Holiday Shopping Guide
Researching the gadget or
camera you want:
There are many great gifts to give this year in the digital
photography department, but finding the right one can be frustrating.
Here are a few links to help you get started.
Digital
Photography Review
This is a great site for forums, reviews and image samples of all kinds of
digital cameras.
Steve's
Digicams
This site has image samples and reviews of almost every digital camera ever
made. Very well organized and easy to use. This site is also nice because it
reviews digital photo accessories too.
Finding the best deal:
Once you know which camera(s) you are looking for it is time
to find the best deal.
Here are a few good sites to guide you to the best deal.
PriceGrabber
is a great site for hunting down the best deals. It also allows you to find the
best price including shipping.
Tedd's Computer Bargain Archive
This site is part of Castellini on Computers, it is an archive of all bargain
sites that have been featured as part of Tedd's Computer Bargains. It contains
price searching sites, consumer protection information and other shopping
resources.
Froogle is part of Google. It allows you
to search for items that are advertised on sites all over the web. It is not
really designed to do price searches from, but it will give you an idea of what
the street value of a given item is.
NexTag is similar to PriceGrabber, but it
searches different outlets.
Important things to consider:
There are two types of camera equipment out there, regular
and gray market.
Regular equipment comes with all of the extra warranties,
documentation and packaging as you would find in a local retail store.
Gray market typically contains the same basic unit but it may
be missing otherwise included accessories such as batteries, remotes, hand
straps etc.
Typically Gray market does not include the same warranty and
often comes with no documentation and packaging may simply be a brown box.
Gray market hardware can come from a variety of sources.
Sometimes it is from companies that buy in bulk to get a good price then sell
off the extras that they don't need at a higher price to make a profit. It can
also come from places over seas where warranties and documentation are not
required by law, this keeps the prices of these items down, but if the device
goes bad the company will not support the product.
Be very careful, the only way to guarantee that you are
getting the regular product is to ask lots of questions and assume nothing.
Use the consumer protection links in Tedd's archive and the
sellers ratings and reviews as good indicators as to the dependability and
reputation of the company.
Links from this month's meeting
THE NEW USER GROUP ALBUM
TechTV Holiday Card Tutorial
Photoshop Speech Balloons
Worth1000
Photoshop Contest Site
Please visit Gene
Taylor's Sporting Goods.
They provide a great door
prize each month at our monthly user group meetings.
Also, thanks to Journy at
Sam's Club for donating a coupon for free film developing as a door prize.
IMPORTANT LINKS
The
article to end all articles on Digital Photography
Digital
Photography Review
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