I have visited Tokyo for more then 20 trips and I got my D200 and VR 18-200 from Tokyo. First thing you should do is to check up lowest price as your reference from here
www.kakaku.com This website is in Japanese but I think you could figure out to the lens price that you want and counter check with lowest Sin Price. Jap said that this is the lowest possible price but I got my VR 18/200 slightly cheaper then the lowest price in kakaku (About S$1100). Do print out the price reference and write down your target price before you visit Japan (Do your homework). Then visit Akihabara (The electronics city of Toyko, like SLS of Sin) to comb all the shops there. All price negotiable and if not negotiable, skip that shop. Forget about the duty free stuff as the final lowest price (Must be as least the same or lower then kakaku) is more important to you. The last time I was there, I took 4hrs to comb all the shops within 300m radius from Akihabara station. I was lucky to get a VR18/200 at a cheaper price then kakaku as there is only 1x stock in the whole Akihabara.
Some other advises:
>Pay cash as they charge extra for credit card payment,
>Never change money in the whole Japan as the exchange rate plus commission is horrible,
>There is no warranty issue for Nikor lens bought in Japan as it comes with international warranty,
>Bring along your passport as they can give you duty free discount on the spot for you. Just visit the shop there and say "Nikor VR18/200, cash, passport, how much is the lowest price?"
>There is warranty problem for Camera body bought in Japan as it will comes with local Japan warranty and Nikon Singapore will charge you for any repair. In another way, some people will argue that Japanese set has better QC grade. So, its up to you to weight the pros and cons of buying camera stuff in Japan,
>forget about buying accessories such as memory card, filter, tripot, camera bags, flash, batteries......from Japan. I think Sin has significantly more accessories choice and priced more competitive then Japan.
Good luck and happy shopping.
Kakaku
