wmurnahan Loc: Bloomington IN

I think it might be a size thing. As we get older it gets harder to hold up and with cameras like the Sony RX10 line giving fantastic results with 1" sensors, the big lens are sold while you might hang on to a full frame with a smaller lens.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

PS, USA is suffering the highest inflation by a large margin.

jlg1000 Loc: Uruguay / South America

It depends on shooting stiles and what's the current trend.
My everyday lens is a 24-240 Whis is always attached to my A7C. I also have a 50mm F1.8 and a 400mm F8 mirror lens (very short and light)

I'm not buying a 500 or 600 mm primary because I don't like to carry a something that weights and looks like a howitzer gun.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

You wonder why Russia thinks it has to conquer Ukraine. Isn't Russia large enough already? I guess for some men, there's no such thing as too big.

MountainDave

I think it is all about mirrorless. Case in point: Canon's excellent and popular EF 100-400L IS II. When I bought mine years ago, there were few used ones available, and they sold for near new prices, so I bought a new one. Its mirrorless replacement, the RF 100-500L, has been wildly popular. Dealers have had a hard time keeping it in stock even though Canon raised the price. B&H has more reviews for this lens than any other RF lens. You can bet most buyers already owned the 100-400. There are now a lot of used ones for sale and the prices are down even though Canon raised the new price. I presume the same thing is happening with other brands and bringing 3rd party lenses into the market as well.

Real Nikon Lover Loc: Simi Valley, CA

Take a look at the 1929 Stock market crash, the graphs, social patterns and dominoes are all lined up. This won't be a recession because the way things are set up with hedge funds, there stands a small number of people who are poised to make billions by the contraction (some call it collapse). Diverse portfolios are good. You can't eat money or precious metals. If there is no food to eat then what. Oh yeah how about all those food distribution plant fires? Chip factory fire? Coincidence? I think not. Lastly what about water? Lets shut down the water flow by killing the grid, halting dam flow, or redirection from traditional use. Its nice to be optimistic... but reality can slap you in the @$$ when you least expect it.

BTW... my Nikon 200-500 is a great lens for reaching out and seeing things from a different perspective. Kind of like life.

pendennis

My main "tripod-mounted" lens is the Nikkor 200-500 f/5.6, and its a superb performer. I have hand held it, and gotten some great photos hand-held.

A few months back, I decided I wanted another lens I could put in my bag (the 200-500 is carried in a separate hard case), and I read up on the newer 80-400 Nikkor. My experience with the previous version of this lens was not great, and I got rid of it after being a bit disappointed with its sharpness at 400mm (maybe just a bad copy?). I found a used one in mint condition that even came with an RRS lens collar and foot. The VR works superbly, and even though I lose 100mm at the long end, I've been able to overcome that with selective and judicious cropping.

MrPhotog

I’m wondering if the increase in megapixels in sensors is having any influence.

Why carry a heavy lens on a 24 mp camera when you can carry one 50% smaller and use it on a 60 mp camera? Then crop and enlarge a portion of the image.

As sensors have improved year by year, A 24 mp section cropped from a 60 mp sensor seems to be just as good as any other 24 mp image.

For example. Leica’s Q2 uses a 28 mm lens, which has a considerably wider view than most ‘normal’ lenses, then uses cropped sections to roughly double or triple the magnification, and thus emulate a 50 mm or 70 mm lens. Are photographers doing the same technique with medium telephotos? If so, a compact prime 135 mm lens could be used as a 250 mm or 400 mm longer lens. And, of course, depending on the extent of the cropping, one can emulate any intermediate focal length. Crop in post processing instead of zoom ( or change lenses) in camera.

The maximum aperture of the lens is not affected by this, though image quality suffers as the cropping gets tighter. Yet, that improves every year with new sensors, as well.

So will tighter cropping, or extreme cropping, become a replacement for longer, heavier, slower, and more expensive lenses as sensors keep improving?

alberio Loc: Casa Grande AZ

I really love my older Canon 70-200 f4 L and the Canon 400mm F5.6 L, both non IS, and with the basic adapter for my Canon R6 they are still my two most used lenses.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

Adapters are very useful but they are added equipment. And if one has mixed mounts, lenses that mount to an adapter and directly to the body, one has to really keep their wits about themselves when removing one type of lens and mounting a different type of lens. Once one has more than one type of lens mount, they need to buy an adapter for every lens that needs one. Or remember every time they remove a lens whether or not they need to remove the adapter too. In times of quick changes, one can easily "forget" to remove the adapter or "forget" to leave the adapter on. This is one of the reasons I now have all micro 4/3rds lenses now instead of a mix of 4/3rds / adapter and micro 4/3rds lenses.

Ollieboy

We're still talking cameras, right? 🤔

BebuLamar

The problem with long lenses is that I can't afford them.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

If one gets confused about an adapter they have a much bigger problem than the adapter.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

One theory is that photographers are — as a demographic — an older group, less willing to lug a lot of heavy glass through the jungle to find a unicorn.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Seems that way here at least.