On July 30th Nikon announced the introduction of  a series of new (well, upgrades actually) DSLR cameras as well as some new lenses. In the DSLR range these include an upgrade of the D300 branded as the D300S. Where lenses are concerned they upgraded some popular ones like the 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G and the 70-200mm f/2.8G with the new VR II technology. So far this is only good news. But as you would expect prices just above the old ones, Nikon decided to give them price tags (in Europe) which are well above that. Apart from that, price differences between Europe and the USA are enormous. Examples:

D300S body: EUR 1949 (In the USA: USD 1800 which is about  EUR 1281)
18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR II: EUR 949 (In the USA: USD 850 which is about EUR 605)
70-200 mm F/2.8G ED VR II: EUR 2699 (In the USA: USD 2400 which is about EUR 1708)
So the D300S is about 52% more expensive and both lenses are about 58% more expensive in Europe as in the USA.

Question arises what the heck is Nikon after? Do they think people in Europe have more money? I don’t know, but I do know that 1. The price-difference between the old models and the new is way to big and 2. Nobody with a bit of brains is going to pay that amount of money for those products, unless you’ve got loads of money and don’t care. My advise: try to get the old models now as they will have great price-tags on them now or wait until prices of the new models have dropped considerably. Bad Nikon, bad....