"Window of Opportunity" and The Nikon D200

So, why the upgrade in such a (relatively) short amount of time? Here-in lies many of the issues when applying upgrading technology to frugality. It's all about taking advantage of relatively small "windows of opportunity" and jumping through them when that opportunity presents itself.

Putting aside the technical reasons (I'll get to that later) as to why I'd want to upgrade a perfectly good camera that had just proven itself on an extended trip where it shot over 1800 images, let look at the fundamental realities of market, price, and product life cycles.

You should all know by now that I rarely buy new on most anything, but especially on items that have a short life cycle (relatively speaking), like electronics. And in today's camera world, the digital SLR is rapidly moving from the 1960-70, piece of mechanical (with some electronics) art that represented an "investment", which was expected to last decades (if not a life-time) with periodic adjustment etc. (much like buying and owning a Mercedes or Rolls Royce). Instead, they are headed the other direction, given it's increasing electronic nature more toward computers. You know, "Moore's Law", dropping prices, and $300 laptops being sold at Walmart. Don't believe me, look at the dramatically shortened product replacement cycles of the top manufacturers (Nikon & Canon), even for their "top-of-the-line" professional cameras! It's INSANE! It took Nikon around 4 years or so to come out with the titular replacement for the D100 in the D200, whereas the product that replaced that camera, the D300 came out in half the time! What this does, is to constantly create obsolescence before the camera ever breaks! My D200's shutter is rated at around 150,000 acuations.....it has a little over 4000 on it.

So, what this does for guys like me who love the newest and greatest, but can't afford, or refuse to pay retail (the D200 was $1800, 3 years ago), is to create those much sought-after "windows of opportunity". There are always those, who are willing to, or simple because a few thousand dollars is irrelevent to them, to pay the current going rate for the latest and greatest. So, about 3 years ago, somebody paid somewhere around $1800 for my D200 and about $250 for the MB-D200 battery/vertical grip for it, shot few images on it in 3 years than I did on my D70 in the last 2 months. And ultimately sold it to the person who I bought it from, for (probably) somewhat less than the $580 that I paid for it!

The tricky part to playing this game is this. Kenny Rogers! Meaning; knowing "when to hold them, and when to fold them". So how do you do that? I always keep an eye on my equipment. No; I don't mean my actual equipment, but what "my equipment" is doing in the market place, while at the same time any equipment that I might be interested in upgrading to. So, while I was seeing that the asking price on my D70 on Craig's List was still around the $300-400 range, that I had originally paid (a good thing), the selling price on eBay was dropping to somewhere in the $200-300 range (a bad thing). Usually, eBay's prices are a little bit ahead of where Craig's List is, so that meant that if I wanted to get my money back out of the D70, I had a little bit of time to get my camera sold (summer is a great time for cameras for obvious reason). The second half of that equation is that I was seeing the price of D200s dropping like the proverbial rock. The selling price was inconsistent over a wide range, meaning that it was the beginning of a major adjustment on market price, so I should be able to find something at a really good price....if I was patient. The price on them seemed to run anywhere from $800 all the way down to around 600 or so.

If you saw what I did with the D70 in terms of selling it as a package (from the last post), you'll know that I ended up spending a little more on it ($90 in the form of 2 good, but inexpensive lenses) and sold it for $550. This turn out to be only $130 less (minus the $90) than what I was able to get the D200 for, complete with the vertical battery/grip! In fact the cash outlay will end up being less than that when you take into consideration that I still have the "after-market" battery/grip from the D70, an extra battery, and IR remote yet to sell off! So, how the heck did I get that D200 so cheap!?! The whole story is enough for another post, but the short story is: look for poorly written ads that discourage other buyers from bidding.

In the end, it's not just about upgrading to a camera with "professional" build quality and features as well as a significant upgrade in resolution. But it's really more that the OPPORTUNITY presented itself due to a convergence of market conditions (introduction of the D300 and D700) causing a bunch of people to dump perfectly good (4000 shutter acuations!!!) D200s for a ridiculous price while at the same time still allowing me to sell my D70 for a good price. The reality is that for a "Frugal Propellerhead", if those conditions had not of present themselves, I wouldn't have upgraded and still be a happy owner of a D70.