p.1 #1Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
It looks like Sony is eliminating Nikon's monopoly on smaller, lighter wildlife lenses with their equivalents announced today. I am stunned by how aggressive Sony's pricing is. It makes me wonder if Sony is releasing these as loss leaders to steal wildlife photographers away from Nikon.
Do you foresee Nikon reducing the prices of the Z 400mm f/4.5 ($800 more expensive) and Z 600mm f/6.3 ($1500 more expensive)? I personally think Nikon must drastically reduce their prices if they hope to retain and attract new wildlife shooters.
p.1 #3Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
Savviest wrote:
It looks like Sony is eliminating Nikon's monopoly on smaller, lighter wildlife lenses with their equivalents announced today. I am stunned by how aggressive Sony's pricing is. It makes me wonder if Sony is releasing these as loss leaders to steal wildlife photographers away from Nikon.
Do you foresee Nikon reducing the prices of the Z 400mm f/4.5 ($800 more expensive) and Z 600mm f/6.3 ($1500 more expensive)? I personally think Nikon must drastically reduce their prices if they hope to retain and attract new wildlife shooters.
Price and performance typically align, but not always. The 600 6.3 GM has looked a bit underwhelming in YouTube reviews and example photos. 400mm looks better. Plenty of comparisons will pop up when these are in released to public, but to your point I doubt most future buyers will even know if there is a difference in performance if there was one.
p.1 #4Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
I think it's a bit more complicated. First, Nikon often does larger sales on their premium lenses, so the price difference if you wait for a sale won't be as large, probably about 1/2 of what it currently is. Second, to really take advantage of these lenses on Sony, you need a 6k+ camera. You can often find a Z8 new for $3,500 or less. So if you're buying into a system, or you need a wildlife camera, Nikon can still have a 2k+ advantage.
Sep 15, 2026 at 05:32 PM
RoamingScott
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p.1 #5Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
Ding ding ding.
DWOfPaul wrote:
I think it's a bit more complicated. First, Nikon often does larger sales on their premium lenses, so the price difference if you wait for a sale won't be as large, probably about 1/2 of what it currently is. Second, to really take advantage of these lenses on Sony, you need a 6k+ camera. You can often find a Z8 new for $3,500 or less. So if you're buying into a system, or you need a wildlife camera, Nikon can still have a 2k+ advantage.
p.1 #6Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
Savviest wrote:
It looks like Sony is eliminating Nikon's monopoly on smaller, lighter wildlife lenses with their equivalents announced today. I am stunned by how aggressive Sony's pricing is. It makes me wonder if Sony is releasing these as loss leaders to steal wildlife photographers away from Nikon.
Do you foresee Nikon reducing the prices of the Z 400mm f/4.5 ($800 more expensive) and Z 600mm f/6.3 ($1500 more expensive)? I personally think Nikon must drastically reduce their prices if they hope to retain and attract new wildlife shooters.
NO. We don't want Nikon competing to the bottom. People can buy the still quite good 180-600/6.3 if they are wanting cheaper teles.
If you look at the block design for the Sony 600/6.3 it is similar to the SOny 600/4 GM, but with substitution of cheaper components. No FL glass is used. No fancy Extremely aspherics. I think they screwed up by making the 600/6.3 2kg like the better 400/4.5 of the same weight. The 600/6.3 PF has a more sophisticated optical design with fewer elements.
I would have rather paid $$$ for a more expensive 600/5.6 with very high IQ.
p.1 #7Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
EB-1 wrote: Savviest wroteIt looks like Sony is eliminating Nikon's monopoly on smaller, lighter wildlife lenses with their equivalents announced today. I am stunned by how aggressive Sony's pricing is. It makes me wonder if Sony is releasing these as loss leaders to steal wildlife photographers away from Nikon.
Do you foresee Nikon reducing the prices of the Z 400mm f/4.5 ($800 more expensive) and Z 600mm f/6.3 ($1500 more expensive)? I personally think Nikon must drastically reduce their prices if they hope to retain and attract new wildlife shooters.NO. We don't want Nikon competing to the bottom. People can buy the still quite good 180-600/6.3 if they are wanting cheaper teles.
If you look at the block design for the Sony 600/6.3 it is similar to the SOny 600/4 GM, but with substitution of cheaper components. No FL glass is used. No fancy Extremely aspherics. I think they screwed up by making the 600/6.3 2kg like the better 400/4.5 of the same weight. The 600/6.3 PF has a more sophisticated optical design with fewer elements.
I would have rather paid $$$ for a more expensive 600/5.6 with very high IQ.
