Geek/artist buying guide Part 1: B&H Photo/Video
Where to buy your next camera or camcorder:
B&H Photo/Video
Every now and then someone asks me for advice on buying a camera or some other device or equipment for making art. I usually don’t flat out recommend one brand or product line over any other, because I think that different companies make better products depending on the specific needs of any particular consumer. So for some people, I might recommend a nice Canon Digital Rebel, where for others I might suggest a Panasonic FZ-50 or something else. It all depends on what they are going to use it for.
On the other hand, not all retailers are created equal. Buying cameras and camcorders can be a harrowing experience. You can go to your local Best Buy (or your local equivalent electronics shop), of course, and just slap down a huge pile of money on whatever device that the poorly informed, 19-year-old salesperson is trying to pass off on you. They’ll try to convince you to buy an extended warranty for your device that you will almost certainly never use, and that might not even coven your purchase if the thing does manage to break. I would not recommend this approach. You’re too prone to spend twice as much money as you should, and end up with a device you don’t really even like that much.
You can go to CNET (http://www.cnet.com) and look at some nice reviews of comparable products of the sort you want. The reviews might be a little skewed by the fact that CNET gets its sample devices donated by the manufacturer, and has to be kinda nice in what it says lest the manufacturer decide to stop sending samples. Nevertheless, it’s a good starting point. What’s more, once you choose the item you want, you can use CNET Shopper to hunt through all the various online stores that carry it, and find the very lowest price available.
Now this is where you might get into trouble. Some online stores are scams. Some of them sell “gray market” material, meaning that the camera you buy from them will be come in unofficial packaging, without a manual, and without a manufacturer’s warranty. If there is a problem with it, getting the store to replace it or refund your money could prove virtually impossible.
Other less seemly outfits will pull a “bait and switch” on you. You’ll visit their website, see the item you want for about 2/3 the cost you saw it at Best Buy, and you’ll click the buy now button and give them your credit card number. Instead of getting an e-mail with your tracking number the next day, as you would expect, you get a phone call. The person on the other end tells you that your order is being processed, and then asks you if you would like to add any accessories to it. The try to sell you a five-year extended warranty, extra batteries, a bag, straps, cleaning gear, etc…all at what sounds like reasonable prices. If you agree, well…fine, your order will ship, and hopefully it won’t be gray market. If you politely decline and ask that they just ship your camera, they may tell you then and there that they are afraid it isn’t in stock and it will be on back-order for a couple of weeks. The couple of weeks will stretch to months, at which point you will realize that the reason the price for the item was so low was that they needed to get you to buy all that extra stuff to turn any profit. In other words, your camera will be on backorder until you buy some accessories. The bait you with the low price, then switch to a different deal where you spend enough money to make it worth their while.
Reading all this, you might be tempted to just go to Best Buy. It’s close, there’s no wait, and you know you’re going to get the real version of the camera or camcorder you want, instead of some questionable gray-market one. Well…don’t do it. I have the solution for you.
It’s called B&H Photo Video. It’s a great big store in New York City, comparable to Samy’s Camera here in L.A. Where it really beats Samy’s out is in price. B&H will often appear in CNET searches as the lowest or second lowest price for any particular photographic or video device. Most of the competitors with such bargains are too good to be true, but B&H is the real deal. They service so many professionals and sell so much product that they can afford to keep their prices down in the basement without sacrificing efficiency and quality of service.
I’ve personally bought a number of items from B&H, some of which were rather expensive. I have found that they fill orders very rapidly, that they are careful to make sure your credit card information is in order (they won’t sell to someone who has stolen your identity), and they are very good about replacing (at no cost to you) any items that come damaged or with parts missing.
So the next time you want to buy a camera, or camcorder, or any other photographic/video production device, by all means, visit a Best Buy. Look up reviews on CNET or other internet review sites. Check out the going prices on the item. When you’ve done all that, drop by B&H. It’s your best bet as the final stop.
A note on “gray market” products:
Most manufacturers make several versions of the same item for export to different regions of the world. The Japanese version of a digital camera might be mechanically exactly the same as the American version. The difference is that it will come with documentation in Japanese, with its menus defaulting to Japanese language, and it will have a Japanese warranty. Now, say that Panasonic exports a version of a camera to Vietnam. Since that country isn’t quite as rich as those of Europe or the US, Panasonic might go ahead and mark up the price of the camera a little less. An enterprising businessman could buy up a shipment of these Vietnamese cameras at a low price, ship them to the US in the belly of his cousin Ernesto’s oil tanker, print up new manuals for them in English on the Xerox machine at the local public library, and still be able to sell them for less than Best Buy’s price. Effectively, the device is exactly the same as the one you would get at the Best Buy. The difference is that the Best Buy one has a one-year warranty that the manufacturer will actually honor, and it hasn’t spent 3 months in an oil tanker where Ernesto might not have treated it with as much care as you would like. It’s probably best to stay away from gray.
Tags: buying guide
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 10:27 am and is filed under Reviews and Recommendations, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
