiful, but even the most expensive are none the more accurate...

[Nicholas Condon]

I am amused by the fact that even the "cheap" Voightlander finders are in the same price range as that Sigma 60 mm.

[Manish]

The Coolpix A did not sell out even at the crazy price of $500. How worse it could get for Nikon!