I am interested to see just how Sony pulled off their 600mm f/6.3. Did they use phase phresnel glass elements like Nikon? Or did Sony simple use lighter/cheaper plastic elements?
p.1 #8Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
It's like most of the modern fast tele primes, 400/2.8 and 600/4 for example, that have one full-diameter element at the front and many smaller/lighter elements further back. Presumably the casing is made of rather flimsy materials also.
p.1 #9Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
Wait so Sony cheaped out on their premiere flagship badged lenses? What's the point of them being GM's then? EB-1 wrote:
It's like most of the modern fast tele primes, 400/2.8 and 600/4 for example, that have one full-diameter element at the front and many smaller/lighter elements further back. Presumably the casing is made of rather flimsy materials also.
p.1 #10Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
In theory the Sony 600mm f6.3 could be a bit better optically since it uses a traditional lens design, so without a PF element it shouldn’t have the loss of contrast or the strange bokeh that some times happens with PF lenses.
Technically the Sony 400mm f4.5 and Sony 600mm f6.3 have very similar MTF curves, but early reports seam to favor the Sony 400mm f4.5. So we are going to need some more real world testing to understand how the Nikon and Sony 600mm f6.3 lenses stack up against each other in the real world.
p.1 #12Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
Native lenses will work fine on any camera, Sony on Sony or Nikkor on Nikon. It's not like some oddball 3rd party lens.
The a7RVI will show the IQ limitations more than the low-res fast a9 III.
p.1 #13Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
Nikon needs to wake up and get going, the differentiator it had in terms of wildlife lens options is slowly diminishing. Sony did a better implementation in terms of costs and weight, the quality of the 400mm looks spot on. It will be interesting to see the internal design of these lenses.
p.1 #14Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
Ninon’s 600mm f6.3 and it’s 400mm f/4.5 have been available at or below these prices used, refurbished, or via rebate for a long time. And it is also true that you can access Nikon’s top AF for much cheaper than Sony’s.
p.1 #15Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
As someone ear lobe deep into Z mount I see 0 reason to switch systems for either of these two lenses. groob wrote:
Ninon’s 600mm f6.3 and it’s 400mm f/4.5 have been available at or below these prices used, refurbished, or via rebate for a long time. And it is also true that you can access Nikon’s top AF for much cheaper than Sony’s.
p.1 #16Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
I went through some Flickr images, someone posted on Sony forum, for both lenses.
I don't know how representative those images are, but my 400f4.5 smokes them easily.
Those are kind of comparable what I get with 1.4xTC.
p.1 #17Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
tabishshaikh wrote:
Nikon needs to wake up and get going, the differentiator it had in terms of wildlife lens options is slowly diminishing. Sony did a better implementation in terms of costs and weight, the quality of the 400mm looks spot on. It will be interesting to see the internal design of these lenses.
I'd like to see more zooms. If you must crop and enlarge the advantage of a prime over the zoom is often gone.
If you are always at the long end then your lens is too short or you are too far. Higher-res cameras would help in that area, but Nikon is stuck on 2017 FX resolution.
p.1 #18Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
Lee Saxon wrote: DWOfPaul wroteto really take advantage of these lenses on Sony, you need a 6k+ camera.What limitations are you referring to here? Just the 120 vs 60 AF calculations per second?
The AF limitations and the effective 10 FPS limitation for action, since Sony's mechanical shutters are limited to 10fps and they don't have a stacked sensor camera sub 6k.
Sep 16, 2026 at 10:22 AM
RoamingScott
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p.1 #19Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
DWOfPaul wrote: Lee Saxon wroteDWOfPaul wroteto really take advantage of these lenses on Sony, you need a 6k+ camera.What limitations are you referring to here? Just the 120 vs 60 AF calculations per second?they don't have a stacked sensor camera sub 6k.
The A7RVI is fully stacked for $4500, FYI. It's just 5x slower readout wise than the "real" ones.
p.1 #20Prices of the Z 600mm f/6.3 PF and Z 400mm f/4.5 after Sony's announcement.
Well, the good news for all of us Nikon fans is that they’re developing some new firmware! They’re also developing some new cinema lenses!
That said, it’s getting harder and harder to argue against taking a serious look at Sony.
Their lens lineup is simply far more versatile than what Nikon currently offers, especially now that Sony has closed the gap on lightweight telephotos.
Cinema bodies, photo bodies, global shutter sensors, stacked action sensors, stacked high-resolution sensors, non stacked options and a massive selection of third-party lenses.
Sony has built out an incredibly complete system. Nikon still makes some fantastic cameras, but the overall ecosystem gap is becoming pretty hard to ignore.
My guess is that Nikon’s shift toward more cinema and video-focused bodies and lenses is a big part of why things feel so held up on the traditional photo side right now. There is clearly a lot of development happening, but it looks like much of that attention is being directed toward building out the video ecosystem and Red integration.