Camera Shopping

With the advice from my friend Laurie in hand, I've been looking at various SLR cameras. I shopped around for quite a while until I found the camera at a price that I was willing to pay. While we were in MA last month Lucien and I went to the BX at Hansom AFB and were not impressed with the BX price nor with the sales clerk (was this guy ever a jerk that liked to hear himself talk). That guy was not listening to what I was wanting and he kept trying to get me to buy a bare bones stripped down version of what I wanted-augh! And then he wanted to send me off to pawn shops around town to buy accessories for it. My husband and I looked at each other and said "WHAT?" Needless to say we were done in that store!

What did I buy? Well, I ended up buying the Nikon D-60 with the 8-55 mm lens plus the 55-200 zoom lens, the wireless remote, an extra battery, a camera case, some of those nifty 4 GB class 6 SD cards and few other things. Talk about creating my own economic stimulus package, LOL!

The price of the D-60 (10.2 mega pixels) ended up being a much better deal than the D-40 (6 mega pixels). The D40 I've heard is going to be discontinued- so prices on it should be dropping soon. Don't you think for a moment that I paid full retail either! I'm frugal if anything :-) I've been shopping around for quite a while for a new camera- it all comes down to what are YOU willing to pay for the features that you want? So for me, I found a price that I was willing to pay. Even with shipping I am still paying hundreds less than I would if I bought locally. Sad eh? I am a big advocate of buying locally but there's also a limit on how much is too much to spend on an item.

So here's the deal...I hate living in a town where they have such a 1980's mentality. What do I mean by that? It's these business owners that think that we consumers have no where else to shop but at their store. It's as if they think that they are the only ones who sell that particular product. Apparently these business owners haven't heard about the internet, lots of people are shopping on it everyday and making rather large purchases on it too. Oh how I live for sarcasm! But seriously I buy a lot on line these days... from quilting thread and fabric to computers, clothing and more. I've bought quilting fabric on line because none of the local quilting stores carriers Moda's line of Mary Engelbreit fabrics. I bought all 3 of my Janome sewing machines on line and saved hundreds of dollars on them (I figure that I saved over $700 on them not including sales tax) and all of my purchases come with a full warranty. Many of these places are brick and mortar stores trying to stay afloat...local shops need to do the same and take notice of the trend of giving good values and good customer service.