Tuesday 03/22/05
I've been jonesing for a new digital camera ever since Minolta introduced their Maxxum 7D last fall. It's time and past for me to step up to an SLR. But the Minolta offering was overpriced year-old technology, even though it did have the cool in-body anti-share feature that stabilizes all your lenses, not just the special IS or VR ones. Minolta did recently begin offering a $200 rebate on the D7, which means I could get it for around $1300 from a reputable dealer (body only).
But, sadly, it looks like Minolta simply cannot get their build quality together; I've read far too many reports of misaligned image sensors and poor focusing. Worse, for the price, you only get 6 megapixels, versus 8 for Canon's comparably-priced offering. And while a lot of people seem to like the large number of fiddly knobs on Minolta cameras, I must admit I never really did get used to the controls on my Dimage A1. To this day I still am not 100% sure which of the camera's icons go with which metering mode. There's also the fact that I had to send the camera back once and while it's much better now, it still has some annoying flaws, which are shared to some extent by the 7D. The Canon Powershot G2 I had before the Minolta, however, I really liked.
Only one thing held me back: the lack of a spot metering mode. I rarely use that mode on my A1, but I don't want to need it and not have it, you know? Well, last week I read that you can fake spot metering pretty well with the * button on the Rebel, and I can't imagine the 20D is any different. If it is, well, I'll suffer. In every other way this camera seems like exactly what I want. You don't get Minolta's patented anti-shake, true, but having a more usable 3200 ISO makes up for that a bit, without buying any special lenses.
So I've ordered a Canon EOS 20D body, the vertical grip, and a couple of lenses (Canon 50mm 2.5 macro and Sigma 18-125mm zoom). I briefly considered the new Digital Rebel XT, which has nearly equivalent resolution and a similar feature set, but decided that the extra cost of the 20D was worth it for the improved performance, build, and usability. Plus, the 20D has been in production long enough to get all the kinks worked out.
You'd think that it'd be a piece of cake to just order all four items at a good price from one store. Not the case. Everywhere I turned, I was faced with one of my four items out of stock, or else with something being significantly more expensive than the same item somewhere else. Dell had a decent promotion going (10% off) but then took nearly all of it back with the sales tax. While my strategy is generally to order as many things as possible from the same place to minimize shipping costs, in the end, I ended up ordering the four items from four different places:
- Bought the camera body from PC Connection. Their $1349 price matched that of B&H or Adorama and was within $50 of that advertised by the more reputable Brooklyn dealers (which I still consider somewhat dubious). Plus they offered free shipping, no sales tax, and a $40 camera bag free after rebate.
- The Sigma 18-125mm lens ($270) I ordered from Ritz Camera. (Actually, this is the Quantaray version -- same lens, just a different name.) This'll be my walking-around lens. Ritz offered free shipping, no sales tax, and no-interest no-payments financing for 90 days.
- The vertical grip I ordered from Computers4Sure. They don't have it in stock, but their price was $150, which is $50 less than retail and $20 better than most other discounters, and I don't need it right this minute anyway. What's interesting is that TechDepot and Computers4Sure are the same store. If you go in through TechDepot, you'll pay $11 to ship that grip. If you go in through Computers4Sure, they're currently running a free shipping promotion. No sales tax either, of course.
- Last but not least, the Canon 50mm macro lens I ordered from J&R Music World for $234. Had to pay $4.95 shipping on it, but it still beat B&H's price for the grey market version of the lens (not the US version) by a buck when you take shipping into account. Again, no sales tax.
Now, on top of that, every single store I ordered from participates in eBates.com. So I made sure I went to each store using the appropriate link from eBates.com, and I'll get 3% back from Computers4Sure, 4% back from Ritz, 2% back from PC Connection, and 2% back from J&R, for a grand total of $47 in rebates. When you throw in the free camera bag, I saved about $150 compared to just ordering everything from B&H, richly rewarding me for the hour I spent shopping around and bringing me in well under my self-imposed budget.
The camera and the zoom lens are slated to arrive Friday. Woot!
Monday 03/07/05
Wallace & Gromit is my prediction for next year's Academy Award winner for best animated feature (via) ... Dr. Demento radio archive with 1275 shows, 230 GB (via)
No, I'm not quite done with the redesign yet. Been pretty busy with work, we're rolling out a new version of the TDX server. But it's getting there.
