Thank you, struggling American dollar.

I have been obsessing about the purchase of a new digital camera for about a year now. And when I say "obsessing", I actually mean "compulsively searching the internet, reading reviews, creating fake shopping carts in various online stores" obsessing. Last weekend, the obsession ended. I logged onto eBay on Saturday morning, set for my normal list of search filters, watching prices and narrowing in on the perfect buy when I noticed the following phenomenon:


BUY IT NOW PRICE: USD $500.00
C $497.50.

Pardon? Sold.

In my relatively short life (comparatively to...people who are a lot older than me, perhaps), I can't remember the last time I saw this happen. And believe me, I took advantage. Now, I am all about buying Canadian, but when the difference is as huge as it is and until I am very, very rich, I can't pass up this kind of deal. In the span of about 20 minutes, I had purchased the camera body AND a lens. Even with the shipping and calculated duty costs, the already lower prices in the States meant that my camera, $780 for the body only in Canada, ended up costing me hundreds of dollars less than I had originally budgeted for. And by budgeted, I of course mean "thought about money in my mind and came up with a number". Brilliant.

My choice? A Nikon D40X, with an 18-135 zoom lens, which looks like this, with a different lens:


I had originally planned on purchasing the extremely popular Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Cute, sleek, comes in silver, capable of taking some amazing shots. But then I went to a local fantastic specialty photography store and changed my mind. The D40X and the XTi are very, very similar, but besides the fact that the particular salesperson I had seemed to be in a Nikon cult, I was wooed by other factors, like the menus and the way the Nikon felt in my hands. I also have a very good Nikon-using friend whose photos sell Nikon (and parenthood) very, very well. Anyways, while I'm pretty positive that either of the two cameras on the block would have been fantastic, I'm happy with my choice.

The downside? It's taking a freaking lifetime to ship out of New York. Sitting here...fingers crossed...HURRY UP. I have dead fall leaves and cute babies to photograph.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007 | Labels: , , |

 

2 comments:

Mostly Lisa said...

welcome to the SLR club. D40 is pretty sweet. as you know i'm a canon girl, but the D40 is lovely. but be warned the stock lens is uber crappy.. worth the $500 to get a nice portrait lens.

October 4, 2007 at 6:33 PM  
Kristin. said...

Thanks! I'm excited. I looked at the D40, D40X, D50 and D70 and as it turns out, my ridiculously small hands are most comfortable with the D40X. Even the XTi had things that my fingers couldn't manouveur around easily, so that was a pretty big deciding factor as well.

I wanted a walkaround lens, so I went with the 18-135...didn't want to worry about keeping more than one lens moisture-free in Bermuda.

October 5, 2007 at 10:02 AM  

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