Feeling the Wantsies

Feeling the urge for a 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR zoom for my Nikon 1 cameras. Thing is, I would only buy one from a seller with a known rep for testing their used gear and an unconditional return policy (for me this means KEH or Roberts/Used Photo Pro.)

They'll turn up at both those sellers in the $300-$500 range reasonably frequently, but sell fast, and so far I've failed to strike when the iron was hot.

Lenses for the Nikon 1 system tend to have fragile diaphragms and as a bonus, the super telephoto 70-300 has a ribbon cable that will eventually fail with enough extensions and retractions between the collapsed "storage/travel" position and the extended "in use" position (most folks who happily use them seem to just keep them extended all the time and turn the camera on and off with the body switch). Since the whole Nikon 1 series is long discontinued, when the ribbon cable fails, the lens is bricked.

But the allure of a sharp, bright 189-210mm equivalent zoom lens is powerful.

It seems that having compact super telephotos is one of the big appeals of small sensor photography, and I'm surprised Nikon didn't go after that harder early in the Nikon 1 system's lifespan.

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